In Year 5, we have been working hard on learning some new calculations during five a day for our morning work. Our teacher then writes the questions on the board that we might get stuck on to go through together. In literacy, we are focusing on Kick {our summer reading homework book }and learning about child labour. FACT: in some countries, children of 5yrs of age have to work! In maths, we are learning about place value and using grids to identify which digits are larger and smaller.

We started the year focusing on the book Katie and the Waterlily Pond by James Mayhew. In art, we have been drawing and painting waterlilies inspired by the book. In PE we have been running and training for the cross-country competition coming up for Year 5 and 6. In DT we have begun learning about bridges: Arch bridges, Beam bridges and Truss bridges. We even started to make our own Truss bridge out of spaghetti.

It has been a busy week in Year 5! On Tuesday, we had our Master Chef day. We had to get into groups of six and plan and make a three-course meal. The starter had to include mushrooms, the main minced beef and the dessert pineapple. We split into three groups throughout the day. One group cooked, one found out about how we get pineapples from field to fork and the other found out about beef. It was such a fun day and everyone enjoyed trying the food. In the afternoon, we made smoothies by riding a bike! We picked the fruit we wanted to include and then the pedalling powered the smoothie maker and mixed it to make the smoothie.

On Wednesday, we had Sports Day, and our favourite activity was the water slalom run, which was where you had to get a sponge, fill it with water and squeeze it into a bucket. Whilst we were doing this, the teachers squirted us with water guns. However, the teachers ended up getting wetter than some of us! 

On Thursday, it was Science day and we had a Harry Potter themed day. We had to plan and carry out an experiment linked to a flying car! We used helium balloons to experiment and find out how many people the flying car could carry. We used our previous science knowledge to think about what was happening in the experiment. In the afternoon, we got to visit the Wonderdome which was an amazing experience. The presenter took us on a tour of the solar system.

Year 5 had a fantastic day at the STEM centre at Airbus. We spent the day doing a variety of different activities. During the first activity, we learnt about the night sky and heard stories about how the star constellations were named. Next, we got creative and made a model of the earth, sun and moon that allowed us to demonstrate how they rotate and orbit.  We also had the opportunity to view the Mars Yard test area, where we saw the prototype rovers that Airbus engineers are testing as part of the ExoMars project. An area that was enjoyed by everyone was the Exploration Zone. Here we enjoyed using the AR sandbox, where you could make volcanoes erupt, using a robotic arm to build with boulders, gave each other electric shocks, as well as exploring lots of other fun scientific exhibits.

Year 5 started off the week with their Fantastic Finish. They had the challenge of making truss bridges with spaghetti. This was a task where they needed lots of perseverance and resilience to complete their finish product. Everyone worked well together and with the help of their grown ups they achieved their goal. 

After this, we carefully measured, cut and sanded the individually pieces of wood for our bridges. It was tricky to cut the diagonals for the support beams. We then used a glue gun to put our structure together before strengthening each corner with card triangles. We are really pleased with our final products.  

We have also been busy completing our games in Computing. We have managed to create games with multiple levels and have had fun playing each others. 

It has been a very busy week in Year 5. We have been learning two songs with students from the University of Hertfordshire. Sycamore have learnt a song based on the Amazon rainforest and Juniper learnt one about the Grand Canyon. We are looking forward to performing these to the rest of Key Stage 2 on Friday.

In Science, we have continued to learning about space. This week we found out how the planets move in our solar system. We went outside to map out the orbits of each planet. This helped us to see how each planets orbit time would differ. 

We were lucky enough to get a visit from the ducklings that have been in the Nursery for the last two weeks. 

World Book Day was packed with different activities. We enjoyed trying to find out who was behind each book in the 'Masked Reader' quiz. Also, we had some great conversations about our favourite books and used this to create our own reading river. 

Over the last 2 weeks, Year 5 have been investigating materials and their properties in science. We looked at the question 'are all liquids runny?' 

We got a number of different liquids and ran them down pieces of cardboard and used our observational skills to decide which were the most and least viscous of them. 

We got a bit messy but managed to do a great job and come up with a class ranking. In literacy, we have been doing some performance poetry. Looking at reading a poem fluently and to a beat, adding in some actions and adding some flair to the performance. We finished the week by putting the performance together to make our own video.