Year 5

Year Five Greek Day

To launch our topic on Ancient Greece, we held a Greek Day, starting by being given authentic Greek names. Then to wake us up, we completed a Spartan style training drill to prove our worth to the Spartan army. No slacking was allowed, although we were able to wear shoes and clothes - unlike Spartan boys in Ancient Greece! We spent the rest of the morning ‘in the life of an Athenian child’. We learned to read and write the Greek alphabet and found out about Socrates, Plato and Aristotle - famous Greek philosophers. We also took part in some philosophical discussions of our own. To finish he morning we tried to complete a ‘Stomachion’; a puzzle by the Greek mathematican Archimedes. Throughout the morning we worked in shifts as a team to prepare moussaka and Greek salad for our delicious feast.

We put on our dancing shoes in the afternoon to learn some Greek dance steps—tricky but great fun! We had worked up an appetite so were ready for our symposium. In Ancient Greece, only men would have been allowed to attend these feasts but we made an exception for today!

STEM Bridge Building Challenge

We were lucky enough to receive a visit from the civil engineers at Inter Serve. They explained about different types of engineering and its importance in society. We worked as part of a team to safely construct a bridge. Special thanks to Mrs McCarthy (school governor) for organising this opportunity.

Summer Term 2019

2nd Half

Here is an overview of our (very busy) half term.

Year 5 K'Nex Challenge

1st May 2019

Today the children were visited by two engineers who challenged them to design a playground with a climbing frame, incorporating swings and a slide, and then to build it with K'Nex. The children were judged on their teamwork, their design and build as well as their annotated technical drawings. It was great to see such incredible teamwork, determination and resiliance, as well as innovative problem-solving skills. The classrooms were buzzing with enthusiasm and emjoyment!

Summer Term 2019

What a busy half term we have ahead of us. We are very excited to begin rehearsals for our performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream which will take place on 12th & 13th of June. Here is an overview of the next 4 weeks.

Creating animations

At the end of the Spring Term Year 5 enjoyed using their IT skills to create some fabulous animation films to show off all their knowledge of volcanoes including how they form, where in the world they are and how they erupt! We have some future film-makers amongst us!

Learning about the Planets

Today we learned about the relative sizes of and distance between the planets. We drew each planet to scale using a compass or string. 1cm=1000km. To do this we had to find out the diameter of each planet, then we halved the diameter to find the radius. We set our compass so that the distance between points was the radius. For larger planets, we measured a piece of string which was the same size as the radius. Drawing the planets to scale really helped us to appreciate the size of each planet. Next we worked out the distance from the sun, again to scale 1cm = 1 million km. Finally we went into the playground and measured the distances of planet from the sun and we all stood in the correct positions. We couldn’t believe how far along the field Neptune was!

Lego Day

What a fantastic day of building, investigating and teamwork! Today we followed quite tricky instructions to make a space buggy. Then we changed the gears on our buggies to find out the affect it had in the speed and distance travelled. Some of our results were quite unusual but in general we found that smaller gears made the buggy go faster and larger gears made the buggy go slower. The buggy travelled further with larger wheels as they gave it more power. We also created craters to see if our buggies could travel over them.

Topic Day- Astronaut Training

What a fantastic first day back we have had learning about what it takes to be an astronaut.

At the start of the day we were each given an envelope containing a letter inviting us to take part in the UNSA Astro Science Challenge. The program involves completing 6 challenges, which have been designed in partnership with the European Space Agency, the Science Museum, the MET Office and The Royal Greenwich Observatory.

Click on the link below to find out more.

The morning was spent taking part in lots of different challenges to develop the key skills astronauts need: teamwork, listening and communication, memory and problem solving.

In the afternoon we worked in teams to achieve the first UNSA space Cadet Badge; Build & Launch a Rocket.

We can’t wait to find out what our next challenge will be!

Spring 2019

Welcome Back! We have an exciting term ahead, here is an overview of themes and topics for this half term.

Anglo-Saxon Assembly

We have been practising our Anglo- Saxon assembly this week and are very impressed by the speed in which children have learnt their parts. The performance is on Tuesday 18^th December at 9:15am, everyone is welcome to attend. Please can any costumes be in school by Thursday 13^th; children requiring costumes received a letter on Monday 3^rd December explaining what they need to bring in.

Children need to keep practising the ‘Viking Rock’ song.

Many thanks for your support.

Anglo-Saxon Homework

We have been bowled over by the amazing standard of homework produced for the POWer projects. Well done Year Five!

Anglo—Saxon Houses

What a fantastic 2 days we have had working on our engineering and teamwork skills. We worked in groups of 3 to design and build Anglo-Saxon style houses. First, we drew a plan to scale and then carefully measured and sawed the wood for the frame. We had to be very precise when gluing our frame together to create strong and accurate joins. Team work was essential as we fixed the base and top in place. We persevered even when we found parts of the construction tricky; this was especially the case with the roof! Our final frames were very strong and sturdy. Even though our frames were constructed in exactly the same way, all of our houses look different thanks to their creative and imaginative exteriors.

Topics

We have some brilliant topics in Year 5 which we hope will engage, enthuse and inspire pupils. Here is a brief overview of the topics; we will post more detailed topic trackers at the start of each term.

Year 5 Autumn Term 1

Take a look at the exciting things Year 5 will be delving into this Autumn term! Our topic this half term is Here, There and Everywhere! We hope to develop our understanding of maps and map symbols before our trip to the Clopton Hills! More information about the trip date will be sent in due course.

Welcome Back!

The Year 5 team are very excited about the start of term and all of the fantastic learning experiences which are ahead in the new school year.