This week has been a busy week for Y5. We started the new half-term with an author visit from Martin Impey. We learnt that Martin Impey has illustrated nearly 60 books. One of his most famous books is called The Blitz: One Family’s War, which has won several awards. In Literacy, we have been learning about the book the Explorer by Katherine Rundell so for our first day we all went outside to gather leaves and draw things outside then we had to describe them using our senses. We also made a raft out of sticks that we found outside. During guided reading this week, we created a remembrance poem titled ‘I Can Bring Peace by…’ We then typed up our poem and repeated the poem to fill our page. Finally, we used corks to create a poppy print over the top. In PE, Mr K taught us how to play archery. We first started off in teams, and we had to try to hit the board or the bullseye. Then we went against Mr K. He obviously won, but we did have a few people get higher than him.

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.