Though it will be a short half term, it will be a very exciting one!
In English, we will start by writing about "Cracking Contraptions!" Using inspiration from the great inventors - Wallace and Gromit! - the children in Birch Class will learn how to write an instructional and informative piece about a cracking contraption of their own! We will examine the structure, verb choice, technical vocabulary and passive voice before starting out piece. We continue our decimals topic in maths, now looking at how to add and subtract them. The children will build on their knowledge from our addition and subtraction topic to help them. Some of their multiplication and division knowledge will be needed as we look at multiplying and dividing decimals by powers of ten (10, 100 and 1000) before we move onto our unit on shapes later in the half term. Our afternoons are just as exciting as we look at the civil rights movement in History. We started by discussing inequality throughout history and then focusing on life in America in the 1950s. This knowledge will help us look into the lives of Oliver Brown and his case against the Board of Education, Rosa Parks and her civil disobedience and Martin Luther King Jr's dream. This topic will take us to one week after the half term and we will end by seeing how the civil rights movement impacts the world today. When we put our metaphorical lab coats on for science, we will be studying how humans and animals change over time. We started by focusing on evolution where the children in Year 5 and 6 learned how and why evolution happens and about the man behind evolution's discovery, Charles Darwin! We even looked at a case study about the evolution of giraffes so feel free to ask them what they know about that! RE looks at the importance of faith in a number of religions including ones we've studied this year and a few knew ones. We will look at one religion a week, talk about their faiths and later compare some of them to see how they overlap and why faith plays a key role for the believers. And don't forget students will be taking part in a whole school performance of A Midsummer's Night Dream where Year 5 and 6 will play key roles. We are excited to start workshopping this week!
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An update on the last two weeks in Birch Class! In English last week, we finished out biographies. We had some great pieces about Rosa Parks, Elizabeth Blackwell and Garrincha and the adversity they overcame to be successful. Well done to the Year Fives for that! This week, in between a reading test, we started looking at 'The Day the Crayons Quit' by Drew Daywalt. We will be writing humorous arguments in the format of a series of letters. We ended the week by discussing personification and everyone wrote a diary entry from the point of view of one of the crayons in the story based on their personalities from the letters. There has been some excellent work produced! Here's an extract from the one we wrote as a class from the point of view of Purple Crayon, who had complaints about being used to colour outside of the lines(!) and we established was a very tidy and also very vain crayon: "Dear Diary, I am SICK of being used this way! As you know, I am a very tidy crayon and Duncan - who is my human - is an untidy colour-er. It is a disgrace that he disrespects me this way. Today, Duncan was colouring in his 'Magic and Dragons' colouring book and he was using me to colour a jaw-dropped dragon. It would have been gorgeous with my outstanding colour if he'd just stayed inside the lines!" In maths, we finished off our fractions unit last week. Most of this week was spent doing our maths assessments but we have now started our topic on decimals and percentages and have just finished recapping their previous knowledge, understanding thousandths and rounding decimals to the nearest whole number and nearest tenth. The children had to brush up on their rounding skills from the autumn term for this one! One highlight from the last two weeks was a visit from Sophie from South-West Water who told us all about how water is collected and filtered and also about sewage and waste. The children made water pledges like taking a quicker shower, buying less fast-fashion clothes and turning the tap off while brushing your teeth. Year 5 and 6 together applied their knowledge of the water cycle to the information that Sophie provided and had a great time! Find some pictures below: This week has been quite an interesting series of events. As you may know, the Year 5s and 6s were in separate bubbles due to a spike in COVID cases so lessons this week have been a little bit different. History and French were taught from their separate classrooms via video call. The children in both classes should be commended for their hard work and engagement despite the internet cuts that we were faced with. We did manage to have a few lessons together with science being taught in the hall and outside as we simulated the actions greenhouses gases and global warming. In PE, the children practiced their balance and reflex skills before we played games of throw tennis to apply their skills.
Fortunately, due to COVID cases going down, both classes were able to come together for an art lesson this afternoon where they finished off their version of Van Gogh sunflowers before rounding the week off with a celebration assembly where both classes were awarded a Challenge Champion certificate for their hard work in tricky times and singing some of the songs we've been learning as a school. I hope everyone gets a chance to go out and enjoy the sunshine this week (I know I will!) and I certainly hope that all mothers and special carers get extra care and pampering on Mothering Sunday. You deserve it! Have a nice weekend everyone and see you next week! What a week!
In English, Birch Class have been studying some female scientists to help inspire their biography writing. We've looked at Lise Meitner the physicist who discovered nuclear fission (but never got the credit!) and Ada Lovelace, who invented the first computer program and even actress from Hollywood's Golden age, Hedy Lamarr (did you know she developed the frequency-hopping spread spectrum that prevented signal jamming and was used in the Cuban Missile Crisis? And she did it with the help of a piano player!). This week we looked at what made an inspirational person worth writing about and considered the adversities that these women had to overcome. We also explored why glossaries are important and considered the different potential structures that they could use. Most students have picked who they're going to write about but if they haven't, students need to decide by Monday as we will be writing our first draft as we go along! In maths, we are continuing our unit on fractions. This week specifically, we did a recap of what we learned before the half term, explored number sequences that include fractions, compared and ordered fractions by size and today we were adding and subtracting fractions that shared a common denominator! Next week, we'll be looking for at adding and subtracting fractions that don't share a common denominator. Exciting stuff! In geography, we have started our population topic. We have explored population density and distribution. Basically, we explored where people live in the world and also in the UK. Using our prior knowledge, we were able to figure out why certain places may not have had as many people. For example, the climate might have an impact or the type of place it is (cities, towns, villages, etc.). See if your child can remember the population density of Devon! Our new science topic, sustainability, had us looking at the properties of different materials and towards the end of the lesson, we discussed how some materials take a long time to decompose, especially when put into a landfill site. This leads us onto next weeks lesson about the 3 'R's - reduce, reuse, recycle. Throughout the half term, we will be exploring how we can meet the needs of today while making sure the needs of future generations can be met! In RE, we are thinking about why Jesus was so important to Christians. This week, we explored how God has taken different forms through the Holy Trinity and why Jesus being an incarnate of God was so significant. I hope everyone managed to have a productive day despite the power being down!
I just wanted to start off by saying how proud I am of everyone in Birch and Maple Class for this half term. It has been a long and challenging half term for some with several students being off with COVID and having to work from home but we got through it and I couldn't be more impressed! In English, we have just finished our 'I Am...' Poems and I must say that the results are incredible. So much thought has gone into the descriptions and the impact on the reader. After the break, we will be looking at creating a Birch Class Book of Biographies. Using 'Women in Science' by Rachel Ignotofsky, we will be exploring the different aspects of biographical writing and then creating our own piece about a inspirational people to create a book by the class. Each student will need to pick their person quite early on in the sequence so if they could have a think of someone who inspires them or someone who has overcome adversity or challenges and have a few ideas ready for after the break that would be awesome! We have just started fractions in maths and will continue after the break. It is a very long unit so it would be great to keep our minds on fractions. If they could find any real life examples over the break to share with the class when they return, that would be awesome! Our Benin Kingdom topic has officially come to an end with some great news articles about its downfall produced in the last few days. After the break, we will be starting our second geography topic on population where we will be looking at where people live around the world and why there are differences. It will be a very interesting topic! We will be moving onto sustainability in science after the break. I won't give too much away but we will be exploring global warming and climate change in more detail and there is an exciting debate coming up in the future! Finally, yesterday we learned a new wake up-shake up dance taught by yours truly to the tune of "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by the Proclaimers. We didn't get a chance to perform it this week but we will after the break so have your child perform it to you if they can. I'm very much looking forward to seeing them perform it! Happy half term! Miss Simpson Years 5s have been finishing off their adventurous journals. Ask them what personification they've used to describe the desert. We had some fantastic ideas such as the "the dead bushes reached up the like curled and crooked fingers" and "the wall of sand swallowed everything in its path".
In history with the Year 5s and 6s, we looked at the Benin Kingdoms civil war and discussed the causes of it. The children can tell you all about what The Golden Age was like and why it was called this. Throughout the weeks, we've also been exploring the difference between primary and secondary sources in more depth. See if they can remember which ones we've looked at! In RE, they did some independent research on Passover. Using books about Judaism and Chromebooks, the class tried to find the answers to questions. Some even used the index at the back of the book to help them! Science explored thermal insulators and conductors. Can they tell you which one lets heat pass through quickly and which doesn't? Or what materials make good insulators and conductors? We will be doing an experiment this week where the class will be building their own insulators to try and keep an ice cube from melting as much as possible in just a few hours. Gather some recycled materials at home to bring in on Wednesday that might work as good insulators to help the class build theirs! We've had a busy two and a half weeks in Birch Class!
In English, we have started looking at The Lost Book of Adventure by the Unknown Adventurer. We have looked at audience and purpose and how they can change. We have done extensive work on simile, metaphor and personification and why they are so effective. At the end of last week, we also had a look at expanded noun phrases and verb choice. This upcoming week, we will focus a lesson on punctuation, exploring dashes and brackets to add extra explanation and then we will start writing our own journal entry for the adventurer. The Year 5s will write a narrative recount on either their experience in a sand storm or hallucinating a mirage when they've run out of water in the desert. We're in for an exciting week! In maths, they have started and finished perimeter and area and we have moved onto our second unit on multiplication and division where we will be expanding our knowledge and looking at long multiplication and division. Our afternoons have been just as busy. Our exciting history topic, the Benin Kingdom, has had us exploring its general history, its geography, the daily life of the Edo people and how trade made it a successful empire. We have learned about primary and secondary sources and we have started to touch upon what happened at the end of the Benin Kingdom and the tragic story of what happened to the people and the culture. In science, we have been learning about heat. Our first three sessions focused on particle behaviour. Some of our students have acted out how particles move when they freeze, melt, condense and boil and also how they behave to cause thermal expansion. Last week, we looked at thermal equilibrium and did an experiment that showed the different sensations we felt when putting our hand in hot water and then in room temperature water and the same with cold water. The children noticed that the hand in hot water felt colder in room temperature water and the cold water hand felt warmer. They quickly figured out that it was because one hand was cooling down the other was warming up to match the room temperature. The heat moves from one object to another. Ask your children to see if they remember any real life examples of this or maybe they can even show you our experiment at home! We are nearly at the end of the our autumn term, how exciting!
The Year 5s are just finishing up their myths while also creating fantastic posters on a biome they've learned about this term in geography. Make sure to ask them some fun facts about theirs! After the break, we will be looking at the The Lost Book of Adventure by an Unknown Adventurer and they will be writing their own entry about an adventure. It will include a lot of work outdoors. Over the break, they might want to spend some time outside in their favourite place with a notebook and write down what they see, hear and feel and even draw some of it to help them with their writing. In maths, we will be starting by looking at perimeter and area. Over the next half term, we will also be looking at multiplication & division, fractions and decimals and percentages. In the afternoons, our very exciting history topic will be the Benin Kingdom. We will be building up to writing a newspaper article about the fall of the kingdom from a point of view of their choosing. It's going to be a very exciting topic! It's been a busy couple of weeks in Birch Class!
Our Year 5s have been working hard to start on the first draft of their myths and hoping to finish the by the end of this week. There is such a big imagination in the class, we can't wait to see the end result! Not to mention, they've been helping Miss Simpson write hers too! We have just finished multiplication and division in maths and everyone has been brilliant. This morning, we did a recap Kahoot on everything we'd learned before they did an assessment and it went so well that it promised to be a regular thing for maths from now on! In RE, we've been learning about Hinduism and why Hindus want to be good people. Last week, we used Snakes and Ladders to learn about Dharma, Karma and Moksha! We made our own board with actions and consequences for the snakes and the ladders they drew on themselves. Ask the children how they're linked and how they did when they played a few rounds. We're coming to an end of our first geography topic, Biomes! Next week, we'll be making our own posters about one of the biomes they will be learning about this week. So far we've talked about the different things that can affect and create different biomes such as precipitation, latitude, ocean currents and climate! As the end of term one approaches, we can't wait to see everything that Birch Class achieve. It will be exciting to share what hard work they've gotten up to! One week of this half term down!
In English, Birch class have been learning how to write descriptive settings that make the readers feel like they're actually there by using our senses. Our writing project this half term will be writing their own myth, linked to our new novel Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. This week we have also looked at the Story of Arachne in guided reading to start to get an idea of the characteristics of myths. We have just finished our first week of statistics in maths which included creating our own bar chart about the hair colours in Birch Class. We discussed the different parts of bar charts and line graphs and why they're important. All of Birch Class have also done a fantastic job at reading and interpreting both types of charts. We have nearly wrapped up our history topic. Next week we will be writing our essay on who the greatest monarch is and I can't wait to read them. Ask your children who they think the greatest monarch they have learned about is! Let's not forget about our personal correspondent in Glasgow! The children in Year 3, 4, 5 and 6 have been hearing about what's been going on at COP26. This week they've seen which leaders have been taking part (including Nicola Sturgeon and the Archbishop of Canterbury!). She has explained what goes on inside the blue zone at the conference and told us about the talks she went to. Our students were particularly interested in the talk she went to about climate change and TV. Make sure to ask your children about that! Welcome back to school everyone! I hope you're all excited for the second half of the Autumn term, I know I am!
It's a very exciting week in the UK this week with the COP26 climate change conference happening in Glasgow. World leaders will be deciding how to put stop climate change and Chagford Primary will have its very own correspondent in attendance. Beth (Miss Simpson's sister!) will be watching the negotiations and providing a comprehensive summary of the events. She will also answer any questions that the students have in additional videos. In our English lessons, we will be starting to learn about story writing. This week will focus on effective settings and characterisation to get the reader engaged! We will also be starting our statistics unit in maths by making, reading and interpreting different kinds of charts. We will be wrapping up our history topic on medieval monarchs in the next two weeks. Our last monarch will be Elizabeth I and then the students will be writing their essays to decide who the greatest monarch of the medieval era was! After that, we will move onto |
AuthorWelcome to the class blog for Year 5 - Birch Class at Chagford Primary School Archives
March 2024
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