Year 5 Blog

8th October 2024

In Year 5, we are loving our first week learning about World War I! We have got stuck in right away and are learning about how the war begun and the timeline of events. We have started learning about trenches and even made our own in groups! We thought carefully about what would be found in trenches, such as ladders, shelters, sand bags and even rats! 

We have also started new PE units this week. We are developing our football skills, building on what we have learned in previous years. We are also starting a new unit of dance where we are learning a traditional New Zealand Māori haka; we will be creating our own versions in the coming weeks! We have learned about how during World War 1, the New Zealand haka was used by soldiers as a way to intimidate and scare their enemies before battle. I’m sure you’ll agree, we are certainly scary!

In maths, we have been learning about factors and prime numbers. We have used our existing factor knowledge to help us understand which numbers have only two factors of themselves and one and are therefore prime numbers.

25th October 2024

Wow - we have made it to the end of an 8 week half term! All of the staff in Year 5 are incredibly proud of the resilience shown by all of the children to continue to try their best in every lesson even though they have been super tired.

In English this week, the children have finished writing their narratives based on our year group text 'Rollercoaster Boy' which is a story of a boy (Todd) who goes on an adventure in a rundown hotel with his sister Laurie and unwell dad. The children have used their thoughts and feelings they created from our immersive, abandoned park to engage the reader alongside some words and phrases they have magpied from books they are reading during DEAR time. We have been super impressed with the use of new SPAG features we have been discussing in class used independently in their own narratives.

DT has been the highlight of our week with the children showing great enthusiasm when tasked with the brief to create a safari style ride for Pautlons Park. Firstly, the children had to research which rides were built in both England and America before they conducted a survey of the class to find out their favourite parts of a rollercoaster. Once they had designed out rollercoaster, they worked independently or together to build their model. 

We all hope you have a wonderful week with your children and they have a much-needed rest after such a busy half term in Year5. Next half term, we will be studying WW1 and on Wednesday 6^th November we will be building trenches for our English unit.

If you have any recycling (toilet rolls, boxes, cardboard) please bring it in.

Thank you again for your continued support!

18th October 2024

We have had an amazing time in Year 5 this week! 

In Maths we have been drawing on our addition and subtraction skills and applying this to some tricky word problems, that have really tested our problem-solving ability! In English we have been writing our adventure narratives, all about an abandoned theme park, some of the vocabulary we have been choosing has blown our teachers away, we have also been using some fantastic fronted adverbials, as well as expanded noun phrases and similes, which have brought our writing to life.

We have recieved a very exciting letter from a ride designer at Paultons Park this week, and have started to conduct some market research into some other theme parks, and looked at which rollerocaster styles we might like to consider for our designs! 

In PE, we have continued with our amazing gymnastics skills, and had an array of equipment out to show off our skills on! 

We have 1 week to go before the half term break and we are very much looking forward to finishing our narratives, and creating our rollercoaster models next week! 

11th October 2024

As per usual, we have been keeping very busy this week in Year 5! On Monday, we were all very excited because team GB gold medalist Kelly Simm came to visit us. We completed circuit exercises with her and were completely exhausted by the end! Following this, Kelly told us all about her journey to success – it was very inspirational, especially as we have quite a few gymnasts in Year 5.

We have been continuing our work in place value this week and are becoming confident at identifying place value with numbers up to 7 digits. In Gloucester class, we have played ‘Dicey Decisions’ to really put our place value understanding to the test! If you’d like to have a go at home, here are the instructions for this and similar games. It’s called ‘Nice or Nasty’ here but we prefer to call it ‘Dicey Decisions’!

Nice or Nasty | NRICH (maths.org)

Continuing with our Scream Machine project which is all about forces, we undertook an experiment to see how friction levels are affected between a toy car and different surfaces. We had a lot of fun rolling the car down different materials. We learned that the smoother the surface, the less friction there is, meaning the car usually travels further!

Finally, we have been trying especially hard to beat each other in Times Table Rockstars this week! Each class has been really flexing their mathematical muscles by trying to achieve the most points in TTRS and be the winning class. Who will win this week?!

4th October 2024

It has been a jammed pack week of learning this week in Year 5! Miss Erskine, Miss Weller and Miss Young are so incredibly proud of the continued enthusiasm the children have shown towards their learning. They definitely have earnt a well-deserved rest this weekend before we head into another busy week.

1. A few reminders for Week 6 (7.10.24)
2. PE day has moved to Friday 11^th October 2024
3. Photo day is on Thursday 12^th October 2024
4. TTRS Battle every Monday starting at 7 am and ending on Friday at 1.30pm
5. Junk modelling (see the list below) to come the week commencing 14^th October.

• Toilet roll tubes
• Kitchen roll tubes
• Paper plates
• Thin cardboard (such as cereal box material)
• Lolly sticks

In Science, we have been enjoying learning about how forces work by carrying out a range of experiments. We have been focusing on the how different variables can change the results of the test as well as the impact of a fair test. 

In maths, this week we have been working extremely hard to apply our knowledge of rounding to 5 digit and 6-digit numbers. Our teachers have been so impressed with how we have used resources to aid our understanding and our level of resilience. As well as rounding these numbers, we have been working on forming sentences explaining our answers using stem sentences. Additionally, we have been looking at number lines and beginning to understand what intervals and estimate mean. We split into two teams and created two numbers between 200,000 to 400,000. Miss Young gave us questions to aid our discussions.

In PE, we have been looking at how to use our bodies to create different balances on the wall bars. Some of the challenges included only having one limb on the apparatus. In addition, we worked on applying our static jumps from the previous week applying them to the spring boards onto the vaults.

In English, we have started our narrative unit based on the book 'Rollercoaster Boy' and have been exploring the main character's thoughts and feelings as he navigates the challenges of living with a poorly dad. We first looked at creating a Missing Poster where we wrote a class one for Mr Hughes and Mr Spurle before writing our very own about Todd.

27th September 2024

We have had another busy week in Year 5! We have written and published our rollercoaster poems, that feature onomatopoeia, alliteration and similes. The children worked so hard to get these poems published and they look and sound amazing! In maths we have been learning to round to the nearest thousand, which we are starting to master! 

In science we have continued with our forces project, we have completed science experiments to explore this. In RE we have heard stories including The Burning Bush and the 10 commandments and explored the significance they have on Jewish people. In PE we have enjoyed our hockey and gymnastics topics, despite the weather not always being on our side! 

Miss Erskine, Miss Weller and Miss Young have been so impressed by the unwavering enthusiasm and engagement that the Year 5 children have shown, enjoy a well earned rest this weekend!