Autumn Term 2019

Week commencing 2.12.19

   Welcome to DECEMBER!!! As pantomime season begins, learning season deepens. We have been data analysing in Maths, looking mainly at line graphs. In English we have completed our discursive texts...maybe visiting the Isle of Skullions wouldn't be a good idea; the nay sayers definitely voiced their opinion clearer on that side!! 

We have been planning our DT project ahead of DT week next week: we are doing a huge clay model village. The village will be made entirely from clay and wood (all natural products) and once dried will be painted and (hopefully) will look like an actual viking settlement!

Week commencing 25.11.19

    Yet another busy week in year 5, we have been finalising our knowledge on addition and subtraction before we begin our statistics unit. We have also begun planning our discussion text - we are going to discuss whether or not the Vikings should go and search for treasure on the Isle of Skullions (How to Train Your Dragon); we have had some very interesting points of view! We have continued to study Vikings in history and looking further at Scandinavia in Geography. In RE, we have discussed, at length, the process of a Roman Catholic baptism. 

Week commencing 18.11.19

    We have been working with Healthy Minds this week - firstly, talking about healthy relationships. How we can build them or deal with negative relationships. Next, we have spoken about positive minds: techniques to help us deal with worries. In Maths, we have been looking at the inverse and mental maths. In English we have learned about first/third person writing; prepositions of time and cohesive devices. We have been singing in Music and have been learning about the christian religion - looking closely at Quakers. 

Week commencing 11.11.19

   This week we have been subtracting using the formal written method as well as rounding and estimating. We have read some more of our novel and comprehended chapters of How to Train Your Dragon - How to be a Pirate. We have been reading a new story in Guided Reading - all about the Titanic - the children are absolutely loving this story!! We have begun our swimming lessons in PE. In Geography, we looked at how modern settlements are linked and how we are linked to settlements too.

Week commencing 4.11.19

   Welcome back! Everybody's favourite week, this week - assessment week. The children have worked extremely hard in all of their assessments and have impressed me greatly with the results. In between assessments we have begin our Addition and Subtraction unit in Maths. We learned more about direct speech in English. Learned about the body (in French) and about goals and values in PSHE.

Week commencing 7.10.19

    Happy October!! This week we have been completing our first assessed write - we have been writing our very own Viking myths. We have been inspired by 'The Theft of Thor's Hammer'! We have used our knowledge of both Vikings and Scandinavia to describe the characters and settings before we used our creativity to write a Nordic-style myth.

     In Maths we have delved in to the world of Negative Numbers - we have linked this with temperature and compared Scandinavia and UK at different times of the year. NOTE TO SELF: Do not move to northern Scandinavia - it's COLD!!!

     During our History and Geography lessons we have looked more at why invaders chose to come to British shores and what would make a suitable settlement for us in the modern world. We have also designed our own Viking shield - inspired by some shields and designs from the Viking period.

    We have completed a lot of PSHE work over the past week - looking at our dreams and goals; what we need to achieve them and how we can achieve them. This was an eye opening tasks as we did not realise how much (or how little) some careers will earn. Many were disgusted that footballers earn more than our Doctors or Nurses...

Week commencing  30.9.19

     What a fantastic week we have had! We have to begin with talking about Friday and the Sleaford Day, we built incredible shelters and luckily they were all waterproof as we had a visit from the Viking Goddess of Thunder (Rachel) who threw rain down and vicious wind to ensure the settlement could withstand the awful British weather!

     During the week, we have been writing our own Viking Myths - some have been pretty intense; others have gone for the more peaceful and calm myths. Either way, I have been mightily impressed by the standard of writing and have handed our several handwriting pens in response to the beautiful handwriting (as well as actual content).

     In Maths we have been comparing and ordering numbers up to 100,000 - we played a game show where pupils scored various scores and we had to find who was the best student...and who was the worse!! We have also been working our Mr Barratt age and date of birth using Roman Numerals...Pssssst - he's quite old!!!

     In Geography we have been comparing Scandinavia and the UK - deciding whether the Vikings were correct to come and settle here - the results are inconclusive! 

Week commencing 23.9.19 

       Bonjour! We have been learning some French this week. We have been recapping aspects of previous years by looking at colours. We also challenged ourself by asking each other in French what colour we would make by mixing two different colours - this was very interesting..!

     In Maths we have been rounding numbers up to 1,000,000; we have been looking at multiples of 1,10,100,1000 and 10,000. They class have shown we awesome knowledge around place value so far!

    During our English lessons, we have been looking at Viking Myths. We read the story about Thor's Hammer and how it was stolen - thankfully it was found again and returned to the rightful owner. This is all in preparation to write our own Viking Myth next week.

    In our Geography and History lessons we have learned more about Scandinavia - where the Vikings came from and also about the UK - where the Vikings eventually settled.

    We have Sleaford Day coming up next week - we are going to be building shelters to help us imagine what the early Sleafordian settlers would have done. As well as this, we are going to make FIRE and see how they would have needed this for warmth and to cook food.

Week commencing 16.9.19 

      This incredible class continue to amaze me day by day! We have been understanding the value of numbers in Maths, we have looked at this in a lot of depth!

  English has led up to use apostrophes for possession and contractions - but definitely not for PLURALS!!! This SPaG will help us achieve our goals when we write a persuasion text in the coming weeks.

    In History and Geography we have been discussion and learning about what settlers need in order to settle somewhere.

   We completed our science investigation and had lots of fun checking which materials float best - this was a contentious issue as both wood and plastic were very good floatation devices but we found that wood was more durable and was able to hold more weight for when they invaded and stole lots of treasure!

    Finally, we have been re-capping on our french colours.

Week commencing 9.9.19 

       What a fantastic week we have had! We have been really successful in beginning our journey of Year 5 Maths - we have been looking at reading and writing numbers all the way up to a million (and beyond) as well as rounding to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. 

    In English we have been learning all about dashes for parenthesis and the different ways in which we can use them - replacing either brackets or commas as well as semi-colons. 

    We have been learning about Vikings and Scandinavia in History and Geography. We have also been planning our next Science investigation (properties) as we will be making our own Viking Longship out of any material we want to see which material is the best floating material.

   In PSHE we have spoken about our goals and aspirations - talking to each other what we want to be when we are older and how we plan on achieving those goals!

I have to pay special attention to the fantastic resilience and determination the class are showing since becoming Y5!

Week commencing 4.9.19 

          Welcome back and welcome to year 5! This week we have been settling in to the new way of life - being in Year 5! we have been getting back to basics: remembering how to hold a pencil, draw a straight line, cut out neatly and write on a straight line or in a box. These are vital skills that are required to be successful this year.

        I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know everybody and I am extremely confident of having a really, really fun and successful year!