Year 5HC: Blog items
Date: 19th Apr 2024 @ 4:17pm
We have had the loviliest of weeks this week. The children have come back from the holidays refreshed and apparently much matured! We have spent the week getting stuck into our new topics and trying to get outside in between the short breaks in rain!
In English, we have started studying a book called Curiosity, the Story of a Mars Rover. We are learning all about what happened to the Mars rover in its mission to land successfully. Next week, we will be writing diary entries from its point of view and we had some fantastic interpretations of it during our drama. Gerard was a wonderfully smug robot who never doubted his own ability!
In maths, we have been learning about prime, composite and square numbers. I am so proud of how far the class have come in their mathematical knowledge. They are excellent at asking questions and are greatly improved in using systematic approaches.
Our CC launch this week involved using our bodies in small groups to make models of old or new transport. The children were excellent at establishing roles within the groups and thinking about being a part rather than the whole on their own.
Golden time this week was parachute games. Whilst they are usually for the younger ones, 5HC seemed to really enjoy themselves. I won't be repeating it any time soon though, I don't think my ears can take it!
Date: 22nd Mar 2024 @ 4:25pm
Many children were very upset today as it was the last day of Miss Doherty's placement. They can be such a caring class and it was lovely to see how much they cared. We wish Miss Doherty all the best!
In English this week, we have been exploring different balanaced arguments, with the aim of writing one of our own next week. We have learned about the past perfect tense and various cohesive phrases that we can use to link different parts of the argument together.
In maths, we have been learning about the volume of cuboids. Some children took a while to understand why the formula involves multiplying the width, height and depth but we got there! I love how enthusiastic the class are about their maths learning!
Miss Doherty also taught a lovely wellbeing lesson this week about positive affirmations. The children wrote secret post-its to each other about what they like or admire. The atmosphere was calm and everyone was very kind to one another- definitely something we need to continue doing regularly!
I also thoroughly enjoyed speaking to all the parents at our progress evenings this week. I hope you found it useful and can join me in celebrating the children's successes.
I can't believe its nearly Easter! Have a great weekend.
Date: 15th Mar 2024 @ 2:09pm
Last week at Ravensbury, we celebrated World Book day. The staff in year 5 came in dressed as characters from our current text - Toro! Toro! It was lovely to see the childrne in costumes celebrating their favourite book characters and others who came dressed for a comfy day of reading.
We began the day by moving all the tables and chairs to the side of the room to make space for lots of arts and crafts! We made book characters from cardboard tubes, including an excellent superhero and cats. We then went downstairs to take part in a parent session of get comfy and read. Thank you to all the parents who joined us. We even saw some groups of chidlren reading to one another which was really heart warming to see.
We also visited year 1 to share some books with the younger children. 5HC always impresses me by their ability to think from the younger children's points of view. They are calm and welcoming and are very happy to read to little ones and engage them as best they can.
Many of the children began the day saying they don't enjoy reading but I think we might have been able to change their minds!
Date: 16th Feb 2024 @ 4:20pm
And just like that, the half term is over and we are half way through the year!
This week, we finished editing and improving our non-chronological reports. The children were so knowledgeable and eager to share their learning.
We have also finished multiplying decimals by using our knowledge of place value and have briefly moved on to dividing decimals. I have been so impressed with their understanding of place value and how they can apply it to this type of question. It was a pleasure to teach it!
And we also enjoyed a visit from some Ancient Greeks! We had a full day with them which included a short play about Hades and Persephone, making some clay tiles and learning about the two city states of Athens and Sparta. Surprisingly, most children said they'd prefer to join Athens. We seem to have a class full of actors, philosophers and artists!
Wishing everyone a very enjoyable but restful week off!
Date: 21st Jan 2024 @ 4:24pm
Well, another busy week has flown by in the blink of an eye! On Wednesday, we had the joy of being allowed ten minutes play in the snow before it all turned to mush and ice. We even built a little snowman.
The class also enjoyed the science lesson which often becomes a popular memory of year 5 - we were trying to identify the children from their baby photos. We talked about what features change as we get older (size, colour of hair, teeth) and things that don't (shape of body parts like face, hands, eyes). There were a couple that stumped everyone and others who were immediately recognizable.
Next week, we are going to be writing our Greek myths and learning about scaling in maths.
Date: 12th Jan 2024 @ 4:56pm
The week feels like its disappeared in a whirl of writing, maths and Ancient Greeks!
In writing, we have created some very scary monsters in preparation for writing a story inspired by a greek myth. We wrote two descriptive sentences and then inputted them into bing image creator. They are going to be excellent inspiration, I'm sure.
In reading, we have started to get stuck into the ancient Greek myth of Heracles. The class were aware of Hercules - the Roman equivalent but they weren't aware of the ten tasks he had to complete so they are very enthusiastic about the exciting stories of him killing beasts.
In maths, we are working our way through learning about area and perimeter. I was so impressed with the class' ability to move from counting squares within a rectangle to find its area, to multiplying two sides to calculate it instead. Next week, we will be thinking about how to calculate the length of missing sides in composite rectilinear shapes so that we can calculate the area accurately.
And finally, today we went on a school trip to Manchester Art Gallery to take part in a drama workshop about Pandora's box. The staff were blown away by the exceptional levels of behaviour. It was the first time we've used public transport for a trip which caused a few concerns but I'm very pleased to say that we will be able to do more of this in the future. The children listened to adults, followed instructions in busy areas and were so sensible. It was by far, the proudest day I've had with this class since September. Well done 5HC!
Date: 5th Jan 2024 @ 6:01pm
Welcome back! I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas. We all (including the adults!) struggled to get back used to the early mornings this week but at least it was only three days!
We didn't take it easy in 5HC and got straight back into our maths learning. We have started by exploring perimeter. I was hugely impressed by the class' mental maths skills and how they were able to choose efficient methods of calculation for example, using multiplication to find the perimeter of a regular pentagon instead of repeated addition. Next week, we will be moving on to finding the area of rectangles and compound rectilinear shapes.
Please note that our PE days have changed. We will now be having our outdoor PE sessions on Wednesday afternoons and our indoor PE sessions on Friday afternoon. Please check the PE uniform which was sent out earlier this week in the newsletter.
Today, we sent home a permission letter for our trip to Manchester Art Gallery on Friday next week. We will be taking the tram so we will spend a bit of time next week, talking about manners and protocols for using public transport such as staying close to adults.
We can't wait to get stuck into our Ancient Greece learning! Have a great weekend.
Date: 24th Nov 2023 @ 3:57pm
We're over halfway through the half term! Where is the time going?!
This week was assessment week. The children worked so incredibly hard and really tried even though the tests were not easy. Some felt a little downhearted when they saw their results but as I explained to them, the tests are designed to cover the whole of the year 5 curriculum - much of which I haven't yet taught. They inform my teaching to help me decide what to focus on rather than test the chidlren. I will feed back all results next week at parents evening (please book an appointment via school spider if you haven't already).
We had a little time to finish off our inventions unit this week. I showed the class 'bing image creator'. You have to have an outlook account to use it so I suggested that if they wanted to use it, maybe they should with their parents at home. As a class, we used it to create visual representations of their designs by inputting a short description. The images created were absolutely amazing! I will send a copy home next week so the children can continue to practise their vocabulary and explanations.
We enjoyed a science experiement on Wednesday, testing the hardness and smoothness of different materials to find the most appropriate one for a food preparation area. The class identified that metal was the best choice because it is both hard (durable) and smooth (easy to clean). I've included some photos below.
Have a great weekend!
Date: 20th Nov 2023 @ 4:28pm
Last week seems a long time ago! I had a very busy weekend as many of us do around this time of year so I'm updating this blog later than usual.
Writing was all focused on our final write about our inventions. The class seemed to really enjoy this piece of writing and did a great job of it as a result! There were some really good attempts to include technical vocabulary such as gadget, prototype or design. The class edited their work on Friday morning and will be completing their final edits on Wednesday.
In reading, we were continuing to identiyf the features of non-fiction texts and how they help the reader. We also worked on the different reading strategies we can use to work out an unfamiliar word's meaning - word parts, prediction, semantic fields and context clues. The trouble was that many of the children in 5HC this year have a really good understanding of word meaning already so it can be hard to find ones they don't already know! Its certainly a good problem to have.
In maths, we started looking at strategies for written multiplication. The class worked through the partitioning, expanded and compact methods. They were particularly confident with expanded but we will now start encouraging them towards the short method as it is much more efficient - especially with increasingly larger numbers. If any parents would like an explanation of the method then please come and see me.
By a long way, Friday afternoon was absolutely the highlight of the week! We had practised the story of the hindu festival of Diwali about Rama and Sita. It became so much bigger than I ever intended because of the children's enthusiasm for the topic. In the end, we performed the show to year 1 and everyone did a great job! It wasn't easy as we had to do it via zoom given the current situation with illness in school but the class really stepped up and I was very proud.
And then to finish our week, the golden activity was trick shots. Each small group of children had the challenge of creating a trick shot and landing the ping pong ball in a cup. There was a little bit of frustration from some of the class but overall, they did a great job! Please take a look at the photos from Friday. We really did have a brilliant time! Our next golden time activity is dodgeball if the hall is free but chrome books if dodgeball isn't possible. Here's hoping the class earn lots of golden time!
Date: 10th Nov 2023 @ 5:08pm
Its the end of another busy week! We've had some really great highlights. I can see some members of our class maturing into such lovely individuals. It really is a pleasure to teach them. Thank you for continuing to support us as we make in roads with improvements in behaviour. Some children are still finding it tricky sometimes but I can see the effort they are putting in to keep things under control.
On Monday, we started the week with our purposeful play session when we focused on sharing. The children have one activity that they stick to for the session. They are rotated between sessions but they stay as one group. This helps them to build relationships with other children over a longer period of time and allows them to feel more secure by understanding what to expect. See below for some pictures of the session.
In reading, we have continued our learning about non-choronological reports on different inventions. We have learned about the wheel and identified key features of non-fiction texts.
In writing, we have learned about parenthesis, tier three vocabulary and some of the vocabulary they might encounter in non-fiction texts.
In maths, we have finished our unit on negative numbers. Today, we applied our understanding to bar and line graphs. It certainly wasn't easy but the level of perserverance was incredible! Ammanuel blew me away with his explanation of being above or below expectations and how this can be represented with positive and negaive numbers.
In golden time, we played some old-fashioned games including wink murder and duck, duck, goose. We had a great time, next time we will have to go outside for more space. I forget how much space a class of year 5 pupils needs!
Have a great weekend everyone!
Date: 3rd Nov 2023 @ 4:04pm
What a week! Its been a busy return to school and the holidays already feel like a long time ago but it means that we're nearly at Christmas!
In reading, we introduced our new text: inventions that changed the world. We enjoyed reading about lightbulbs and telephones whilst identifying what features help readers navigate the information in non-fiction texts.
In writing, we have had a go at using parenthesis. Next week, we will be having a go at applying this to the context of our new genre - explanation texts. It wasn't easy but we had some funny sentences about a boy riding a bike:
The boy, who had a parrot on his shoulder, rode his bike to school.
The boy, who was 440 feet tall, rode his bike to school.
The boy, who shouted hello, rode his bike to school.
In maths, we have been learning about negative numbers and how they are laid out on a number line. I was so impressed with their attitude to their learning that they earned lots of golden time in their lessons this week!
We have finished sketching different Victorian inventions for the front of our CC books so next week we will be able to launch our new topic properly!
Please remember to take a look at the parent overviews on the class page so you can see what year 5 will be learning about this half term and support your child with it.
Have a great weekend and stay safe around any bonfires or fireworks!
Date: 13th Oct 2023 @ 4:47pm
Apologies for the delay in getting these photos up. Its taken me a while to establish permission.
We had a great trip to Quarry Bank Mill in September. We went earlier than we would normally go but it has actually made a huge difference to the children's understanding of the Victorians. This has been so useful for their reading and writing around the factories and Oliver Twist.
They were able to experience the lives of an apprentice at the factory - where they slept, what they ate and where they learned. They also saw the process of how cotton was made on the huge (and noisy) looms and then finished the day with a dressing up session!
Date: 13th Oct 2023 @ 4:41pm
Its nearly the half term holidays!
We have had such a busy week full of different activities - a Windrush workshop as part of black history week, a freestyle football session with Rebaz and our first art session of year 5. It was so lovely to see so many children getting stuck in and trying out new skills.
In writing, we have been planning our factory inspector reports. The class seem to really enjoy using their 'posh' voices in formal tone and they have worked hard to learn some higher level vocabulary such as observe instead of watch and gather instead of get.
In reading, we have been enjoying non-fiction texts about victorian factories to inform our writing. We even had one that was all about Quarry Bank Mill!
In maths, we have been applying our learning of tenths and hundredths to money. We just need to work on securing our understanding of change by counting forwards on a number line.
Golden time this week was creative week. The class chose some colouring sheets to complete or to make a card to take home. We had a great time but I'm sure they're looking foward to popcorn and film golden time next week!
Have a great weekend!
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Date: 8th Oct 2023 @ 10:16pm
Another busy week finished off!
In English, we have started a new unit about formal reports. We looked at (a simplified version of) Ravensbury's last ofsted report to understand some of the formal language we come across in reports. We also enjoyed a little role play as if we were in a factory which was being inspected.
In maths, we have finished our units on place value. The children have really worked hard to cement their understanding of tenths and hundredths in decimals and the value of different digits in decimal numbers.
5HC seem to really enjoy their dance lessons this half term too - we are working hard on developing a dance to reflect movements you might find in a factory.
For golden time this week, we got out lots and lots of lego! The children were free to build whatever they wanted but if they were lacking inspiration, I set them four challenges - build an animal, build something that flies, build a container but in only one colour and build the tallest tower. There were some brilliant ideas, I've included some photos below.
Date: 29th Sep 2023 @ 5:27pm
We've had such a busy week! It seems to have disappeared in the blink of an eye.
We have been thinking about how we can improve our writing (we've previously written some fantastic character descriptions based on good and bad charcters from Oliver Twist) and making sure we stick to the plan so that our writing makes sense and flows properly.
In maths, we have continued our place value work and thought about the link between hundredths as a fraction and as a decimal.
We have also started to learn about how paintings from the past make excellent first hand accounts, as long as we consider how reliable they are.
The class earned 25 minutes of golden time this week and it was a really lovely session. The class seem to enjoy playing with lego so I will aim to gather some larger sets together in preperation for next week.
Please remember to complete homework by Friday and read every night if you can! Some children stand the chance to complete their book marks on Friday and receive a prize from the prize box.
This half term is flying by!
Date: 15th Sep 2023 @ 4:42pm
Welcome back to school! We have just finished our first full week of year 5. Its been a bit of a whirlwind but I'm excited for what's to come this year. We have completed our first session of purposeful play, we've started reading Oliver Twist and we have begun to think about how we could describe two of the characters effectively. In maths, we have also been reviewing some of our year 4 learning about tenths.
There is a strong emphasis this year on behaviour management. We have spent a good amount of time on ensuring that routines are in place and that children understand the appropriate times for them to be talking to others. Reflective language and emotional regulation will also feature heavily in our time at school this year so we can develop skills in managing our emotions to enable us to continue learning effectively.
We are truely hitting the group running with our first trip on Monday. It was initially booked for later in September but unfortunately, the venue had to bring our visit forward. I've no doubt that it will benefit the class enormously and they will be able to use what they learn in their writing and CC work.
The children have come back in with a fantastic attitude to their learning - long may it continue!
What We Are Learning in Summer 2
Date: 5th Jun 2023 @ 9:46pm
The parent overview for the summer 2 half term is now uploaded to the class page. Please take a look so you can think about how to support your child's learning. We will also be sending paper copies home this week.
Date: 5th Jun 2023 @ 9:43pm
Before the holidays (which already seem a long way behind us), we had a full sicence day to finish off our space topic. 5CR learned how to make a model of the sun, moon and earth and to demonstrate how day and night is formed. We established that the moon is almost always there somewhere, its just that we don't see it during the day. Later on, we explored time zones by relating it to the three zoom calls we'd had from others around the world. And finally, we made some shadow clocks and sundials. It was a lot to fit into a day but they children really engaged and, I think and hope, learned a lot!
Date: 5th May 2023 @ 4:12pm
We have had a most wonderful day today, celebrating the coronation of King Charles III. This morning, we spent some time making crowns and placemats. We also took selfies with King Charlie and planted sunflowers in recognition of the ecological work he does. This afternoon, we spent some time making bunting, colouring in or making coronation baskets to carry our things home in. We also had some time outside playing traditional games such as hook a duck, tin can alley or snakes and ladders.
I thoroughly enjoyed having a day off timetable to spend some time with all the children in the class and I think they enjoyed themselves too. We hope they enjoy everything they brought home today, including the special commemoration badge.
Date: 26th Apr 2023 @ 10:53am
On Friday, we started our Stop Motion Animation unit in Computing. The class learned about the first versions of animation which included flip books, zoetropes and thaumatropes. Then, we had a go at making one of our own thaumatropes. To do this, we had to cut out two circles and stick them to card, attach some string to both sides and draw a picture on either side of the card disc.
When we twisted the string, the pictures flipped quickly which tricked ours brain into seeing one image instead of two. Mrs. Caine's didn't work very well because one of the images was upside down but the children used that as a learning point to make sure theirs were better!
Date: 19th Apr 2023 @ 11:36am
The Summer 1 parent overview has been uploaded under the file section of the class page. Please take a look so you can see what year 5 will be learning about this half term and support your child by discussing their learning.
A copy of this will also be sent home at the end of the week.
Date: 10th Apr 2023 @ 3:54pm
5CR have worked so hard this half term that I thought it would be nice to allow them to bring their own games into school for our final golden time of the Spring term. They all seemed to really enjoy playing board games together (thank you to those parents who allowed their children to bring something in) and I had a fabulous game of Jenga with Faith! I hope to make this a tradition for the final Friday of each half term!
Date: 17th Mar 2023 @ 4:31pm
We love learning about Science in 5CR so despite this only being a three day school week, we've packed in so much learning! On Tuesday, we had a special assembly and then a workshop to learn about the amazing scientist, Katherine Johnson. She worked on a lot of the maths and science involved in helping Neil Armstrong land on the moon. She faced incredible adversity due to her being a black woman in America but she achieved great things.We could all learn a thing or two from her!
We then learned how to make an actual compass from a magnet, needle and a bowl of water before using our learning in geography.
And finally, today we had a visit from two actual engineers who work on the Metrolink trams. They taught the children all about how the wheels on the trams have to be a certain shape so that they can follow the tracks without a steering wheel. Year 5 asked some fabulous questions so that they might feel inspired to become engineers when they are older.
What a busy week!
Date: 7th Mar 2023 @ 9:29pm
The last part of our unit on the Ancient Greeks was to create a clay tile in relief, depicting an event from the Ancient Olympics. We discussed various ways of making the scene to go on the tile using different shapes and then scratching them to make sure they stayed stuck. The children had some fabulous designs and followed the whole process through very carefully before finally evaluating their tiles and deciding what they would do differently next time.
Date: 7th Mar 2023 @ 9:26pm
We had such a fantastic day on Friday celebrating books! The day started with an assembly on cushions and rugs arranged around a stage so everyone got the chance to parade their costumes. The year 5 staff dressed up as characters from a midsummer night's dream. The children really seemed to enjoy my donkey head! It was so lovely to see so many children expressing their passion for a wide range of books - some I'd never even heard of!
Back in the classroom, we explored our focus text - the Rabbit Problem by Emily Gravett. Its a story about a lonely rabbit in a field who meets a 'friend' and very quickly, their family becomes far too big for the field. We imagined what it would be like for the farmer owner of the field watching each month as the population grew. There was some excellent drama as a result and we wrote our ideas as comments on a facebook group where the farmer had asked for help. There were some interesting ideas, for example teach the rabbits to dance and enter them on Britain's Got Talent, make a rabbit stew or form the world's first entirely rabbit football team!
In the afternoon, we buddied up with year 1 and the children shared some stories with them. It was absolutely adorable to see but I'm afraid I can't share the photos due to privacy permissions.
It was a packed day but certainly fun and I can't wait for World Book Day 2024!
