St John the Baptist CE VA Primary School Year Five

Our new topic is the Maya Civilisation – to learn where the Ancient Maya lived we played a memory game in groups.  We took it in turns to study a map of Central America for 30 seconds, we then had to run back to our groups and draw what we could remember.  We had some very interesting maps of Central America.

To find out more about the Maya Civilisation we worked collaboratively to research a topic and produce a poster on that topic.  We took pride in our work and produced information posters of a high standard.  Some of the topics we learnt about were the Maya Gods, Maya food and Maya sport.

In Science we are learning about animal life cycles – we linked this to the life cycle of a chicken.  We were lucky enough to see some chicks hatch in the incubator and all really enjoyed looking after the chicks in class – we were very sad to see them go!

In PE we are learning how to play cricket – every Thursday Mr Parmer comes into school and teaches us lots of exciting games that are developing our bat and ball skills.  We are all really happy that we can continue our swimming lessons at Harlow Leisure Zone on Tuesdays.

We continue to work on our arithmetic skills on a daily basis.  Our topic on fractions is challenging but we are enjoying playing games and challenging ourselves to understand new maths methods.

In class we are learning about the Maya Civilisation.  We read the myth of the 'Hero Twins' and have been inspired to write our own Maya Myth.  We are enjoying writing them and will upload our finished masterpieces!

We have been learning about Paul Nash a famous WW1 war artist.  We looked at his art work and imagined we had jumped into the painting and used our senses to describe the scene.  We then wrote descriptions – here are some examples. 

We were also inspired by his artwork to re-create our own – here are some examples.

In class we worked collaboratively to peel and chop vegetables for our Maconochie Stew.  We also seared the beef and vegetables before they went into the pot for a few hours.   After making the stew we also made biscuits using rations.   We all really enjoyed eating the biscuits and the majority of us enjoyed eating the stew!

In class we had to pick a name of a famous battle fought during the Great War, out of a pot.  We had to research the battle, finding out as much information as we could.  We then had to present it to the rest of the class.  Here are some of our presentations.

Last week we took part in a skip to be fit challenge – we had to see how many skips we could do in two minutes.  We now all have a skipping rope in school and we skip each day for 2 minutes trying to beat our scores!

As part of our Great War topic we developed our understanding of rationing.  We learnt what it is and why rationing was needed during the Great War.  We made scones using the rations we were given.  We really enjoyed following the recipe to make the scones collaboratively in our table groups.  They were delicious – we just wished we could have cream!

Well done to all the children who completed the home school challenge – we have some excellent recycled boats!

In English we have been looking at the features of persuasive writing and learning about the features of play scripts.  We worked in groups to collaboratively write an advert for Maconochie Stew – a famous dish of the Great War.  We really enjoyed dressing up and performing our adverts.

On 11^th November we walked to the local war memorial, we laid a wreath and read some of our poems.

As part of commemorating Remembrance Day we sketched poppies.  Once we had sketched poppies we planned out how we were going to make clay poppies.  We all really enjoyed making and painting the clay poppies.  Enjoy looking at some examples.

We learnt about some famous poets of the Great War including Wilfred Owen, Seigfried Sasson and Rupert Brooke.  We researched their lives and created fact files on the poets.  We read examples of their poetry and were inspired to write our own.  Here are some examples.

Art - We were inspired to create our own portraits in the style of Pablo Picasso.  Can you guess who some of the pictures are?

English - We have linked our English to our Topic of World War 1.  We have been writing diary entries as if we were soldiers in the trenches.  We have also been learning about the importance of animals during World War 1.  The class are really enjoying the topic.

By Amelie and Olivia Mae

In maths we have been developing our understanding of place value.  We have been playing lots of fun games to help us.

On the playground there are lots of new markings for games.  We have had fun using the number grid to play games.

By Frankie

In computing we have been learning about Semaphore – a way of sending messages and communicating by using flags.  We found it hard but all had a go at guessing each other’s secret message.

Every Thursday Rita from the Herts and Ware School Partnership will be coming in to train us up to be Play Leaders.  We played some fun games including freeze tag and train tag.  We learnt what makes game dangerous and how we can change them to make them fun but safe.

On Fridays we play basketball with coach James.  Last Friday we played lots of exciting games.  Here are some - cat and mouse, T-rex and raptors.  We are really enjoying the sessions.

By Indi-Rose and Remi