Thomas Willingale School and Nursery
Autumn Term
WB: 4.12.23
It has been such a fun week in Year 5, we have been so busy!
The Nutcracker
On Wednesday the 6th of December, children from Y3, 4, 5 and 6 had the opportunity to visit the Royal Opera House to watch the ballet, The Nutcracker. The Royal Opera House was magnificent and we thoroughly enjoyed our first experience of watching a ballet. A huge thank you to Mrs Bartels for making this all possible.
Santa Cha Cha and Pantomime
A huge thank you to the PTA who arranged a visit from Santa. We got to dance with him and he even gave us some gold chocolate coins. They were delicious.
The PTA also organised for us to watch a pantomime called Treasure Island. It was very funny and the children enjoyed it very much.
Today, to conclude a very busy week, we took part in a Santa Dash that was organised by Mrs Evans.
WB 27.11.23
No Pens Day
Wednesday 29th of November was 'No Pens Day'. To celebrate no pens day, there was a national focus on 'Show and Tell' thus giving children the opportunity to practise their speaking and listening skills. In year 5, the children brought in a number of different items that were special to them and shared why they were important with the rest of the class.
Miss Burling and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to what you had to say. Thank you for sharing some very special memories with us.
As we were not allowed to use pens in our Maths lesson either we created tangrams.
Do you know what a tangram is?
A tangram is a Chinese geometrical puzzle consisting of a square cut into seven pieces which can be arranged to make various other shapes.
Our tangrams were particularly special as they were made from toast, yes can you believe it... toasty tangrams.
WB 20.11.23
In Maths we have been learning how to multiply and divide by 10, 100 and 1000. We used place value grids to help us understand that when multiplying the digits move to the left and when dividing the digits move to the right.
In English we have been journalists and have written newspaper reports about the Ancient Olympics. Did you know that the first Ancient Olympic games was held in 776BC and only men were able to take part? The Ancient Olympics has had a significant impact on the Modern Day Olympics, which are now held every four years in different countries all around the world.
In RE this week we have been learning about Islamic patterns and their importance within the religion. Next week as part of our 'No Pens Day' we will be creating our own Islamic patterns using water colours.
WB: 6.11.23
Can you believe that it's Friday again? We hope you have all had a lovely week.
This week in Geography we have been using an atlas to locate Greece and its neighbouring countries, as this half term, as part of our Achievements and Legacies topic we will be learning about the Ancient Greeks.
In History, we have been looking at the main events that happened during the Ancient Greek times and placed these in chronological order to create a timeline. We have also learnt about the differences between the two major city states, Athens and Sparta. The Athenians lived in a democratic society whereas the Spartans were ruled by a king.
Did you know the Greeks were the founders of the Olympic games? They held the very first Olympic games in 776BC. The Olympics will be the focus for our newspaper writing next week.
In Art, have been learning to sketch lightly and use water colours to paint in order to combine lines and colour. We also thought carefully about the colours we used in order to enhance the mood of our piece of work.
WB: 30.10.23
Welcome back! We hope you had a lovely break and are ready for the exciting term ahead.
We started this week by finishing off our Mayan myths from before half-term. We couldn't wait to finish them off. We know that our teachers are really looking forward to reading our myths.
In maths, we have continued learning about negative numbers. We started the week by counting in different multiples. Then, we compared and ordered different negative numbers. Lastly, we had to find the difference between two given numbers. We have enjoyed learning about negative numbers, but we look forward to beginning our new unit on multiples next week.
The best way to remember something is by adding Jaffa Cakes! In Science, the children were exploring the phases of the moon. We learned that:
- The moon doesn’t shine, it reflects the light from the sun.
- The shape of the moon changes depending on how much light we can see reflecting off the moon.
- Waxing means the moon is getting bigger and waning means the moon is getting smaller.
- A crescent is smaller than a ½ and a gibbous is larger than a ½.
We represented our findings in a tasty way using Jaffa Cakes. We even got to eat our Jaffa cakes after- yummy!
Otter time in Aspen class
We hope you all have a lovely weekend and we look forward to sharing next weeks adventures with you!
WB: 16.10.23
And that's a wrap... our first half term in year 5 is complete.
It has been a very busy week and we have so much to share with you!
In Art this week we have been learning about Jackson Pollock. Jackson Pollock was an American painter who was a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his 'drip technique' of pouring or splashing paint onto a horizontal surface, enabling him to view and paint his canvases from all angles.
We used his 'drip technique' in order to create our own abstract art.
On Tuesday, we celebrated our Harvest festival with you. We hope you enjoyed our songs, prayers and poems.
In English, we have been busy writing our own Mayan myths, we have particularly enjoyed learning about suspense. In preparation for writing the build up (suspense) in our own myths we looked at an image of a Forbidden Forest. We used figurative language to describe the forest. Do you know what figurative language is?
Figurative language is the use of non-literal phrases or words to create further meaning in writing or speech. Figures of speech are an example of this, such as similes and metaphors. However other devices, such as alliteration, can also be used to communicate an image, meaning or idea.
To celebrate Aspen's effort in reading this term we enjoyed hot chocolate whilst doing OTTER time. We hope to see this continue across the whole of year 5.
WB 9.10.23
It has been another wonderful week in Year 5.
The children from Aspen class enjoyed sometime in the library this week. Sadly, Hawthorn were unable to visit the library as they had a music rehearsal in preparation for their Harvest Festival. We hope that you are all coming to watch!
In Computing this week we have been learning about 'online communication'. As classes, we discussed the advantages and disadvantages of online communication. We also looked at different online communication scenarios, we discussed whether they were positive or negative communication and what we would do if we ever receive negative communication online. The children showed great maturity towards this topic.
Black History workshop
In our workshop we looked at discrimination by doing freeze frames of unkind behaviour due to people seeing a difference in other people. We explored opinions from the past, times when black people were seen as different and less important. Was that fair? How does that make us feel today? Do we still see discrimination today?
Black History Month is an opportunity to celebrate how far we have come but a reminder of what sill needs to be done to improve our society. We all have a part to play.
WB 2.10.23
It has been another fun filled week in Year 5.
In PE this week we played a number of different TAG games to help us prepare for the up and coming TAG rugby festival.
In English we have been reading 'The Hero Twins' which is a Mayan myth. To help us remember the main events in the myth we created our very own story maps. The following day we then used these maps to help us retell the story. Mrs Porter and Miss Burling were very impressed with the detail of our retelling.
WB 25.9.23
It's been another busy week in Year 5.
In Science this week we have been learning about our Solar System. We learnt the names and order of the eight planets that form our solar system. We then recorded a few interesting facts about each planet on our posters.
Did you know that Mars is named after the Roman god of war, Mercury is the closest planet to the sun and is made from iron and rock and Saturn has 10756 days in a year.
The Solar System
For OTTER time this week the children enjoyed reading their books in the sunshine.
OTTER time
In English this week, the children have been using their research and plans to write their non chronological reports. They used a title to introduce the topic and then continued by using sub headings to organise their information.
The children used a range of subheadings: Mayan Homes, Mayan Clothing, Crop Farming, Mayan Games and many more to write a series of interesting facts about Mayan life.
Some of the facts of Mayan life caused quite a stir, the most poplar being that children under the age of 5 did not wear any clothes.
WB 18.9.23
It has been another busy week in Year 5.
This week in English we have been planning our non chronological report all about the Mayans. Can you name the different features of a non chronological report?
In Maths this week we have continued to learn about the place value of numbers up to 1,000,000. We have also been finding 1, 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000 more than any given number. This was tricky at times but we persevered and are very proud of ourselves.
Our Science topic this half term is Earth and Space. This week was have been discussing the shape of the planet Earth, as many years ago people believed that the Earth was flat but thanks to the work or the great philosopher Aristotle and digital images from space we now know that the Earth is spherical.
In Music we are busy learning our songs for our Harvest Festival.
WB 11.9.23
Here we are at the end of our second week in Year 5.
We have been busy in Maths learning about Place Value and extending our knowledge of numbers up to 10,000. We have been busy reading and writing numbers in words and numerals.
In History and Geography we started our new topic. Our topic for this term is called 'Achievements and Legacies'. We started this topic by exploring The Mayans. As Historians we have been gathering evidence from different sources. We presented our findings chronologically on a timeline. As geographers, we have been busy locating the main countries in Central America where the Mayans were located. Some of these are: Mexico, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador etc. Some of us even managed to locate some cities within these countries. Amazing!!! The children have shown a great interest in this topic and it is lovely to see.
In PE, we are learning about tag rugby. This we week we were practising how to throw and catch a rugby ball. We look forward to next weeks session.
Welcome to Year 5 we hope you have all had a wonderful Summer holiday and are looking forward to our journey together in Year 5.
