Year 5

YEAR 5 CLASS OF 23/24

The adults your children will be primarily working with are below

Class Teacher: Mrs Nelson 

Class Teaching Assistant: Mrs Goodwin 

Teachers who will also be teaching PPA covered lessons : Mrs Mitchell, Mrs Farrington, Mrs O'Reilly, Mrs Goodwin and Mrs McCarthy.

Volunteer Teaching Assistant: Mrs Turner

(Please use the 'Whos Who' link below) 

Internal School Trip!

This year we experienced an internal school trip.  We had all sorts of visitors and experiences in school, and an absolutely brilliant day.  Our first activity of the day was bucket drumming.  Kris taught us some key skills, and then we played through some songs we picked as a class.  There was a very loud rendition of Sweet Caroline, and we all enjoyed playing Sunflowers by Post Malone. Next, we learnt circus skills! Playing the diabolo, cycling on miniature bicycles, trying out unicycles, juggling and more...  It was so much fun!  We met a mosaic artist, and half the class worked on the beginning of our new school mosaic and the other half got to finish it at the end of the day.  It looked gorgeous, and we can't wait to see it displayed in school.  We got pick 'n' mix to take home, yum!  We got to participate in a workshop with a comic book artist.  He showed us how to create comic style characters and we all left with some characters, and a few new skills!  We had the best day and made loads of memories with all our class mates.

PE Spring Term-

For our first activity this term we did gymnastics.  We focused on making small routines, using different jumps, rolls, leaps and balances. We then moved onto dance.  We spent our lessons learning a routine that we performed to Dua Lipa's Physical. There were some complicated moves and we worked hard perfecting the routine, and really enjoyed performing with the music.

WORLD BOOK DAY!

This year we could come in dressed as a book character of our choice, and we certainly did! We had Harry Potter and lots of his friends (including Hedwig), Violet Beauregarde, Liam (from our class book Cosmic!) Mr Nonsense (well done George, we can't wait to see what Mr Men character you dress up as next year!)  Billionaire Boy, Lightning Girl, footballers galore, even a superstar: Taylor Swift, alongside many more characters! Mrs Nelson and Mrs Goodwin disappeared, and instead we had Professor Trelawney and Pippi Longstocking taking over the classroom, and whilst we normally have Mrs Turner visit on a Thursday, Professor McGonagall came instead!  We had a fun-filled, book-themed, story-sharing day, and we can't wait to do it all again next year!  

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday fell in Half Term this year, and so we were very thankful to Father David that he came into school with an Ash Wednesday blessing service for us.  We were welcomed to come up for a blessing with Ash that had be made by burning last years Palm leaves. 

PE- Autumn Term-

In PE we have developing our skill in two sports this.  Firstly we played tennis, whilst occasionally the weather got the better of us and we ended up doing tennis in the hall, our favourite lessons were outside, with the tennis nets stretched across the length of the playground!  We practiced our forehand and backhand, and really worked on our serves.

We moved on to start hockey, and although it was colder, there was a lot less rain!  We learnt correct stick control, and worked on keeping our keeping our sticks low to the ground.  We were also practicing accurate passing and stopping of the ball.  The mini matches were great fun!

Creating Filters

As part of our science topic we needed to create filters.  We had some rather muddy water, and we needed to create the best filter to clean our water.  We had a lot of filter materials to choose from, including: stones, sponge, rice, kitchen roll, cotton wool, pasta.  Each table could choose their materials and layer them in their bottles how they wanted to, then we started pouring in the muddy water.  As you can see it was a nerve-wracking process!  We then put our  filtered water in order from least filtered to most.  i think you'll agree, some of our tables made some pretty good filters!

START OF OUR NEW SCIENCE TOPIC! 

Today we started out new science topic, the children worked in small groups to create different types of substances. Their decisions were based on the states of matter for each substance. Each group worked really well as a team, together they decided what substances they should use for each mixture. Some children created some truly smelly and disgusting concoctions.. much to their delight! We have saved one of the  mixtures for a future lesson. I will be tasking the children to see if they are able to separate the substances back to their original states. 

Poppy Display at St Josephs Church

Last half term the Creative Team asked all the classes to make poppies. Each class were given a different skill and media and year 5 we asked to make pom pom poppies. They worked really hard and concentrated to create some truly lovely poppies. On Monday, the Creative Team Teachers met at St Jospeh's Church and created a beautiful display showcasing the whole schools hard work. It is now proudly standig in the foyer and we would like to invite all families to come and visit the church, and Father David, to take a moment to reflect. 

Well done Year 5! 

Poppies

As a school we are creating a poppy display for Remembrance Sunday that will go to our Parish Church, St Joseph's.  For our contribution we made Pom-Pom poppies using red wool and black buttons for the centre. Our poppies will go alongside hand print poppies, origami poppies and more, we can't wait to see the finished results!

Multi-Faith Week

The children have been celebrating and learning more about other faiths.  On Monday the children focused on Hinduism, and were able to explain the significance of the River Ganges.  On Tuesday we were very lucky to have an online workshop which allowed us to experience the respect we should show around the Torah.  On Wednesday the children were busy learning about Sikhism, in particular the meaning behind their many Holy Books and why each one is significant.  We were excited to invite Meraj, from our own Year 6 (and Attenborough House Captain) to share with us his own faith.  Meraj kindly demonstrated the importance of Islamic prayer, and Mrs Darani taught the children how to write using the beautiful Arabic alphabet.  finally on Friday the children joyfully welcomed a Buddhism workshop where they experienced many aspects of the faith.  The children really enjoyed learning about Buddha and having the opportunity to wear traditional clothes and experience some face painting and hand stamps.

We have really loved learning about many different faiths, next year the children will re-visit these faiths in Year 6 but will have the opportunity to broaden their knowledge and understanding.

First School Trip of Year 5: The National Space Centre!

This week we were so lucky to be able to visit  the Space Centre in Leicester.  It was a fantastic opportunity for the children to see and learn about real pieces of history.  They experienced investigative experiments and had the opportunity to ask experts their space based questions!  We even got the see a real piece of the moon, and transport ourselves into a 1960s living room to experience America's  landing to win the "Space Race"!  A highlight was the amazing show in the Planetarium, where we learnt about the affects space has on our astronauts!

The children behaved so well and were a fantastic representation for St Joseph's.

Cooking!

The school grew so many amazing tomatoes in our small allotment outside the staff room (and pumpkins, runner beans, peas and more!)  We decided to use some of them up to make a delicious sauce.  We washed, chopped, cooked, blended and simmered our delicious tomatoes, along with some lovely seasoning, and made some amazing passata!

Science-

In science we have been studying space.  We spent some time as our Earth, observing the Lunar cycle!  

English- One Small Step

For our Big Write this term we focused on the short film One Small Step.  We really enjoyed getting to know Luna and learning her story.   We hope you like our class write!

Happily blowing her pink and white candles out of her space cake, Luna looked excitedly at her dad across the table. It was her 6th birthday, could it possibly be an awesome day? (Thank you Jacob) When the last flame went out, they both filled up with kindness, tenderness and fondness. (Thank you George) Her father passed her an enormous cardboard box, containing his handmade gift. (GS) Peeping inside the present, she saw the moon boots. Sparkling, glittering, radiant. (Thank you Maya) Luna had stars in her eyes. (Thank you Emily)  

Filled with excitement, she jumped into the boots, and they launched themselves swiftly into the cardboard box. (GS) Bolting through the milky way, thrown across space, darting past the stars, joy whooshed through their faces as the whizzed through in a nanosecond. (Thank you Kimi) “Look at the great galaxy.” Luna screamed. 

“And look out for poisonous planets!” warned dad. (Thank you Amelia) Finally arriving at their outstanding destination, the young little girl created moon dust angels whilst her father floated amongst the stars. (Thank you Phoebe)  

That night as the moon watched over Luna, her dad kissed her goodnight under the millions of constellations they had visited together. (Thank you Emily)  Stroking the back of her hair, dad was smiling with joy. (Thank you Oliver) “Will she be an astronaut in the future?” he thought as he watched her dreaming of zooming through space. (Thank you Aimy)  

In the blink of an eye, Luna became stronger and taller. She joined university, she always showed up with a smile on her face ready to learn. (Thank you Ronnie-May) Her first day at Astro-physics school had finally arrived, she took her first tentative steps through the door towards her dream. Day after day she worked hard and her shoes told the tale (GS) Ripped trainers flew at the door as she ran upstairs. The torn trainers ran to the sewing machine as they started to heal. (Thank you Freya) The next day in class, Luna sighed and frowned. She stomped. She felt overwhelmed. (Thank you Abigail) 

Luna, who felt ashamed, thought she had let her dad down. (Thank you Karter) Year after year, project after project, disappointment after disappointment, she was beginning to think she could never get the A+. (Thank you Charlie) She didn’t give up. Even though she began to lose hope, the candle of resilience inside of her was still crackling bright. (Thank you Seb) 

St Vincent de Paul's Feast Day

As if we had not been busy enough, on Friday, we celebrated the feast day of our class saint, Saint Vincent de Paul.  In order to follow in his footsteps and care for those that are more in need we decided to write letters to the residents of our local care home.  We created "God's Eyes" from wool to remind us that God loves people all over the world and that our faith is strong, without needing physical proof. We will be asking our Chaplaincy team to hand deliver a letter and God's Eye to each of the residents at our local care home.  Our aim is to keep up correspondence throughout the year, most likely our next activity will be Christmas cards.

LOOKING BACK:

Year 5 22/23:

Cotswold Wildlife Park

We had a fantastic day out at Cotswold Wildlife Park.  The weather was great (until the last half an hour!!!) we enjoyed ice-creams and a ride of the miniature trains.  We were lucky to see so many of the animals, and even to hear the lion roar.  We had a talk from experts about Emu's, Wallaby's and Giant Tortoise's, where we found out some really interesting facts.  We were also super lucky that we had our very own guide too (Mrs Nelson used to be a zoo-keeper!) so we had lots of extra facts about the animals!  The animal that captured most of our hearts was the Capybara, and we were lucky to see one very close up in it's shelter during the rain, and some out and about in their enclosure!

Stations of the Cross

Stations of the Cross was a time for us all to gather and reflect in the hall.  As Year 5 we performed the 12th Station- where Jesus dies on the Cross.  It was a really solemn occasion, and a time of reflection, quiet and prayer.  We sang hymns as a school, and in small groups.  It was a truly beautiful event, and it was really special for everyone to be able to be back together.

Design Technology- Building a Bridge!

Our design technology topic for this term was structures- we were tasked with building a bridge!  First we started with paper bridges, working out how best to layout our paper to get the strongest bridge.  Creating a concertina with the paper and then laying other sheets on top was the strongest type of bridge.

We then started on a spaghetti bridge.  We used masking tape to bind our bridge together.  WE worked rea;;y hard, but they were a little wobbly, and the spaghetti was very fragile.

We then got to build a Truss bridge.  This was our favourite activity.  We were given wooden batons, and small handsaws.  We had a template to cut the wood to particular lengths, and angles.  We then sanded the ends we had cut to ensure a smooth finish to our supports.  With some help, we then used a hot glue gun to create our bridge structure.  We made squares, and then added a diagonal support for strength.  Once all the supports were in, we used card triangles to reinforce our joined corners.  This was a really challenging project, but we were so proud of our bridges.

Litter Pick!

As part of our Stop Ocean Plastic Pollution writing, we were thinking of ways in which we can help.  The litter that we drop can end up blowing into rivers, and eventually make it's way into our oceans.  We decided to spend some time clearing up the litter in our own school.  We were amazed at the amount of litter we found in just our school environment.  We are all going to be more conscious of making sure our rubbish goes into the bins, and in doing so we will be helping our planet by reducing the amount of litter that could end up in our oceans. 

Life Cycle Experience

We had a really exciting day! Mrs Nelson brought in some beautiful creatures for us to examine and draw in a life cycle.  We saw live eggs, chrysalis and caterpillars, and some dead butterflies, which allowed us to look really closely, and observe the wings when we were drawing them for our life cycle diagrams.  The caterpillars were particularly attracted to some of our work, trying to make their way across the tables to see what we were up to!  We learnt that butterflies will lay their eggs on the specific leaves that are the food the caterpillars will need to survive, so clever!

World Book Day!  Gangsta Granny Strikes Again!

Wow!  Year 5 really pulled out all the stops when they dressed up as some of the fantastic characters from Gangsta Granny Strikes Again!  We had cat burglars, thieves a detective, a newspaper, mum, Ben and, of course, Granny herself!  Even Mrs Nelson and Mrs Goodwin were cat burglars for the day.  The whole school had chosen books that represent older people, to highlight the Chaplaincy team's charity of choice, Age UK.  We think the children all looked amazing, thank you for helping them with their awesome costumes!

Portraits, and developing an image using mixed media.

For our Portraits topic, we started by drawing a continuous line drawing of our faces.  This was really tricky.  Not taking our pencils off the paper when going between the eyes, nose, and mouths felt really peculiar, but when we were finished we had some amazing portraits.  We then used tracing overlays to write words that describe ourselves over the lines we had drawn, creating a portrait of words.  We took the word portrait and very carefully re-drew our word portrait on to an inked sheet, so that the ink impression transferred onto our previously prepared water colour backgrounds. We made some amazing pieces, though it was messy!  We then moved onto to using collage, along-side pastels, oil pastels, charcoal, and much more- to create some unique images of ourselves.  We hope you like the sample of our work below!

We really enjoyed our Write Stuff story based on The Explorer by Katherine Rundell.  We wrote so much we couldn't fit it all on the board!  Here's the collaborative story we wrote, we hope you like it!!

The Explorer

Like a whizzing bumble bee rushing back to the hive, the plane soared towards Manaus, its shadow trailing behind him on the river below. (Marley) Fred sat watching at the window, like he was at the canopy theatre: a choir of hissing rattle snakes, costumes of camouflage, hiding in the dark. (Freddie) Fred dreamed of exploring: he’d read books and books, explorer to explorer, only carrying two things- adventure and a compass. (Aarav)  But Fred’s Father disapproved.  Even here, 10,000 feet above the Amazon, he could feel the sharpness of his Dad’s suit piercing straight through his dreams, the figures from Dad’s paperwork strangling his imagination. (Molly C-M) Outside Fred said he would play with his cousin this summer, whose idea of fun was doing jigsaws in a dark room, but inside, Fred was will-ful, yearning, desperate. (Amelia) Suddenly, Fred felt the plane lurch, like it had been dragged down by the amount of pollen, like it had forgotten how to get back to the hive. (Marley) 

Fred wasn’t sure whether it was his own screams that had woken him, or all the rings of his Dad’s work phone. (Molly-Anne)  He was able to fight his eyelids open and saw a small plane explode into the forest of fire.  It was wild, menacing and hissed within the leaves and branches of the trees. (Samvir) Through the haunted, damp, abandoned forest, Fred saw the other children on the plane: Lila, Con and little Max.  The were hurt, bruised, battered- but they were still alive. (Sam)

They stumbled as quickly as their flat-out bodies would allow, until finally they noticed the moonlight reflecting on the glistening surface of the water.  Away from the smoky ash-filled fire, they could now experience the pleasant aromas of the rainforest. (Everyone)  When Fred woke, something in him began to resonate: next to the burr and whirr of dragonflies, under a sky so blue he’s only ever seen it when he’d mixed aquamarine with neon turquoise in Miss Randall’s art lesson.  (Gifted)  It was a-glow and a-tingle.  It was a-tumble and a-fizz.  It was an idea. (Mia)  By darkness, the group were watching their every step in search of the river. (Oliver P)  Fred had persuaded the others that the only way to return home was to follow the river all the way to Manaus.  When Fred said follow the river, he meant literally- on a raft! (Phoebe)  Although Fred thought his idea was good, he couldn’t help but imagine his father’s face as his nose wrinkled like he smelt the world’s most rotten potato- with his arms crossed in disapproval. (Shlok)

As the sun dominated the night, an aroma danced on the wind to Fred’s nose- something tranquil and serene, something that smelt more teal than blue. (Nancy)  Quickly after, they were sitting on the soothing bank of the Amazon river, it’s roar and whoosh- it was the sound of sweet music with a hypnotising harmony. (Rose)  Crunch!  Creak! Pop!  Fred hauled big branches and dragged them into a pile at the water’s shore. (Josephine)  Con’s face was stuck in concentration as she was wrapping up liana vines. (Kian) As the moon started to come out they stood back, eyes closing into darkness, watching the raft- their time and life- their saviour. (Adam)  “Coolness is one step away!”  said Lila, sprinting- the others followed.  They jumped in, a gift of coolness healing their aches and pains. (Freddie)

“Whoever gets to the other side last is rotten egg!”  exclaimed Con, her arm crashing in the waves as she sprinted through the water to the other side. (Mariella)  Fred didn’t move a muscle, spotting a long, murky, cold-hearted, grim shape leaving the shadows of the river bank. Scared, sneaking silently and stealthily towards Con.  “Croc! Alligator! Whatever you to call it!” he screamed. (Eric)  He jumped from the water and lurched at the raft.  He moved at supersonic speed down the river. (Callum)

Con swam towards him, her face turned peach in panic, confusion and terror- as she sprinted towards Fred. (Zuzanna)  “Quick, climb up!”  Fred launched his stand forwards- grasping Con’s hand with power.  He yanked her onto the raft.  The caiman ripped the liana vines with no hesitation- ambushing Con and Fred.  Fred and Con dragged themselves towards the land. (Meraj)  Heart pounding, and face flooded with sweat- a grin started forming across Con’s face “Well, that was a nice workout.” sighed Fred with relief. (Oliver O)  Fred imagined telling his Father of his rescue, and could almost feel the glint of pride and pleasure stirring behind his Father’s eyes. (Gifted)

Science:  We had all being asking to do some experiments, so were thrilled when Mrs Nelson produced a mini Volcano science experiment for us to watch.  Using vinegar as an activator, we watched, waited and listened hard, as we began to hearing a fizzing sound from inside our volcano, and then watched the lava pour over the crater and flow down the side of our volcano.

RE:  We wrote prayers and drew pictures for people we love and want to remember.  We then went on our own Pilgrimage to the Prayer Garden to silently share our Remembrance prayers with Mary.