Year 5 Team: Mr J McCabe (Class Teacher) : Blog items
Date: 22nd Jun 2023 @ 7:55pm
Another week complete in the Year 5 classroom!
We completed our Design Technology project centred around ‘Building Bridges’. As always in DT, we worked through each of the crucial stages: Research --> Design --> Make --> Evaluate. Following our learning about various famous bridges from around the world and their differing structures and features, the children were tasked with researching a bridge that most interested them. Then came the design phase before the actual construction commenced! There was plenty of innovation and creativity on display in the bridges that were constructed and, crucially, most met the design criteria. Following our constructions, it was time for the all-important necessary safety tests. Some bridges were not so fortunate here and crumbled (literally) under the pressure of these tests! We enjoyed this project and it was great to observe the teamwork between pairs and the imagination put into the final bridge designs and constructions.
We have also continued our Geography focus related to Japan, which included learning more about the capital city of Tokyo. We also focused on the human geography of Japan in one lesson before moving onto physical geography aspects in another.
This week was also National School Sports Week! To mark this event, our Sports Ambassadors helped to ensure that there was a different sport available for the children to play at breaktime and lunchtime. The sports included dodgeball, tennis, badminton and more. Great fun was had as many children got involved with a different sporting activity during their free time.
In Maths, we have focused on converting measures, including kilograms to grams, centimetres to metres and millilitres to litres. Next week’s lessons will involve problem solving using the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Reminders:
-KS1 & KS2 Sports Day on 28.6.23 (pm).
-Scholastic Book Fair (after school) on 28.6.23 to 4.7.23.
-Team TSP Summer Fair on 30.6.23 (pm and after school).
Date: 15th Jun 2023 @ 8:22pm
We’re not quite sure we really believe that it is Friday already; this week has passed by in a flash!
In another week of glorious sunshine, our PE lessons involved Tri-Golf and Kinball. In Tri-Golf, the children honed their technique and skills before progressing onto designing their own golf course. Using a variety of obstacles (and their own creativity), the children were tasked with designing a golf course hole for their friends to try. In Kinball, it was all aboard the Kinball train as the children had to work together to ensure that the train didn’t run out of track on its journey. The children loved this mini-game and also a further teamwork-based activity which involved working together to move the Kinball down the line both efficiently and whilst maintaining full control. Great fun was had in both PE lessons and bring on next week!
We had plenty of mindful moments throughout the week too as the children, in one activity, followed a calm script to notice more about how they were feeling. We also focused on mindfulness of sounds by first paying attention to the environment around us before focusing in on a specific sound and following it for as long as we could.
In Art, we carried on with our Cityscapes focus as we painted our own cityscape silhouettes which replicated photos of different cities, either at sunrise or sunset. The children’s creations were carefully made and stunning to look at.
Our Maths lessons this week involved recapping our mathematical learning so far this year through some assessments. We are delighted with the children’s positivity, resilience, maturity and overall effort in completing these assessments to the best of their ability. Well done, Year 5! Next week’s Maths lessons will focus on converting measurements (ml to L and g to kg).
Wishing you all an enjoyable weekend and thank you, Year 5, for all your hard work during a very warm week!
Reminders:
-Please read the guidance on Google Classroom for a ‘spelling challenge’ that the children have been set for the remainder of this academic year.
-English and Maths homework will continue as normal for the time being on Mirodo as usual.
-Should the warm weather and temperatures continue, please ensure that children apply suncream in preparation.
Date: 8th Jun 2023 @ 2:02pm
We can’t believe it is here already…the FINAL half term of Year 5! Time certainly has raced by up to this point but we are not taking anything for granted as there is still so much left to achieve and plenty more memories to be made. For now, here are some highlights from a week where the sun and children alike were shining brightly.
With the start of June, we commenced our new monthly value focus of Koinonia. We learned how Koinonia can be translated from Greek into the words, ‘fellowship’ and ‘communion’. We extended this further to the sense in which koinonia means community and working together for the common good of other people. We will continue to built upon our understanding throughout the rest of this month!
In Maths, we have continued our focus on 3D shapes and their properties and progressed onto recognising different shapes from their various nets. Next week’s lessons will recap all of our learning so far this year through some assessments.
In our reading work, we have been reading ‘The Hunter’ by Paul Geraghty, which is the story of a little girl called Jamina who goes out into the African bush with her grandfather. Her dream is to be a hunter when she is older but, when she is separated from her grandfather, she finds a baby elephant whimpering besides its dead mother. As Jamina bravely helps the little orphaned elephant, we are eager to find out where this journey takes her.
We had a great treat to end our week as we were visited by author, Simon Hunt who visited to share his love for storytelling, reading and writing with the children. We enjoyed listening to his story, ‘Delilah Rose the Bogey Princess’, and the opportunity to hear about how Simon's book came to be published as well as always remembering to dream big, inspired us even further. We will be sure to keep an eye out for any future books written by Simon!
A brilliant week and wishing you all a fantastic weekend. See you all on Monday!
Further information:
-We enjoyed welcoming Miss Fitzpatrick to our class on Wednesday following Mrs Guyers’ last day with Year 5 to start maternity leave.
-Brass lessons will continue to take place every Friday throughout this half term.
-Year 5 PE lessons will still take place on Wednesdays and Thursdays each week for this half term. Please ensure that your child attends school in their full PE kit on these days.
-Please also note that homework has been uploaded as usual to Mirodo as it will be each Friday throughout this half term. As previously, the homework will be set each Friday and should be completed on or before the following Wednesday.
-Weekly spellings have also been uploaded to Google Classroom, which will be tested next Friday (16th).
Date: 25th May 2023 @ 7:39pm
How have we reached this point already? The end of the penultimate half term of Year 5 for this amazing class! Throughout this half term, we have achieved so much and you have hopefully gained a snapshot of our incredible learning either within this blog or via our class Twitter page. This week was no different in terms of memorable moments in learning with plenty to report…
In our Maths learning, we have been focusing on 2D and 3D shapes. A particularly fun lesson was our active Maths lesson which involved finding different shape challenges hidden around our classroom and the outside area. The children then had to apply their knowledge of regular and irregular shapes to successfully solve each challenge question. Other lessons have included identifying the properties of 3D shapes in a practical lesson involving building skeleton shapes using blu-tack and art straws.
In English, we completed our author book work which was the culmination of our writing from throughout the half term. The children were tasked with creating a hybrid persuasive-information piece using their knowledge gained from our lessons on environmental awareness alongside our focus picturebook, ‘The Paperbag Prince’. Their impressive writing was also accompanied by some equally impressive artwork.
We also completed our final AR (Augmented Reality) project in Computing which we started last week. This involved us using our creativity to create our own “scenes” and then bringing them to life through AR within our classroom. The children enjoyed seeing their creations come to life and projecting their scenes and images around the room.
Our Collective Worship work continued our focus on our monthly value of ‘Courage’. We explored two powerful videos; one showing physical courage (a bird learning to fly) and the second video representing moral courage (Desmond Tutu discussing the resistance to apartheid). The children discussed these poignant videos in such a deep, meaningful way and applied their understanding of courage brilliantly.
What a week and a fitting way to end this half term. See you all in a week’s time for the FINAL half term of Year 5. We’ll be sure to make it the best yet!
Reminders:
-PE lessons next half term will still take place every Wednesday and Thursday.
-There is no set Maths and English homework for next week, however the Year 5 ‘Virtual Classroom’ has been updated and attached to this blog, which includes links to a variety of websites and resources. All pupils' individual passwords can be found on Google Classroom. Don't forget, there is also the ‘Practice’ section on Mirodo where the children can choose any topic they wish to practise for Maths, Reading, SPaG or Science.
-School re-opens on Monday 5th June.
Date: 18th May 2023 @ 8:22am
A brilliantly busy week in the Year 5 classroom! Here are just some of our highlights…
Our Ancient Greece focus led to an exciting (and challenging) Art lesson in which we learned about how sculpture was very popular in ancient Greece and lots of sculptures and statues still survive today. These sculptures tell us a lot about life in ancient Greece and the people who lived there. After exploring lots of different examples, we then replicated one of the structures by carving into soap. Great care and attention was taken by the children as they knew that, rather than adding features such as noses and eyes, they had to consider how to carve away the soap to reveal them. Perhaps some future sculptors in the making!
In RE, we continued our focus on Women in the Old Testament as we delved into the life of Jochebed (Moses’ mother). The children considered the reasons why Moses’ mother put him in a basket to float down the river and the significance and the impact of her doing so. A great deal of deeper thinking was employed as the children used green thinking hats to empathise with Jochebed and relate to the decision that she felt she had to make given the circumstances.
In Maths, we have continued to work on our understanding of fractions and applying this to multiplying whole numbers, mixed numbers and improper fractions. Next week, we will begin our geometry/shape focus as we move onto identifying regular and irregular polygons and also exploring the properties of 3D shapes in lots of practical lessons!
Our week ended with our Computing day which was focused on the world of AR (Augmented Reality). Alongside this, we also explored how to read and create our own QR codes too which would be essential within our final projects. A fun QR code hunt around the school helped us to take this even further! Later, after exploring a variety of apps and websites that use AR, we were given the challenge of designing our own games that use AR. We look forward to creating the final versions of our games next week!
You may also have noticed the installation of our Community Book Swap Box here at Trinity St. Peter's. This has been installed in memory of Margaret Blake, a past Governor here at TSP, who loved coming in to school and hearing children read. It is located on the wall (near the defibrillator) and the idea is for the whole community (adults and children) to use this book swap box so we can share our love for reading with all!
An excellent week and we hope that the sun continues to shine long into the weekend. Enjoy and see you on Monday!
Reminders:
-Homework will continue to be set via Mirodo (as usual) for this week and spellings will continue to be set via Google Classroom.
-As per previous reminders via School Spider, next week is RSE (Relationships and Sex Education) week across the school.
Date: 10th May 2023 @ 12:23pm
Another shorter week but no less full of highlights and excellent learning taking place!
Our Ancient Greece focus led us to discovering more about a key part of their culture and leisure time – theatre! We focused on the two main types of plays that the Greeks performed: tragedies and comedies. We learned about how the Greek actors wore masks so that the audience could clearly see their expression and whether the character was happy, sad, angry or frightened. Also, how the masks had large mouth holes so that the actors voice could project well. After this learning, it was then time to make our own! This involved newspaper, Modroc casting plaster and a whole lot of fun (and just a bit of mess) putting them together. Take a look and see what you think!
In Maths, we have been focusing on multiplying fractions as well as converting between improper fractions and mixed numbers. Next week’s lessons will continue our fractions focus.
Our Collective Worship work has allowed us to consider the monthly value of Courage and the various associations of this word. We associated this with the courage of a lion in particular and enjoyed listening to some motivational speeches about how courage is within each of us and, although it can be difficult to find, it is part of us when we need it.
So that’s the end of another shorter school week. Just think of how much we will be able to achieve in five days rather than four next week! Until then…enjoy the weekend!
Date: 3rd May 2023 @ 11:56am
A shorter week but still equally full of highlights and achievements for our brilliant Year 5 class! Here are just a few of them…
In History, we explored Greek mythology and the various heroes, monsters and gods/goddesses in the many mythical tales. This involved us playing against our shoulder partners in an exciting board game where we had to “collect” as many mythical objects as we could, all to appease the gods. We also finished the lesson with a game of ‘God, Hero or Monster?’ which further added to our knowledge base as we had to demonstrate various actions to show our thinking.
We have also been busy exploring how artists through the ages have told stories visually – e.g. the Bayeux Tapestry. We then had the opportunity to tell a wordless story of our own using textiles. This involved lots of creativity as well as important skills such as layering fabrics to create a desired effect.
In PE, we have been playing different variations of cricket in order to practise our batting, bowling and fielding skills in abundance. Diamond cricket was a particular favourite where the batters had to be on guard at all times as the bowlers shifted between four sets of stumps selecting which was best to target. This was a frantic game that required a real team effort and concentration throughout.
Our Maths work has focused on plotting coordinates across four quadrants and we have extended this to translation using coordinate grids too. Next week, our focus will shift to multiplying fractions.
Friday brought a particularly fun day in which we celebrated King Charles’ Coronation. This included the opportunity to perform ‘New King’ – a song which looks at the qualities that children would want from a monarch. We have enjoyed learning this song alongside the rest of the school in our Sing & Praise sessions. The day also involved a Coronation picnic, a Year 5 ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ show, some collaborative artwork and more. This allowed us to mark the significance of the weekend ahead.
Speaking of which, have an enjoyable bank holiday weekend and I look forward to seeing you on Monday!
Date: 28th Apr 2023 @ 12:32pm
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As another week races by, it is now chance to reflect on just how much we have managed to fit into this time! Once again, the Year 5 children have worked really hard and with excellent resilience, energy and enthusiasm. Well done to them all!
In Maths, we have focused on co-ordinates and finding the missing co-ordinates of shapes. This included a game of ‘Battleships’ against both the teacher and then our shoulder partners. Next week, we will extend our learning to finding coordinates in four quadrants and also translating (moving) shapes within coordinate grids.
Ahead of the upcoming King’s Coronation, we have also been learning an exciting coronation song, to mark King Charles III’s coronation on May 6th 2023. Written from a child’s perspective, ‘New King’ explores what one would do if they suddenly became king.
We are well underway with our brass instrument lessons with Mrs Hughes from Sefton Music Service. Our first few sessions have been familiarising with our new instruments, whether trumpet, baritone or trombone. We have also enjoyed some old favourites including the Forbidden Rhythm game where we all know, “Don’t play this one back!”
Enjoy the bank holiday weekend, Year 5! See you back in class on Tuesday 2nd May!
Reminders:
-Homework will continue to be set via Mirodo (as usual) for this week and spellings will continue to be set via Google Classroom.
Date: 20th Apr 2023 @ 9:05pm
Welcome to the Summer Term! It was great to welcome back the Year 5 children after very varied and exciting activities during the time off that were great to hear about. This week, we achieved so much and really did pick up where we left off. Here are just a few highlights…
We enjoyed our PE lessons in the sunshine that focused on both Hockey (on Wednesday) and Striking & Fielding with Formby High School (on Thursday). It will be great to see just how the children’s skills develop in these areas as the term progresses.
In English, we have commenced our new focus book for this half term. It is titled ‘The Paperbag Prince’ by Colin Thompson. Before reading even the first page, we did a lot of work exploring the upcoming themes and content of this picturebook. Much of this linked to the environment and the importance of reducing both pollution and waste on our planet. To unpick this further, we watched several videos, including David Attenborough’s Blue Planet, which showed the horrors of plastic waste in the ocean and the detrimental effects that this is having on marine life. This led to many passionate discussions and many thinking skills were used as we reflected using green thinking hats and also completed a Diamond 9 model to help further guide our reasoning. We look forward to getting stuck into this book from next week!
Our Maths work has focused on measuring angles with a protractor and a particularly fun lesson involved measuring and checking different sized angles that we had drawn onto our own tables alongside our shoulder partners. Accuracy was the key and this led to many dojo points being awarded too! Next week’s Maths will focus on coordinates and translation, including translating shapes and symbols within coordinate grids.
In RE, we began our new unit that focused upon ‘Women in the Old Testament’. The aim of this is to widen the children’s knowledge and understanding of the role and significance of women in the Bible and God’s big story. Our first lesson involved us completing some code breaking activities that provided us with the name of a significant female biblical figure and their role. This enabled us to expand our knowledge base.
Have a brilliant weekend, Year 5 - I look forward to seeing you on Monday!
Reminders:
-Brass lessons will take place every Friday throughout this term.
-Year 5 PE lessons will take place on Wednesdays and Thursdays each week for this half term. Please ensure that your child attends school in their full PE kit on these days.
-Please also note that homework has been uploaded as usual to Mirodo as it will be each Friday throughout this term. As previously, the homework will be set each Friday and should be completed on or before the following Wednesday.
-Weekly spellings have also been uploaded to Google Classroom, which will be tested next Friday (28th).
Date: 19th Jan 2023 @ 9:21pm
A tremendous week was had in the Year 5 classroom as we continued our learning journey and challenged ourselves across so many different areas of the curriculum.
Our hard work has extended across so many subjects and most definitely within our Maths learning. Here we have been focusing upon comparing and ordering fractions with different denominators. Alongside this, we have also tested our fraction skills in different games such as bingo, loop games as well as online games of Blooket. These were competitive and fun to observe. Such fraction work can be challenging and, as always, the children approached their learning with resilience and built on their understanding and confidence levels.
We have also continued on with our grand, class times table battle with this current series approaching a very dramatic end. Quite unbelievably, there is a tie as we go into the final battle and a tense wait to find our eventual winning team next week. Both teams have given their all…but there can only be ONE winner. Good luck to all involved!
In English, we have continued our focus on the text ‘Arthur & the Golden Rope’. We have enjoyed reading the beginning of this rather unusual myth as well as using it as a stimulus to write a short Norse poem containing adventurous noun phrases and linking in relative clauses from last week’s learning too. We have also honed our skills of speech punctuation and have enjoyed writing scenes involving the characters from Arthur & the Golden Rope interacting with one another about the disaster that hit their Icelandic village.
Our History learning delved into the Mayan civilisation as we considered why exactly we are studying the Mayan empire in school. To do so, we speculated and made deductions from a range of visual clues that were laid at different stations across our classroom. This allowed us to appreciate the range of Mayan achievements and how they were one of the most sophisticated societies of their age with a strong belief system.
In Collective Worship, we considered our monthly value of Humility and how we can apply this within our daily lives. A video stimulus involving a table tennis player over-celebrating winning a point was a good discussion point for how being humble and considering other’s feelings is an important and respectful way to live.
Once again, another brilliant week with Year 5. Have an excellent weekend everyone – you certainly deserve it!
Date: 24th Nov 2022 @ 6:26pm
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Well, another typically busy week in Year 5 draws to a close! With plenty to choose from, here are some of our main highlights…
We were lucky enough on Tuesday to have the opportunity to take part in a Christmas Recycling Craft Workshop from the Recycling Discovery Centre. Following a fun and interactive assembly (including a ‘wrap battle’), it was time to head back to the Year 5 classroom to get creative with recycled items. The children had great fun creating their Christmas crafts and learning how items can be repurposed rather than simply disposed.
In RE, we completed the final lesson of our unit focused on the Bible. We used this lesson to explore Christianity as a living faith through the inspiring story of Desmond Doss. Desmond Doss was a Christian combat medic who was awarded the congressional medal of honour for saving the lives of 75 men. He was a conscientious objector who never carried a gun. He is also the subject of the 2016 film, ‘Hacksaw Ridge’. First, we completed a circle thinking map using only picture clues to infer what we could about Desmond. Then we further learned about his life and his honourable actions that all came about because he fervently stood by his beliefs. This helped us to really explore Christianity as a “living faith” and to unpick our key question, ‘how can belief affect people’s actions?’.
In Maths, we have focused on finding the perimeter and area of rectilinear shapes. We extended this to a much-enjoyed problem solving task on Friday as we designed our own robots according to specific criteria. This built on a similar task that the children completed in Year 4 but in a way that further stretched and challenged the children whilst still being thoroughly enjoyed by all…not to mention the creativity in designs too! Next week, our focus will shift to further area and perimeter problem solving challenges.
In English, we completed ‘The Lost Happy Endings’ which has been our focus within our writing lessons throughout the half term to date. There were shocks and gasps across the classroom as we brought this story to a close due to the shocking (and quite gruesome) twist at the end of the story. This led to an excellent class discussion where the children explored the critical question: ‘Is Jub the villain?’ There were impassioned responses from the children as they justified their views and applied reasoning to back up their thinking. We are already looking forward to next week where we can write our own fairytales…with a twist!
Wednesday brought our first Swimming session of the academic year. This will now inform our second PE lesson with Year 5 PE lessons being Wednesdays (Swimming) and Thursdays (school PE).
An excellent week with plenty more to come as we tick down towards December and all things Christmas! Enjoy the weekend and see you Monday.
Date: 10th Nov 2022 @ 4:57pm
Blink and you missed it! This week has sailed by so let’s take this chance to reflect on just a few of the many highlights.
A definite highlight was our Science lesson which focused on the phases of the moon. To represent the lunar cycle, we used Oreo cookies which were particularly adept at representing each phase, all the way from a new moon to a full moon. The children took great care in scraping out the filling of each Oreo and resisted the temptation to eat them…at least for the duration of the lesson! Take a look outside at tonight’s moon which will be in a Waning Gibbous phase.
Following on from our school trip, we also took part in an ‘Our Place in Space’ educational workshop during Friday afternoon. This involved using the Scratch Jr app via our iPads to create a space-themed digital game. We loved this opportunity and our coding skills were put to the test to achieve the desired results.
We also marked Remembrance Day by joining Year 4 and Year 3 at the war memorial in St. Peter’s Churchyard. Here, we laid wreaths on behalf of each class within the school. Our Year 5 children also delivered some poignant readings to further mark the occasion and all children beautifully observed the two minute’s silence.
In Maths, we have focused on identifying prime numbers, composite numbers and also drawing factor trees to represent the prime factors of a given number too. Next week is assessment week where we will recap all of our learning so far this term!
Homework continues to be set on Mirodo and information regarding next week’s spellings can be found on Google Classroom. Please remember that the children can also access their virtual classroom on Google Classroom if they wish to access further learning at home.
Also, 'Love Reading for Kids' have released their early November newsletter. This includes a first look at their Christmas Books and Gift Guide which is full of great ideas for all readers. Books really do make the best presents so please do take a look!
We really hope you enjoy watching our Celebration of Kindness video and share a laugh with your families. Plus, don’t forget, the video is only the start! We are sure the children are very excited to take part in a range of activities next week, which will encompass three events taking place: World Kindness Day, Anti-Bullying Week and Children In Need. Enjoy your weekend and see you all on Monday!
Date: 19th Oct 2022 @ 11:47am
We can’t quite believe that it is already the end of the first half term of the school year! Time has absolutely raced by and it is more than fair to say that Year 5 have worked extremely hard and have already achieved so much.
In our English work, we completed our first Author Book pieces of this year based on our focus text, ‘Queen of the Falls’. The children completed their final pieces of writing with such focus, care and pride and each was a pleasure to read. These diary entries have made an excellent opening page to our Year 5 writing journey. Well done, Year 5!
In RE, we continued to explore the Christian Bible with its many books and stories. We considered the word ‘sacred’ and its meaning and what it takes for an object to be thought of in this way. To do this we thought of items that we hold dear and that are treasured within our own lives. We then connected our items to the sacred nature of the Bible by making comparisons and establishing differences.
In Maths, we have focused on inverse operations and multi-step word problems involving addition and subtraction. We enjoyed putting our skills to the test through some different Maths games too including a spooky, themed game on Blooket where frighteningly quick Maths was the aim of the game.
Our final day of this half term brought our Computing focus day which centred around the world of vlogging and what it means to be a YouTuber. We learned a lot about the positives and negatives of this career path, lots of safety tips and we also created some video logs (vlogs) of our own.
Thank you, Year 5, for a great first half term where I have loved getting to know each and every one of you. There are plenty more highlights to come throughout the rest of the year but, in the meantime, go and enjoy the half term break!
Some reminders for after half term:
- Spellings have been set as usual via Google Classroom and will be tested at the end of the first week back at school after half term.
- There is no set homework for next week, however the Year 5 ‘Virtual Classroom’ has been updated and attached to this blog, which includes links to a variety of websites and resources. All pupils' individual passwords can all be found on Google Classroom. Don't forget, there is also the ‘Practice’ section on Mirodo where the children can choose any topic they wish to practise for Maths, Reading, SpaG or Science.
Date: 13th Oct 2022 @ 6:18pm
.Where has this week gone? Let us take this chance to reflect on some of the many highlights from a typically busy (and fun) week!
In our Collective Worship work, our October focus on the monthly value of Generosity continued. Our learning focused on a particular kindness video titled ‘One Day’. This powerful video demonstrated a kindness boomerang where the camera tracks an act of kindness as it was passed from one individual to the next until eventually managing to boomerang back to the person who set it into motion. We discussed how we can pay generosity forward through small acts of kindness such as those within this video.
Our Science work continued to delve into the great unknown…outer space! We are fascinated by this topic and have been adding to our knowledge with each and every lesson. This week, we took ourselves to the school field as we needed a large, open area for what we were going to do. Here, we created a human, scale model of our Solar System! With our Sun at the centre of the field, the children (each responsible for a certain planet) had to take a specific number of steps away from the sun in order to represent their scaled distance in outer space. So, our Mercury and inner planet teams didn’t need to take all that many steps to represent their 48 million+ kilometres from the sun. However, our Uranus and Neptune teams certainly raised their step count and ended up near the outskirts of the field. We hope that this fun activity helped to create a greater understanding of just how vast our solar system actually is. Following this activity, we gave a mini presentation in small teams based on the planet that we were responsible for. The children enjoyed listening to each team's presentation and giving their feedback too!
This week’s Maths lessons have focused on interpreting negative numbers and finding the difference between sets of negative numbers or between negative numbers and positive numbers. Next week’s Maths lessons will focus on understanding and using inverse operations before moving onto word problems involving addition and subtraction.
In English we have been creating newspaper articles which reported daredevil Annie Edson Taylor’s arrival to Niagara Falls in October, 1901. To prepare us for this task, we first became newspaper reporters who had been given an exclusive interview with Annie herself! After some role play and hot seating in these roles, we were well prepared to put our reporting skills into writing our front-page articles. Next week is our final week focused on our gripping ‘Queen of the Falls’ text. The children have been hooked throughout and, although they are desperate to know the final outcome of Annie’s stunt, I know they will be sad for it to end. However, with the end of one book and story there always starts another…
Another excellent week in Year 5 and, after a well-deserved weekend for the class, we move onto our final week of this half term. Time flies!
Reminders:
- The Team TSP Glow in the Dark Disco will take place on Thursday 20th October in our school Hall. The time slot for Year 4 to Year 6 is 4.45pm to 6pm.
-On Friday 21st October, we finish for half term.
Date: 7th Oct 2022 @ 4:08pm
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What an excellent and busy week in Year 5!
Our Maths lessons have focused on multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000. We used DJ Casper and the ‘Cha Cha Slide’ to help learn the technique for applying each method with the same dance moves but using slightly different lyrics. “Multiply to the left…divide to the right.” We also played some Maths games to further hone our skills. Next week’s Maths lessons will focus on negative numbers.
In English, we continued on with our focus on the incredible tale of ‘Queen of the Falls’. This has sparked some impressive debating in Year 5 as the children pondered the critical question – “Should Annie go over the falls?” We also used thinking maps to develop our vocabulary of words to describe Annie as well as some setting descriptions on Niagara Falls itself. Next week, we will apply our skills to letter writing and find out what happens next in Annie’s somewhat bizarre plan at finding fame and fortune.
We have got quizzical this week in our Geography learning as we have explored the many differing climates within the continent, South America. We were introduced to a range of new STAR vocabulary such as temperate, arid, tropical and more. After using our black thinking hats in an activity to try and commit such language to memory, we then explored a climate map for South America and how to interpret such maps most effectively. Next, it was time to create a ‘true or false’ quiz based on the climate map. The children’s quizzes were later attempted by different members of the class and great fun was had in this activity; all the while accompanied by some traditional South American music.
Our PE lessons focused on Quadkids Athletics with both lessons based on improving our running skills. We took part in some fun running games that went a lot towards helping us to work on our stamina and we also attempted the classic Beep Test to truly put our skills to the test. This is ideal training for the 2022 Virgin Money Giving Mini London Marathon event which we will be completing next week! It is also fantastic practise for the Quadkids Athletics House Competition which will also take place next Thursday!
In Collective Worship, we commenced our new monthly value for October: Generosity. We were reminded how Jesus nurtured and Jesus loved to show us how the Father loved and we have lots of activities planned to spread generosity around our school throughout the rest of this month!
So that’s another week in Year 5 done and it’s onto the weekend. We look forward to seeing you all on Monday!
Reminders:
-Parent-Teacher Meetings will take place via Microsoft Teams on Tuesday 11th October and Wednesday 12th October.
-Maths and English homework tasks can be found on 'Mirodo'. An additional link to support the children's Maths homework has also been added to Google Classroom.
- Weekly spellings can be found on Google Classroom.
-Children should continue to return their reading records every Tuesday.
Date: 27th Sep 2022 @ 3:57pm
Another week flies by in the Year 5 classroom and we have so much to report! Let’s share just a few of our highlights from this week here…
It was a particularly proud moment to start our school week as Year 5 led the KS2 Harvest Service at St. Peter’s Church. The children displayed such courage and confidence through beautiful readings, prayers and a drama recreation of a well-known Bible story, ‘Feeding the 5000’. We even had an understudy who filled in as Jesus at the last minute! Through this service, we thanked God for the creation of the world and reminded our school community about the importance of helping others in need, particularly through such vital causes as Southport Foodbank. Well done, Year 5!
In our RE work, we continued to explore the Bible. Using the 66 books that make up the greatest story ever told, we created some Bible word art. Our “wordles” demonstrated our ever-growing knowledge of the Bible in a creative and eye-catching format.
We also marked El día Europeo de las lenguas (The European Day of Languages) by inviting Sarah Serey Canales from Kidslingo into our classroom who taught us even more about Spanish culture and lifestyle as well as playing some fun games, songs and activities to further improve our ever-growing linguistic skills. ¡Fenomenal!
In this week’s Maths lessons, we have focused on rounding numbers to different amounts. Next week’s lessons will move onto multiplying and dividing whole numbers and decimals by 10, 100 and 1000.
As if there wasn’t enough excitement, we also had our whole-school Readathon on Monday and Tuesday too! This event involved at least one class throughout the school reading at any one time throughout these two days. We fully embraced these ‘Drop Everything and Read’ sessions with great enjoyment as the children selected from fiction to non-fiction…fantasy novels to comic books…e-books to good old paperbacks. Not only that, we also read the Shakespearean tragedy of Macbeth in comic book strip form with the witches’ prophecies and the unfortunate plot twist providing both shock and enjoyment within our classroom.
Last but not least, we had our first school trip on Thursday as we headed to Bootle Town Hall to watch a theatre production titled, 'A World Away'. This health educational drama was moving, poignant and great fun in equal measure. It taught the children about the impact that smoking can have and encouraged good health choices from the children as they get older. We loved it and especially the Q&A afterwards where we learned a few theatre tricks as well as exploring the plot even further.
So, a brilliant week comes to an end and I wish each of you an enjoyable and well-deserved weekend. See you Monday!
Reminders:
-The booking system on School Spider for the Parent-Teacher Meetings on Tuesday 11th October and Wednesday 12th October will go live on Monday 3rd October at 6pm and close on Friday 7th October at 6pm.
-Maths and English homework tasks can be found on 'Mirodo'.
- Weekly spellings can be found on Google Classroom.
-Children should return their reading records every Tuesday.
Date: 22nd Sep 2022 @ 10:18pm
Is that really another school week over and done already? Even with the bank holiday Monday, the remainder of the week has absolutely flown by. One thing is for sure, we have had lots of fun in many different lessons with so much learning taking place!
We have been busy getting ready for the Harvest Service at St. Peter’s Church next week which Year 5 will be leading. Linking to our core school values, we considered the beauty of God’s creation and the importance of showing gratitude and appreciation of all that we have. Even more importantly, we considered those who don’t have as much as we do, not just in other parts of the world, but here in the UK too. We look forward to seeing lots of parents there on Monday morning to mark and celebrate Harvest.
In English, we delved further into the incredible (and somewhat bizarre) tale of Annie Edson Taylor in 1901. All that we know so far is that Annie is a school teacher who performed a daredevil stunt involving a barrel and Niagara Falls. We created social media posts in role as Annie and we also wrote postcards to back home as if we were visitors to Niagara Falls. Roll on next week!
We also read some biographies from the inspirational book, ‘Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls’ as we learned about computer scientist, Margaret Hamilton, who played a pivotal role in the Apollo 11 moon landing. We also learned about Mary Anning who made some incredible fossil discoveries in the field of palaeontology. This will be our focus text for the remainder of this half term with plenty more tales of courage, bravery and creativity to follow!
In Maths, we have been focusing upon writing numbers as words and also rounding to the nearest 10. We were also introduced to ‘Blooket’ which the children LOVED as we practised our times tables and division facts through various games such as ‘Crypto Hack’, ‘Gold Rush’ and ‘Battle Royale’. Next week’s lessons will continue our focus on rounding and extend to comparing and ordering numbers to 1,000,000. We’re sure there will be some more Maths games thrown in there too!
A fantastic week and we are already looking forward to all that next week will bring. In the meantime, enjoy your weekend and I will see you all on Monday!
Reminders:
-Our whole school Read-a-thon takes place next Monday and Tuesday, in class.
-The KS2 Harvest Service (led by Year 5) will take place at St. Peter's Church on Monday 26th at 9:15am.
-Weekly spellings can be found on Google Classroom.
-Children should return their reading records every Tuesday.
-Maths and English homework tasks can be found on 'Mirodo'.
Date: 15th Sep 2022 @ 9:23pm
It has been fantastic to spend this week with such a fun and hardworking class! So much learning and hard work has already taken place and just a few highlights will be shared here.
We have reached the end of our ‘Encanto’ inspired learning which has given us so many opportunities that have connected so seamlessly to our school values, thinking skills and learning ethos. The children have taken so much from this learning and we are so proud of the work produced. Our learning culminated in an exciting Top Trumps activity where the children created profiles for twelve members of the Madrigal family from Encanto. Each character was rated on how much they demonstrated each of our school values throughout the film. This task led to very interesting discussions with an array of viewpoints and opinions shared. After finalising our set of Top Trumps, it was then time to play an actual game against our friends which was greatly enjoyed by all.
We also began our formal Maths lessons which have been focused on place value. This has included reading, writing, ordering and comparing numbers to at least 100,000 and determining the value of each digit. As part of this, our learning has also included different Maths games with a particular favourite being the ‘Nice and Nasty’ game where the children very much enjoyed defeating their teacher after a close battle. Next week: redemption! Our Maths focus for the next week will continue to focus on place value, extending to numbers up to one million.
In our English work, we have been making predictions about the plot of our first focus text for this half term. Our inference and deduction skills were impressive as we studied a black and white photo of a middle-aged lady, in 1901 who was stood next to a large barrel near Niagara Falls. The only other information we have is that the character within this story is apparently a daredevil. For more context, we investigated what feats a “daredevil” might attempt which led us to watching a short film about a mountain biker called Danny Macaskill who wowed and amazed us with his death-defying ride along the notorious Cuillin Ridgeline. We'll have to wait and see just how accurate our predictions turn out to be!
It was also Roald Dahl Day on Tuesday where we marked and celebrated the magic that Roald brought and continues to bring to children everywhere through his stories, love of language and the humour within his many books and poems. Upon entry to the classroom the children each received a golden ticket. Then we enjoyed some discussions about Roald Dahl’s stories; we learned more about his life and accomplishments and then we took part in some Kahoot quizzes about the man himself. Later, using the BFG as our inspiration, we used watercolours to paint our own dream jars with impressive results!
A fantastic week as we have now really settled into our new Year 5 classroom routines. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend and see you on Tuesday.
Reminders:
-Weekly Maths and English homework tasks have now been uploaded on Mirodo (https://app.mirodoeducation.com/login) and should be submitted before the following Wednesday (21st September). Going forward, homework will continue to be set in this way each Friday. If the children require any support or have any worries regarding their homework, they should speak to me about it on Monday. Login details have already been sent home and can also be found on Google Classroom.
-Please also remember that the children have been set their weekly spellings which have been uploaded to Google Classroom. Spelling tests take place each Friday in class with individual results uploaded to Google Classroom alongside the score achieved. These scores will only be visible to me and you/your child as they are sent via ‘private comment’.
-Additionally, it is imperative that daily reading also continues alongside homework tasks. We would recommend at least ten minutes per day where possible. A reading record has been sent home with your child. We would encourage parents to add comments based on home reading too.
Date: 8th Sep 2022 @ 8:39pm
We loved welcoming back the brand-new Year 5 class this week and what a brilliant first week we have had together!
Our school motto for this year is ‘Choose Wisely’ which encourages us to be the very best that we can be throughout this new school year. To explore this further, we used the Disney film, Encanto, as our stimulus. This led to a whole host of activities throughout the week, each of which were connected to this thought-provoking, heart-warming and inspiring film!
One particular activity included exploring the challenges and setbacks of various Encanto characters and their strategies for overcoming them alongside the TSP Learning Curve. We also discussed the importance of mental health and wellbeing through the character of Luisa as we acknowledged the importance of being kind to ourselves as well as to others.
Other activities have included sketching our own casitas in Art; constructing our own casitas in Minecraft; developing Encanto related Spanish skills and talking about Bruno…a lot! We really have achieved so much in our first week with plenty more learning to come.
A poster containing 100 recommended reads for Year 5 children has also been attached to this blog. By providing 100 quality texts at an age-appropriate level, this list may be useful when choosing your child's next book. We hope it inspires the children to continue on in their reading journeys whilst further encouraging a lifelong love of books and stories.
I hope the children have enjoyed this week as much as I have and well done to them all for working so hard. Wishing you all the best for the weekend and see you Monday!
Reminders:
-PE days for Year 5 are on Thursday and Friday each week.
-Homework will begin for Year 5 children at the end of the following week. This will include a short Maths and English task. Spellings will also be set next Friday for the children to practise.
Date: 10th Jun 2022 @ 3:00pm
Here we are…the FINAL half term of Year 5! Time certainly has flown by up to this point but we are not taking anything for granted as there is still so much learning left and plenty more memories to be made. For now, here are some highlights from this week…
In Maths, we have been measuring our capacity and volume skills through various lessons involving converting between litres and millilitres. We finished the week with a particularly fun capacity problem solving lesson. This linked to George’s Marvellous Medicine and included an array of colourful medicines that were mixed and concocted according to our skills of measuring accurately and reading instructions. Next week’s Maths will involve reading timetables and being able to tell the time to the nearest five minutes.
As we began our new monthly value of Truthfulness for the month of June, our first lesson linked to how in fact we can be true to ourselves. Through a circle time discussion and game, we explored our own different qualities and how we perceive ourselves. Each person then paired up with a partner and outlined each other’s qualities to see how well they matched. After much discussion, we hope that each Year 5 left the room that little bit taller with boosted self-esteem.
The children are also now underway with their brass instrument lessons with Mr Fogg from Sefton Music Service. These lessons will continue for the remainder of this half term before the children continue their learning into Year 6.
A brilliant week and wishing you all a fantastic weekend. See you all on Monday!
Reminders:
-Year 5 ‘Bikeability’ will take place next week for those who have opted in. You should have received an email from School Spider to confirm the set day that your child is requested to bring their bike and helmet to school.
- Father’s Day Present Room is on Thursday 16th June.
- Team TSP Mufti Day (Fancy goods and sweets for Summer Fair) is on Friday 17th June.
Date: 20th May 2022 @ 4:40pm
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A brilliantly busy week in the Year 5 classroom including learning galore, both inside and outside the classroom!
Our week ended on a high as we had a look into our potential futures in visiting Edge Hill University on a school trip. On this visit, we participated in a campus scavenger hunt where we learned about various parts of the university campus and the different departments and hidden treasures throughout. We also participated in a Computing workshop where we met Peppa the robot who taught us all about the world of robotics and artificial intelligence. Peppa even treated us to a dance routine (strangely, not “the robot”) and also some Tai Chi. Alongside this, we LOVED our experiences of augmented reality and virtual reality too using state-of-the-art university technology. Later, we had a Biology workshop where we became palaeontologists. Here, we explored various animal bones on display as well as using microscopes to explore even finer details too. What a day!
We have continued to focus on our monthly value of ‘Perseverance’ in our Collective Worship sessions. As this value links so closely to our SHINE value of Hope and being resilient, we were able to explore this on a deep level through some excellent discussions as well as links to our TSP learning curve which supports us in understanding how successful learning takes place. We also took a trip into the past to listen to a song that was released over a year before the Year 5 children were even born! By unpicking the lyrics of ‘The Climb’ by Miley Cyrus, we were quick to realise that this is song with hope and perseverance at its very core. After our exploration of its powerful lyrics, we then each created a piece of artwork built around one of the lyrics which meant something to us. Above all, the children understand that life is a journey that can be both difficult and rewarding but it is important to keep faith, to be optimistic and to learn from any mistakes made.
In Maths, we have continued our focus on ‘position and direction’ as we learned about translation involving coordinates, symmetry and reflection. Next week’s Maths lessons will focus on converting measurements such as millilitres to litres; millimetres to metres and grams to kilograms.
Please also see the book recommendations provided this month from the charity 'Read for Good'. There is a book for all ages from 3-11 to perhaps inspire the next book purchase or local library loan. Happy reading!
What a fantastic week and only one more week to go before another half term break. This year continues to race on by but there are plenty more memories to be made yet. In the meantime, enjoy the weekend!
Reminders:
-Homework will continue to be set via Mirodo (as usual) for this week and spellings will continue to be set via Google Classroom.
-Year 5 optional Parent-Teacher meetings take place on Monday 23rd May and Tuesday 24th May. Zoom details have already been sent for the children that this applies to via School Spider.
Date: 12th May 2022 @ 5:34pm
Another week full of highlights and achievements within the Year 5 classroom!
In Collective Worship, we have been exploring the 'Meaningful May' calendar as a way of promoting mindfulness across our class. This is a great daily reminder for the children to appreciate the little things in life and help to support positivity and wellbeing.
Our artwork explored cityscapes. After looking at some impressive skylines of our own, including our very own Liverpool skyline, we explored the work of pop artist, Charles Fazzino. He blends cityscapes and pop art to create some striking, vibrant creations which inspired us within our lesson. We enjoyed re-creating our own versions and will develop our techniques in the coming weeks!
In Science, we explored the circle of life of a plant by creating our own handmade flowers using a variety of resources including tissue paper, cotton buds, art straws and more. It was important that our completed flowers detailed all of the key reproductive parts of the flower and these were labelled afterwards using key scientific terminology. A creative and informative task that will hopefully help us to retain more of the key knowledge associated with this topic.
In Maths, we have focused on co-ordinates and translation of shapes and have started to apply our knowledge across four quadrants. Next week, we will extend our knowledge of these concepts further including translation within coordinate grids.
An excellent week and we hope that the sun continues to shine into the weekend. Enjoy it and see you all on Monday!
Reminders:
-Homework will continue to be set via Mirodo (as usual) for this week and spellings will continue to be set via Google Classroom.
-Year 5 school trip to Edge Hill University on Friday 20th May.
Date: 5th May 2022 @ 9:44pm
A shorter week but still equally full of highlights and achievements for this amazing class of Year 5 children! Here are just a few…
Our Maths lessons became very practical as we explored the properties of 3D shapes. To do so, we were tasked with creating ‘skeleton shapes’ which used art straws and blu-tack to represent the edges and vertices of each shape with everything from a square-based pyramid to an octagonal prism. Not only that, we moved onto exploring shape nets and how the various 2D faces of a shape join together to create the overall three-dimensional shape. Our creations were impressive and even more so with the resilience shown throughout.
Speaking of resilience, our new monthly value for May links very closely to our core school value of ‘Hope’ (of which resilience is an integral part). 'Perseverance' is our value for the month and the children explored this through the practical opportunities that they had in this Maths lesson with a discussion regarding how best to approach more challenging tasks which may require patience, determination and perhaps even a bit of failure before real successful learning can be achieved. This was a valuable lesson and one that we will carry forward for the remainder of this month. Next week’s Maths lessons will focus on co-ordinates and translation of shapes.
In PE, we have been playing different variations of cricket in order to practise our batting, bowling and fielding skills in abundance. 'Diamond cricket' was a particular favourite where the batters had to be on guard at all times as the bowlers shifted between four sets of stumps selecting which was best to target. This was a frantic game that required a real team effort and concentration throughout.
In English, we have commenced our new focus book for this half term. It is titled ‘The Paperbag Prince’ by Colin Thompson. Before reading even the first page, we did a lot of work exploring the upcoming themes and content of this picturebook. Much of this linked to the environment and the importance of reducing both pollution and waste on our planet. To unpick this further, we watched several videos, including David Attenborough’s Blue Planet, which showed the horrors of plastic waste in the ocean and the detrimental effects that this is having on marine life. This led to many passionate discussions and an array of thinking skills were utilised as we reflected on our emotions using green thinking hats and also completed a Diamond 9 model to help further guide our reasoning. We look forward to getting stuck into this book from next week!
Homework will continue to be set via Mirodo (as usual) for this week and spellings will continue to be set via Google Classroom.
Have an enjoyable weekend and I look forward to seeing you on Monday!
Date: 30th Mar 2022 @ 8:47pm
What an excellent and typically busy week within Year 5 to end the Spring Term!
In our RE learning, we learned about La Semana Santa (Holy Week) and Pascua (Easter) which is one of the most important religious festivals and celebrations in Spain. We wore our black thinking hats to explore the various events and customs of the Spanish people before then testing our knowledge with a quiz.
Not only that, we also played a virtual Easter egg hunt too in order to continue our Spanish learning.
In our English learning, we have enjoyed exploring the lyrics of different songs in some music comprehension lessons. As a tribute to their late drummer, Taylor Hawkins, one of songs we explored was ‘Times Like These’ by Foo Fighters. This song was also covered during lockdown by an all-star line-up of some of the biggest and most respected artists from the UK and around the world – aptly titled the ‘Radio 1 Allstars’. So much discussion took place in Year 5 about why this song was lyrically suited to this time in our lives. Afterwards, we then moved onto Disney classic, ‘Be Prepared’ from The Lion King which was equally a hit!
In a week of many highlights, we particularly enjoyed our Maths Easter egg hunt (or 'the Chicken Run Challenge') which involved us solving Maths questions and then finding the hidden missing number somewhere on our school field in order to earn a prize! Our other Maths lessons have focused on calculating angles around a point (up to 360°) and we applied our skills in a fan-favourite game of ‘Crypto Hack’ through the Blooket website. We also competed in a high-pressure Maths game based on 'The Million Pound Drop'. After the half term break, our Maths will focus on properties of 2D and 3D shapes.
Another treat this week involved the Easter Bunny visiting us as he hopped past our classroom and dropped off some treats for the children!
A fitting week as we approach Easter! The Year 5 children really do deserve an enormous amount of credit for all of their efforts throughout this term and a two-week break is no less than they deserve. Wishing you all a safe and enjoyable time with your families. See you in the summer term!
Reminders:
-PE lessons next half term will take place every Tuesday and Thursday.
- There is no set Maths and English homework for next week, however the Year 5 ‘Virtual Classroom’ has been updated and attached to this blog, which includes links to a variety of websites and resources. All pupils' individual passwords can be found on Google Classroom. Don't forget, there is also the ‘Practice’ section on Mirodo where the children can choose any topic they wish to practise for Maths, Reading, SPaG or Science.
-School re-opens on Tuesday 19th April.
-The children will be taught by Mrs Healy, who met the children this Monday, until Mr McCabe returns from paternity leave. Another massive thank you for all the kind well-wishes received which have meant an awful lot!
Date: 24th Mar 2022 @ 7:53pm
In a week where the sun has shone, Year 5 have continued to shine too.
Our Collective Worship focus on the monthly value of ‘Sacrifice’ allowed us to reflect on how people often sacrifice things for Lent and the reasons behind this. After then discussing the things which we would find most difficult to sacrifice, we explored the ‘iceberg illusion’ animation and how sacrifice is a key element to achieve success. The children were then tasked with seeking out a quote relating to sacrifice which they found particularly inspiring and that resonated with them personally.
In PE, we have reached the end of our focus on Speed Stacking after improving our skillset and speed throughout the half term. This final lesson involved a round robin tournament that took place in the sunshine before five children who had secured the most victories progressed to the grand finals to compete against one another. Our overall winner was proudly crowned, however each child should be proud of themselves for the resilience, effort and improvement that they have shown throughout our PE lessons this half term.
In our English learning, we were extremely proud to write up the “top copy” of our biographies on Commander Chris Hadfield within our Author Books. Accompanied by pictures representative of Chris Hadfield’s life and career, the children worked hard to present their work in the style of a biography whilst also ensuring that their handwriting was neat and showcased their best. Very impressive!
In our Maths work, we have continued to challenge ourselves as we have honed our skills when multiplying fractions by fractions and also when multiplying fractions by whole numbers. As we progressed so well in these areas, we were then able to apply our skills to a range of multiplying fraction word problems, including a QR code hunt in our outdoor area. Next week’s Maths lessons will focus on word problems involving the four operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
We can’t quite believe that next week is (already) the final week of this term. In the meantime though, have a great weekend and see you on Monday!