St John the Baptist CE VA Primary School Year Five

The children played a memory game in Geography and took it in turns to memorise two different maps for 30 seconds – they then had to go back to their groups where they had 30 seconds to draw what they remembered! We had some very interesting Maps of the World and Africa!

The children worked in partners to design a pulley system that would help a Victorian chimney sweep move up and down a chimney safely. The children enjoyed using the saws and glue guns to create their frames. They persevered with their pulley systems.

We have been so lucky this year- 10 out of 11 eggs hatched- it was wonderful to watch them hatching in the incubator in the classroom! The children really enjoyed getting the opportunity to handle the chicks.

K'nex Challenge

The children were tasked with the challenge of building a crane that had to have a moving feature. We learnt about the features of cranes and their importance.

We enjoyed using the hacksaws to make our wooden crosses for our Easter Cards.

In Science, we have been learning about thermal insulators. We planned and carried out an investigation into the best thermal insulator that would keep boiling water the hottest for longest.

Children created artwork in the style of Bridget Riley using Inkscape.

As part of our Victorian history topic the children learnt about the poet, textile designer and artist William Morris. The children designed their own wallpaper in his style. We then used our wallpaper designs to make our Mother’s Day cards.

In English we read the poem ‘The Jolly Hunter’ by Charles Causley. The children then worked collaboratively to write their own. 

As part of our PE the children have been working collaboratively to create and perform their own dance routines. Members of the class enjoy leading the class in our warm up and cool down sessions.

As part of world maths day the children were given the task of planning for our Easter party. They were given the budget of £20 and had to choose the most cost effective store and items. I cannot wait to see if they were in budget!

In English we have been reading Street Child by Berlie Doherty. We had to decide whether Jim Jarvis should try and escape from the workhouse or stay. The children had to help Jim out with this dilemma. They formed a conscience alley and as a child (pretending to be Jim) walked through the middle of the alley the children had to say their reasons for Jim staying or leaving.

The majority of children who pretended to be the character of Jim decided that Jim should escape from the workhouse. 

In computing the children have been using Inkscape to recreate art work inspired by Bridget Riley’s Op art (optical art).  The children really persevered to make their creations look abstract.

The children learnt about the popular world war one dish and enjoyed making it in class! I think we were all impressed with the end result- some children even asked for seconds!

In science we continue to learn about forces and the children have been learning about up-thrust and buoyancy. The children had to design a boat that would hold the most marbles- the winning boat successfully held 8 marbles!

We were invited to Richard Hale school to visit a pop up planetarium- we all found learning about the solar system absolutely fascinating!

The children worked collaboratively to research a specific topic and presented their work to the rest of the class. The children produced work that they should feel very proud of.

On remembrance day, we walked down to the war memorial to pay our respects to the soldiers who fought and died during ww1 and ww2 in the surrounding villages. In class we wrote war poems and left them at the memorial for the local community to read.

Computing

In computing the children have planned, designed and coded their own Christmas computer game. The aim of their games were to move a Christmas character from left to right with the aim of catching and avoiding falling objects. The children included a counter and a timer in their games.  The children really persevered with these.

PSHE  (SCARF workshop)

The children really enjoyed participating the PSHE workshop. They were introduced to the importance of the circulatory, respiratory, skeletal, digestive and nervous system. They learnt about peer pressure and making positive relationships. 

We continue to enjoy our weekly Big maths challenges. We already have one child scoring 72 learn Its in 100 seconds!

In RE we have been looking at the qualities of God. We learnt that some of God’s qualities include omniscient, omnipotent, holy, eternal and loving.  We drew the qualities of God.

In Art we created silhouettes of World War One soldiers.

In science, we continue to learn about forces- we have learnt about air resistance and gravity. We planned and carried out an experiment to find the ‘Ultimate Spinner’.

In computing, we learnt about the importance of passwords. The passwords that took the longest for the computer program to work out were Zulus and Zumba!

In English children have been working collaboratively to up level their written work. The children have been writing in character and have imagined that they are soldiers in the Western Front.

We are thoroughly enjoying basketball lessons every Friday with our coach from Russell Hoops. We have been playing many games and are developing our shooting and dribbling skills.

In art, we have learnt about the significance of the poppy during the Great War. We have sketched poppies and used watercolours.  We also learnt what propaganda means and how propaganda was used during the Great War. The children designed and created their own propaganda posters.

Year 5 have had a great start to the autumn term. In English the children have been learning all about animal migration. The children took part in a debate sharing their views as  to the animal they believe completes the toughest migration- it was a close call between wild salmon and the wildebeest!