Thomas Willingale School and Nursery
Spring Term
WB: 15.4.24
We have kicked started our maths learning this half term with decimals. We have learnt about tenths, hundredths and thousandths and their equivalences in fractions. Did you know that there are 10 tenths in one whole, 10 hundredths in 1 tenth and 10 thousandths in 1 hundredths. We have used these key facts to help us find other equivalences too!
In English we have been reading the portal story, Elf Road. We have used this story to help us empathise and imagine how characters feel when they travel through a portal and find themselves in another world. We also had the opportunity to imagine that we were the main character of Elf Road and carried out some 'hot seating'. In hot seating one person is in role and the other children get to ask them questions about how they felt as a result of events in the story. In a portal story the main character experiences many different feelings based on the events that happen in the story. To help us understand this in more detail we created a 'feelings graph. We also looked at the story structure of a portal story which then allowed us to plan our own portal stories. We are looking forward to writing our stories next week.
In Science, we have started our new topic animals including humans. We have learnt about the 7 stages of human development and what changes happened to us during each stage. Can you name the 7 stages of human development?
On Wednesday 17th of April, we had an assembly with a lovely lady from the charity, MIND. She spoke told us about how we can keep our minds healthy and what to do if we are having difficulties and need to talk to some one. She told us that are mental health is just as important as our physical health.
We hope you all have a lovely weekend!
Don't forget we start our swimming lessons on Monday 22nd of April.
Welcome back! We hope that you have all had a lovely holiday and are ready to start the Summer term with a bang! Can you believe that the children only have one full term left in Year 5! 
WK 18.3.24
Today, 22.3.24, in maths we have been exploring cubic centimetres, so that next week we can use this knowledge to help us find the volume of different 3D shapes.
Volume is the amount of space a 3D shape takes up.
We measure volume in cubic centimetres (cm3) or cubic metres (m3).
A cubic cm block takes up 1 cubic cm. This is written as 1 cm³.
You can work out the volume of a shape by multiplying height × width × depth.
If the shape is made of cubic cm blocks, you can count the cubes to find the shape's volume.
As mentioned last week, we have began learning to cross stitch. Despite the difficult of this skill we have thoroughly enjoyed this task. Many of us have given up our lunch times, in order to complete the task of cross stitch our first initial. Some of us have even gone on to cross stitch our second initial or even our full name. We have even been lucky enough to show our work Mrs May Townsend, who is the DT subject leader for the school.
Miss Burling and I have been so impressed by the children's dedication, growth mindset and general love for cross stitching. They really are super stars!
WK 11.3.24
It has been another jam packed week in year 5.
In DT, we have been designing and making our own volcanoes. When designing our volcano we had to think about the type of volcano we wanted to create, as there are 3 different types of volcanoes, and how we could use what we have learn in our Geography lessons about the structure of a volcano and apply this to our design. Once happy with our design we began making our volcanoes, we used household recyclable materials and then covered these with paper machie. In the final week of this half term we will be covering them with mod rock and then using a drip paint effect to show the lava erupting from the volcano.
Finally, we will then use mentos, food colouring and a soft drink to 'erupt' our volcanoes. Come back very soon to see our photos of this in action.
In Maths, this week we have been learning about area and perimeter of rectangles, polygons compound shapes. We learnt lots of new vocabulary this week, including: rectilinear, regular, irregular, compound, polygon. Can your children recall what these words mean?
Perimeter is the distance around the outside of a shape and area is the amount of space a 2D shape takes up. We also learnt that area is measure in squared units. Along side this we also had the opportunity to practise using a ruler accurately and converting units of measure.
In Computing, we have been learning about coding, using Scratch. Coding is the process of creating instructions to communicate with computers. It is a creative process that tells a computer program what actions to perform so that you can create a particular outcome. Coding is a great opportunity for children of all ages to develop their problem-solving and critical thinking skills, while building the necessary focus and organization to see projects through to completion. Coding usually begins with drag-and-drop visual programming in which children connect blocks together to make programs.
We have thoroughly enjoyed this unit and are looking forward to using scratch again in the future.
To conclude a very busy week, we have also been learning to cross stitch but we will tell you more about this next week.
WB: 4.3.24
It has been another busy week in Year 5!
In Maths, we have been learning to multiply fractions by integers and mixed numbers by integers. We have learnt different strategies to help us do this including: repeated addition, partitioning and the formal method of multiplying the numerator by the integer and the whole number by the integer.
This work also gave us an opportunity to reinforce our learning of converting mixed numbers to improper fractions and vice versa.
In Science, we have been learning about how some plants reproduce. We have learnt the names of the different parts of a flower and their functions. We then learn about the how these parts are involved in the pollination process and how fertilisation occurs. Did you know that pollination can occur in two ways? Either by insects or wind. They can move pollen from flower to flower or within the same flower. To conclude our lesson we worked in groups sorted statements and images according to whether they we about pollination by insects or wind.
Thursday 7th of March was a wonderful day as we celebrated World Book Day. We listened to audio books, made dens, drank hot chocolate, read with Year 1 and Nursery and we even had time to create a collage of Elmer (the elephant) and wrote our own bedtime stories.
Today, Friday the 8th of March, is International Women's Day. It is a day were the world comes together to celebrate and honour the achievements of women.
At Thomas Willingale we marked this occasion my joining in the national event 'Let Girls Play'. This event is lead by England Football working in partnership with Barclays bank.
Children from YR- Y6 joined Mrs Evans and a number of other teachers at lunchtime today to practise their football skills and play a football match. It was wonderful to see so many girls play a sport that for so long has been dominated by boys and men. #LetGirlsPlay.
WB 26.2.24
What a fabulous week it has been in Year 5!
On Tuesday, Year 5 visited the Natural History Museum and had a great day. They participated in an Earthquake and Volcano workshop. The children worked towards completing a 'NHM accredited Diploma in Earthquakes and Volcanoes' by saving a town from a volcanic eruption. The children successfully completed their mission and received a certificate as recognition of their achievements. With some time to spare, the children also had the opportunity to walk around the museum, bringing their learning in the classroom to life.
The rest of the week consisted of making rock cakes and other volcanic treats to sell at their enterprise stall, which was held on Friday 1st of March. The children demonstrated great teamwork and maturity, which resulted in Year 5 having a very successful enterprise!
Miss Burling and I are very proud of the children and everything they have achieved this week. They are a credit to themselves and are great ambassadors of Thomas Willingale School.
Keep up the good work Year 5!
The Natural History Museum
Enterprise
Welcome back.
We hope that you've had a restful half term and that the children are looking forward to returning to school.
WB 12.2.24
Today, Friday 16th of February, the children took part in a workshop. This was an NHS funded workshop called N.O.W's Time for Change. The workshop was lead by Leanne and the children had the opportunity to look at a number of different areas linked to their mental health and wellbeing. They included:
- Self esteem and confidence building
Understanding & regulating emotions (it's okay not to be okay)
Promoting positive relationships
Nurturing resilience
Emotional freedom tapping techniques
Breathing & movement
Embracing individuality
The children showed maturity and enthusiasm during the workshop and received a certificate for their participation in the workshop.
WB: 5.2.24
It has been another busy week in Year 5.
In English, we have been busy organising and presenting what we have learnt about earthquakes to create our explanation texts and we hope to have them finished very soon. We have really enjoyed learning about earthquakes.
This week is Children's Mental Health week.
What is children's mental health week?
Children's Mental Health Week, running from 5 to 11 February, is a national awareness event aiming to empower, equips and give a voice to all children and young people in the UK.
On Wednesday, to celebrate children's mental health week, we took part in a mental health workshop. This workshop was delivered by Marrisa, who works for the mental health charity, MIND. The workshop was all about the importance of looking after our mental health and what strategies we could use to manage difficult situations. We also had the opportunity to get creative and made paper dolls that celebrated our individual characteristics. We thoroughly enjoyed making these and celebrating what makes us special.
In Science this week, we have learnt about the different stages in a life cycle of a butterfly. There are four main stages in the life cycle of a butterfly. Do you know what they are?
Today, Thursday 8th of February, was a very exciting day because we had a visit from the Transport for London Police. They came into school to talk to us about how to be safe when travelling on the London underground and also what to do is faced with an emergency situation.
Tomorrow, some children will be heading to DPHS to take part in a sports hall athletics event. We would like to wish them the very best of luck and we hope that they have a wonderful time.
2.2.24- Number Day
What is Number Day?
NSPCC Number Day is an engaging and educational fundraising initiative that combines learning with fundraising. Participants are encouraged to embrace numbers and mathematics in creative and enjoyable ways.
We have had so much fun celebrating number day, we have designed number day t-shirts, completed 'do it' challenges set my Mrs Holland and played maths related board games.
Thank you to those families that have kindly donated to the NSPCC. Your support and donations are very much appreciated.
WB: 29.1.24
It has been another busy week in Year 5!
In Maths, we have been learning to add fractions. We began by adding fractions with the same denominator. We then moved on to adding fractions with different denominators. This was a little bit tricky for some of us as we need to have good knowledge of our multiples (times tables) so that we could find the lowest common denominator in order to be able to add the fractions. When adding fractions we only add the numerator and the number of parts in the whole doesn't change.
In Geography, we have been continuing with our learning about earthquakes. We have learnt about the devastating earthquake that happened in Haiti in 2010. We have also learnt about the devastation that earthquakes have caused around the world.
In English, we have been learning about explanation texts.
What is an explanation text?
An explanation text is a piece of non fiction writing that explains something. They might tell you how or why something happens, or give information on how to do something.
We have explored different explanation texts so that we were able to identify the features that they have in common. The features of an explanation text are:
Our explanation texts will be about earthquakes. We have used what we have learnt in Geography to help us plan our explanation texts and are very much looking forward to writing them next week.
In PE, we are learning how to play handball, so far we have learnt about the type of bounces that can be used, how to dribble the ball, how to defend and how to shoot.
Today, Friday 2nd of February, some children from year 5 have been invited to take part in a handball competition at DPHS, we know that they will have lots of fun!
Did you know that the earth's movement is measured on a seismograph. This movement is recorded in waves. There are P waves, S waves and surface waves. We used the different types of waves to create art work that would replicate this recording on a seismograph. We used pastels to draw our waves and then used water colours to paint in between the waves. We had to think carefully about the colour pallet that we used and 'mood' that we wanted to create within our picture.
Young Voices 2024
WB: 8.1.24
We have kick started the Spring term with our new topic Earthquakes, Zones and Volcanoes. We have been learning all about the different climates zones (biomes) around the world. There are six main climate zones. Ask your child to name them?
We have enjoyed locating the different climate zones on a map of the world, we have also used an atlas to identify which countries are in which climate zone. We have also been researching the different climate zones so that we can use this information next week in our poetry writing.
In Maths this have term we will be learning about fractions. We have started this week with looking at equivalent fraction of unit and non unit fractions. Next week we will be learning about improper fractions and mixed numbers and how we can convert from one to the other.
Our Science topic this half term is Living things and their Habitats. We will be learning about the life cycles of different animals. We are very much looking forward to learning about this.
We are very much looking forward to the spring term. We hope you are too!
Have a lovely weekend.
WB: 1.1.24
We hope that you've all had a lovely Christmas break and are all feeling nice and refreshed for the start of the Spring term.