Week 8

We have been consolidating our knowledge about natural selection and adaptation by designing our own animals by combining different creatures with features and attributes that we think would be desirable.

After planning the main attributes and adaptations of our animal, we then drew them out, before using technology to create a virtual version of it!

Week 7

This week, we were lucky enough to visit Yorkshire Wildlife Park. Here, we learnt all about how the different animals are well adapted to suit their own habitats, along with how they hunt, feed and sleep. 

We then had a lesson with a wildlife expert, who went through the science behind adaptation and natural selection in more detail.

Week 6

This week, we have begun to explore different techniques we can use for describing settings within a narrative. We have looked at how we can use dashes and repetition to add dramatic effect to our writing.

On Friday, we worked on developing our imaginations by using our ears instead of our eyes to describe! We listened to a variety of different music from different films and thought of narratives which could fit the mood and tone. Here are just a few examples - just click on the links to hear the music:
Interstellar Main Theme - Piano

Hulk Theme - Craig Armstrong

Ludwig Göransson - Ancestral Plane (Black Panther)

Week 5

We have had our first parent topic session of the year and it was lovely to see so many getting involved in the learning of Class  5! We chose our favourite Galapagos animals and sculpted them from clay, then made habitats for them to live in from shoeboxes.

Week 4

In music, we began to learn all about notation and musical vocabulary. We learnt the beat value of: crotchets, quavers (not the crisps!) semi-quavers and minims. 
We then applied what we had learnt into a performance, using some fun and easy to remember words!

On Monday, we started the week by having a place value investigation, using number cards, to test our knowledge! We split into Kagen Partners, then worked together to verbally explain our reasoning for each problem, finding as many combinations as possible.

Week 3

This week, we have been digging deeper into the novel, 'Steelheart' and discussing the themes behind it.

In guided reading, we have been inferring the motives behind the actions of the character, 'Deathpoint' before analysing what it takes to write an effective character description. We were given a variety of character description extracts from books such as Hucklberry Finn and Harry Potter. We all noticed a common them throughout them: they made use of similes.

As a class, we discussed why we thought these were effective and worked out that similes help us to imagine what people or things we haven't seen yet look like, by comparing them to objects that are familiar to us; our brain is then able to make the link more easily.

In topic, we have been studying the work of Conrad Marten, who was the artist that followed Darwin on his Beagle voyage and sketched his findings. We concentrated on his painting of a Feugian man and the famous scene of Mount Tarn (we loved the coincidental name of this!)

We ended our week of hard work, by spending some time with our Class 1 buddies, teaching them some E-safety - how to stay safe when playing online! We then did some more coding together on Code-a-Pillar.

Week 2

This week has been exciting in school, as we were visited by the poet, Paul Cookson. He performed some of his favourite poems to us, which we loved joining in with, before giving us an insight into what inspires him and the basic techniques he uses to structure his work. We all loved Paul's enthusiasm, humour and the quirky flare he added to his work

We then had the opportunity to work with Paul and produced a poem in collaboration with him.

We have also had lots of fun in computing. We have begun learning to code Javascript, using Minecraft. We have learnt simple codes, then moved onto understanding how repeat loops can save us time when working.

Week 1 

It has been a brilliant week and an absolute pleasure to welcome the new Year 6 children into Class 5. We hit the ground running, with Miss Lassu, Mrs Goddard and Mrs Thompson all being extremely impressed with the behaviour, positive attitude and enthusiasm towards their learning!

This week, we have been focusing on our SMSC topic of 'Democracy.'

We have been finding out the meaning of 'democracy,' weighing up the pros and cons of our country following a democratic structure. We researched and developed an understanding of the process behind electing members of parliament, then looked into how bills must pass through the Houses of Commons, Houses of Lords and the Monarch (Queen!).

We then were given the question: 'Should the legal voting age be lowered?' and as a class, we debated - some agreed and some disagreed! Below is an example of some of our work: