Yet another busy (and warm) week for Birch Class!
Maths: Year 5 have been working on the White Rose unit on shape and have made excellent progress. We have also been looking at angles and how to draw them accurately using a ruler and protractor as well as working out missing angles. English: The children have been writing diary entries this week based on their book, “The Lizzie & Belle Mysteries – Drama and Danger”. They have already studied Ignatius Sancho – the first Black actor to perform Othello and tread the boards at Drury Lane Theatre – way back in 1777. Birch Class have written some expressive diary entries in role as Lizzie (Sancho`s daughter) just at the point where he gets struck by a flying chandelier! Book Club: Year 5 are continuing to enjoy “Cogheart” by Peter Bunzl – a mysterious adventure featuring a little girl called Lily, Robert (the clockmaker`s son) and Malkin (a mechanical fox). A new character, Anna, has entered the scene – but can she be trusted? History: Birch Class have made a start on our unit on the Middle East and some children have begun their home learning project based on the Ottoman Empire. That`s all for now. Kind regards, Mr Dray
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Another busy week for Birch Class!
Maths: Year 5 have just started the White Rose unit on statistics and have made good progress. They are really getting the knack of drawing accurate line graphs with a ruler and being able to interpret information. English: The children will be writing poems this week based on dreams for another national competition. I am sure they will come up with some creative ideas. Let`s keep our fingers crossed – we may get a winner! We have started to look at “The Lizzie & Belle Mysteries – Drama and Danger”. In connection with this book, we have been studying Ignatius Sancho – the first Black actor to perform Othello and tread the boards at Drury Lane Theatre – way back in 1777. Birch Class have designed some great posters to advertise this historic event as well as adding some persuasive writing to encourage the public to attend. Book Club: Year 5 are continuing to enjoy “Cogheart” by Peter Bunzl – a mysterious adventure featuring a little girl called Lily, Robert (the clockmaker`s son) and Malkin (a mechanical fox). Geography: Birch Class are continuing with their work on Biomes – and will be creating one in class – along with a Worm World. That`s all for now. Kind regards, Mr Dray Class Blog – Year 5: 24/04/24
Another busy week for Birch Class! Maths: Year 5 have just started the White Rose unit on statistics and have made good progress. They are really getting the knack of drawing accurate line graphs with a ruler and being able to interpret information. English: The children will be writing poems this week based on dreams for another national competition. I am sure they will come up with some creative ideas. Let`s keep our fingers crossed – we may get a winner! We have started to look at “The Lizzie & Belle Mysteries – Drama and Danger”. In connection with this book, we have been studying Ignatius Sancho – the first Black actor to perform Othello and tread the boards at Drury Lane Theatre – way back in 1777. Birch Class have designed some great posters to advertise this historic event as well as adding some persuasive writing to encourage the public to attend. Book Club: Year 5 are continuing to enjoy “Cogheart” by Peter Bunzl – a mysterious adventure featuring a little girl called Lily, Robert (the clockmaker`s son) and Malkin (a mechanical fox). Geography: Birch Class are continuing with their work on Biomes – and will be creating one in class – along with a Worm World. That`s all for now. Kind regards, Mr Dray A busy last week and a half for the Year 5`s!
Maths: Birch Class have just completed the White Rose unit on decimals and percentages and made excellent progress. When they return from the Easter break, we will be looking at Perimeter and area. English: The children recently completed Monster Mini Sagas for a national competition. These stories had a limit of just 100 words – quite a challenge for them! They have completed their work based on “Freedom Bird” – a story about the slave trade and, in connection, have written a chronological biography about Harriet Tubman – a famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. What a brave, determined and remarkable lady she was. After Easter, we will be looking at “The Lizzie & Belle Mysteries – Drama and Danger”. This book is about “Friendship, a fight for freedom and a race against time to solve a mystery before danger strikes again!” Exciting stuff! Subsequent writing will be based on this. Book Club: Year 5 are continuing to enjoy “Cogheart” by Peter Bunzl – a mysterious adventure featuring a little girl called Lily, Robert (the clockmaker`s son) and Malkin (a mechanical fox). Geography: Birch Class are continuing to look at Biomes – and have initially researched Grassland, Rainforest, Aquatic and Desert. That`s all from me for now. I hope you all have a wonderful, restful Easter break. Thank you so much to all the parents for your kind words of support and encouragement. Best wishes, Mr Dray We've had a busy, BUSY couple of weeks in Birch Class.
First and foremost, the Year 5s were amazing at organising their own "Secret Sunshine Project", inspired by a novel of the same name for our picnic in the park up on Rainbow Day. They came up with, organised and ran games for different year groups and did such an amazing job. They should take great pride in what they did to make sure everyone was included. This week, we had an athletics session with OCRA. The kids really challenged themselves to improve their skills and did a really awesome job. Same goes for our woodland schools session this afternoon. They learned how to make squirrel traps and worked really well as a team to put them together and also learned some fun deer facts during the natural mystery activity. Most of our time is being taken up by Fantastic Mr Fox rehearsals. Their perseverance is really being put to the test as we fast approach show day with long rehearsals 2-3 times a week. It has been great to see them working so hard to put an amazing show together with the rest of the school. Just a reminder that costumes should already be in but any that haven't, need to be in BY MONDAY 3RD JULY as we will have our dress rehearsal on Tuesday and the costumes need to be checked before. In maths, Birch Class have finished a topic on decimals and have now moved on to negative numbers, a topic that everyone has shown a knack for and have already tested well at the beginning of topic assessment. We have high hopes when they finish the topic next week. In English, we have continued working on our contraption descriptions and the writing is now underway, having learned all our skills. The spellings this week focus on 'ere' spelling words and six of our statutory words. Please find them below and make sure you practice for Monday's test! Year 5 worked super hard this past week, finishing off a lot of our current topics.
The children have made some FABULOUS humorous letters for their writing and some have even started looking at our next writing topic of cracking contraptions. In our next writing topic, the children will design and write about a Wallace & Gromit inspired contraption that they will then pitch to Chagford Primary's Dragon's Den - a panel of Miss Simpson, Miss Armstrong, Mrs Ramoutar and Mr Finch. In maths, we have nearly worked our way through our shapes topic. This week, the children have been looking at angles, identifying and calculating them on lines and shapes. After that, we will move on to position and direction. We have finished our topic on the Middle East with a lesson on the Ottoman Empire. After the break, we'll be moving on to our final geography topic of energy and sustainability. We are wrapping up our science topic of humans and animals over time. After the break, we will be creating a balanced argument about the impact of humans on the world and the animals in it before we move on to reproductive cycles for our final topic. This week in spelling, everyone created their own personalised spelling list. They all picked 15 words from our statutory words so far and have been practicing them all week. When we get back after the half term, they will work in pairs to test those spellings. Lists went home on Tuesday but you can also find them below just in case. Happy Friday!
It was SATs week next door in Maple Class and the children in Birch Class had to change up some of their usual routine to support, including walking through the school a different way and keeping the noise levels down more than usual. They did an awesome job! In English, we looked at punctuation and rhetorical questions to help improve our humorous argument letters which we then started drafting. The children have come up with some amazing and funny ideas for why their inanimate objects are quitting including golf balls being afraid of the dark and green apples tired of being second best to red ones. Additionally, in guided reading, we focused on predictions for our next novel. We looked at the cover, the blurb and the first few pages to see what how our predictions changed or improved. In maths, we finished area and perimeter and have now started our statistics topic. We began with our start of unit assessment and started the topic with line graphs. The children learned to read and draw them this morning. Next week, we will also be exploring tables including timetables and two-way tables. We started our new RE topic which will focus on Christianity and how Christians decide what to do (aka What Would Jesus Do?). Our first lesson focused on the greatest commandment and the parable of the wise and foolish builders. The children discussed how listening to God showed how Christians follow the greatest commandment and by doing this, God will reward them. In science, we looked at the four main geologic eras and what creatures lived in them. The children drew them and made very good connections to predict what animals came next and why. This will all build up to a short presentation about the impact of humans on the world and its ecosystems. Congratulations to George and Ethan for their certificates this week! Our spellings this week can be found below. The children will be tested on Monday. It has been great being back in Birch Class again!
We have started some new topics this week while continuing some others. Wrapping up our geography topic, we are finishing off our biomes posters in class. On Monday, we will be starting our final history topic of the year on the Middle East. In science, we have started looking at humans and animals over time. Our first lesson focused on evolution and Charles Darwin. The children did an amazing job coming up with reasons as to why certain animals evolved and why specific characteristics might have become more dominant. There was a lot of excellent critical thinking going on! In English, we continued looking at humorous arguments based on The Day The Crayons Quit. Specifically, we explored conditional arguments and the grammatical structures of them. We used Miss Simpson's idea of writing from the point of view of PE equipment to decide why they quit and what they will do if their problem isn't solved. A personal favourite of mine was from Rafi, "If you don't start setting us down in a straight line, we'll set you straight!" A very humorous argument indeed! In maths, we have continued looking at decimals. Starting to explore thousandths and equivalent fractions and decimals. I am looking forward to continuing this topic before moving on to perimeter and area. The children have been doing a really good job! Title: The Great Adventure!
We started off our Outdoor Education Days last week with a really great opportunity to go onto the Moors and learn some really key adventuring skills. On day one, the children split off into groups and navigated the way over the hills. They took turns with the map and the compass and, with some support, Birch Class made their way to Birch Tor before we headed to Grimspound for lunch. After, we headed back to the buses on a different route. The children were brilliant all around from their navigating to their listening. They made me super proud! On day two, they went rock scrambling. While I wasn't able to join them, Mr Frewin was very impressed with them. They did an awesome job, especially with all the heights and small spaces they had to climb through. They definitely deserve a well-rested weekend. Please enjoy some photos from the experience! |
AuthorWelcome to the class blog for Year 5 - Birch Class at Chagford Primary School Archives
May 2024
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