Spring Term

Welcome to Spring Term in 5M!

Reading

During the first part of this term, we are learning all about the continent of North America. Linking geography with English, we are reading the classic novel Holes.

Stanley Yelnats has bad luck (which is all because of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather).

When Stanley's bad luck unfairly lands him in the juvenile detention centre Camp Green Lake (a very weird place that isn't green and doesn't have a lake), he and his campmates Zer, X-Ray, Armpit, Squid, Magnet and Zigzag are forced to dig holes in order to build character...

But what are they really digging for?

Our writing is also linked to our class novel and we have written about an encounter with a yellow-spotted lizard. Our next learning journey is writing a letter to mom from Stanley's point of view.

We are excited that we will be watching the film when we have finished the book to see how it compares. 

RE

In RE, we are considering the question 'How can following God bring freedom and justice?' 

As part of this, we are learning about People of God with our focus on Moses. We have heard the story of Moses in parts and discussed his actions and emotions at each stage of his life. This week, we talked about how Moses felt when God (in the form of a burning bush) asked Moses to return to Egypt to persuade the Pharaoh to set his people free.

We used a conscience alley to help Moses decide whether to keep trying when the first 8 plagues weren't changing the Pharaoh's mind.

Hand To Mouth Visitors

The ladies at Hand To Mouth are regular visitors to our class and it was a joy to welcome them back this half term.

They did some Godly Play with us around the story of Abraham and Sarah. We then had time to get creative and represent an element of the story using paper, colours, scissors, sellotape, whatever we could find in the classroom.

Art

Our art project this term focuses on self portraits made from mixed media. To start this topic, we studied the work of artist Chila Kumari Singh Burman who describes herself as a 'Punjabi Liverpudlian' who likes to combine her Indian roots with popular culture. We used pictures and research to put together our own factfiles about her in our sketch books.

In our first lesson of this project, we had a go at drawing a single line self portrait, then we wrote lyrics over the top of the image we had created. We used words from 'Proud' (Heather Small) and 'This Is Me' (from the Greatest Showman.

Children's Mental Health Week

We had a fantastic Children's Mental Health Week in 5M.

We really enjoyed watching Rod the magician, who astounded us with his magic tricks during worship. Then Mrs Murphy challenged us to be kind to one of our classmates without them guessing who it was.

On Tuesday, we joined an online Zoom call on the theme Know Yourself, Grow Yourself. We learned how to be self aware using the acronym S.E.L.F to remember to use our senses, experiences, learning and feelings to learn more about ourselves and the people around us.

Science

After a week learning about Global Warming, we moved onto our new science topic of Properties of Materials. We spent some time talking about the meaning of words including transparent, transclucent, opaque, hard, soft, magnetic, then we found things in the classroom which these words described.

We loved experimenting with different materials in circuits to see whether they were insulators or conductors.

Maths - Numbers Day

It was challenges galore for children in 5M as we celebrated Numbers Day. Pupils were invited to wear items of clothing featuring numbers and we shared number games across the day.

We used playing cards in a game to create numbers to subtract. The winner was the child with the lowest difference. There were challenge cards posted around the classroom where children had to solve the number problems to find letters then solve the anagram. Some of our children created times table flowers. Finally, we had a Maths Jeopardy competition where children had to use their multiplication knowledge to solve calculations with different score ratings. The winners celebrated by taking home Idle 'You Superstar' postcards.

Welcome to the second half of our spring term in 5M!

Reading

Our second class novel, When The Sky Falls by Phil Earle, links to our history topic this half term - World War 2.

1941. War is raging. And one angry boy has been sent to the city, where bombers rule the skies. There, Joseph will live with Mrs F, a gruff woman with no fondness for children. Her only loves are the rundown zoo she owns and its mighty silverback gorilla, Adonis.

As the weeks pass, bonds deepen and secrets are revealed, but if the bombers set Adonis rampaging free, will either of them be able to end the life of the one thing they truly love? 

Once again, our writing this half term is linked to our class novel. We are writing a character description of the main boy in the story - Joseph. He's a complicated character, so we have plenty to write about. Then we are putting together a non-chronological report about Silverback Gorillas.

Other books we are using extracts from in our whole class reading sessions include, Resist by Tom Palmer, Letters From The Lighthouse by Emma Carroll and My Secret War Diary by Marcia Williams, as well as a variety of non-fiction texts and poetry.

Archbishops' Young Leaders Award

After a successful six months of volunteering as lunchtime Play Leaders,  it is time for 5M to hang up their hoops and skipping ropes to hand over to the other Y5 class and begin our next project.

We are taking part in the Young Leaders Award (YLA), which covers aspects of RE and PHSE, while encouraging the children to become good citizens and 'Be The Change' they want to see. 

In our first lesson, we considered the qualities or skills needed to be a good leader. We put this to the test with the cup challenge, where pupils had to work together to make a pyramid out of cups using a rubber bands tied together. To make it harder, it was a timed challenge. Have a look at the pictures below to see if they achieved it.

World Book Day

Thursday 6th of March was World Book Day and we celebrated in school with a focus on books from around the world. Children in 5M got dressed up as lots of different book characters. Here's a small selection from the day.

All children in school were given a paper plate and challenged to turn it into their favourite book character and enter a competition to win a small prize. The entries were outstanding. The Year 5 winner was Bethan from 5M, with her plate decorated in felt to represent the book No Ballet Shoes in Syria.

Other activities on the day included writing book recommendations,  DEAR sessions (Drop Everything And Read), a Book Scavenger Hunt, taking part in the BBC Live Lesson which came from the Big Yellow Bus in Bradford, a World Book Day assembly, lunchtime stories in the hall, reading buddies with our Y2 buddy class and at the end of the day, some children came back to school for hot chocolate and Bedtime Stories with Mrs Murphy, Tom Hardy, Mrs Russell and Stanley our school dog. Lots of children bought Murphy chocolate bars to see if they had won a Golden Ticket prize, which created a real buzz around school. A jam-packed but amazing day!