Year 5; Sphinx Class

This term we will be swimming. This will be on Tuesdays.

Daily reading – 20 minutes of a good quality text. This can be fiction or non – fiction. Please encourage reading for pleasure and enjoyment.

Doodle Maths – Complete set assignments, these will link to current learning topics or gaps in learning.

Doodle Spell – Weekly spellings, these will be tested on a Friday.

Spellings are currently being sent home as a paper copy while I await Doodle login details. If you need another copy, I have plenty of spares and they are update on the class window each week 

Red group: (Modal verbs)

can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, ought

Blue group: (-ly suffix)

gently, siply, humbly, horribly, terribly, possibly, incredibly, comfortably, probably

Orange group: (d sound)

blend, dressed, fiddle, ladder, made, middle

Follow the link for the Autumn Spelling Bee words. 

If your child would like to enter, they need to have got a score of 35 correct to get through to the Bee! This will be held at the end of term so get practising! 

Lights, Camera, Action. Please see the overview for this term’s learning. We will be embracing all things film! I am looking forward to seeing all the amazing work we will complete this term. 

Lights Camera Action Overview.pdf

What a wonderful first week back! It has been great hearing about all that has been going on over the summer holidays. I have enjoyed getting to know all the children and getting to see their personalities flourish! We have had a busy week settling in to new habits and routines. Thank you for the cooperation and patience while we settle in.

Well done to Isacc and Leon, our two Stars of the Week this week!

This week we have been given the absolute pleasure of participating in a STEM workshop sponsored by the RAF. We learned all about how AI can help Air Traffic Control in identifying UAPs (the new name for a UFO!). We also had the treat of recreating the moments the typhoons are sent to identify the UAPs and were able to automatically slingshot a paper airplane!

We also had our photo day and all children looked so smart! As the weather does start to tick further in to cold, wet and windy conditions, please ensure your child has a coat and spare trousers/shoes for outdoor play.

Well done to Molly and Jasper, our two Stars of the Week this week!

It's been another exciting week in Year 5. We kicked off our week with a pair of science experiments. One experiment was a short term experiment in water propagation. Hopefully in a week or so, we will have sprigs of herbs with roots forming showing the process of asexual plant reproduction. Our other experiment will hopefully bring colourful results in the spring - we planted 6 troughs with various spring bulbs. I have been so impressed with how the children have been showing responsibility and checking on their plant, assessing if it needs more, or even a fresh change of, water. 

Our topic lesson this week led us to become film critics of the highest standard, reviewing the cinematography, plot and characters of a variety of films. Somehow a Charlie Chaplin film from over 100 years ago still has the power to make us laugh!! 

Next week should give us some equally fun experiences and lessons with our European Day of Languages on Friday. We are going to be exploring Greece and sampling some Greek foods!! 

Well done to Reuben and Bella, our two Stars of the Week this week! 

This week has been an exciting week ending with our European Day of Languages (photos to be uploaded). We learnt information about Greece including where it is and some ancient facts about Greece. Did you know there are over 200 Greek islands?

We tried olives (didn't go down well!), tzatziki, Greek flatbread (received much better and a hit!), feta cheese, Greek yoghurt and pomegranate seeds! The bread was the favourite while the olives were collectively decided as the worst! Apologies if you've now been sent out to buy Greek flatbread ... 

This week I also sent out an email gathering interest for our residential. Thank you to all who have let me know your interest. Further details will be sent out with information on payment and residential site location soon.

Next week is our assessment week so we will be beavering away with lots of hard work. We are looking forward to completing some art in the style of Tim Burton and learning more about him and his films. 

Well done to Brody and Mackie who were our stars of the week this week!

This week in our MOTs, we have been practicing and recapping fractions. 

Adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators were a particular tough point. If you're child is still struggling and would like to complete some extra practice on this, BBC Bitesize has a great section of helpful videos and activities to work through:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z9n4k7h#zw... 

As well as a fun fractions game:

https://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math/fractions/ad...  

As we reach the end of Assessment Week, I want to say a huge well done to everyone! We have been completing assessments nearly everyday this week and they have been troopers! From these assessments, I will be able to better tailor morning tasks and additional sessions to work on areas of weakness and tricky topics from prior learning. As weeks go on, I will upload some useful links for some trickier areas too. 

The afternoons this week have been spent letting out creative sides shine through. We have drawn some Tim Burton inspired portraits and learnt all about the weird and wonderful Burton world! We've also made a start on Christmas card designs ... Christmas already!!! 

A few reminders and notices to be aware of:

- On Monday, information about the deposit for the residential will be sent out. The deposit will be paid through Parent Pay.

- Parents Evening appointments are now available to book through Arbor. If you have any issues with this, please speak to me and we will be able to sort it. 

For our assembly this term, we will be singing and performing the Monarchs song by Horrible Histories:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVYQ9nMNuYQ&list=R...

Term 2 overview.pdf

What a fantastic start to the term we have had! 

This week we've been exploring balanced arguments and have held debates to understand the 'for' and 'against' elements of an argument. These were centred around whether screens were making children lazy or not. We had some very inspired thoughts and these were put into rather persuasive arguments!! 

In Maths, we've moved on to our next unit focussing on decimals, in particular, 3 place value digits after zero. There are loads of fantastic games on Top Marks if you were after some more practice. 

It's been a very exciting week for performing arts this week too with auditions being held for the Christmas production, a start to our class assembly AND our Guy Fawkes disco (although the cha cha slide is still in need of some serious work ...) 

A few reminders and notices for the term ahead:

Next week is our Children in Need 25 challenge. We will be completing a 25 minute sponsored silence with 5 minutes of silence a day. If you would like to sponsor your child in being silent, please see the options on the sponsorship form sent home on Friday. Alternatively, please see Mrs Brock's email sent this week for further details. 

This term Year 5 will be swimming on Tuesday afternoons. Please make sure your child comes to school with their swim kit on Tuesdays.  

Our class assembly is being held on Thursday 27th November at 2:45pm. We are looking forward to showing off all our hard work that we are putting in to this term already! 

Over the holidays, the deposit payment went out for Pencelli, if you had any issues with this, please let me or Mrs Embling know ASAP.

This term will be the Christmas production (16.12, 17.12), there will be a Christmas disco (11.12) and lots more Christmas themed activities! Keep an eye out on the school site and emails for dates. 

This week has been filled with lots of fun activities. We've build 3D life cycles of both local and exotic animals, practiced our class assembly and even started to think about the biggie ... the Christmas production! We were also all very excited for the first swimming session of the term. The rain certainly made the idea of getting wet much easier!!! Due to traffic issues, the second group were not able to get their time in the pool this week but we will make sure they do next week. Swimming has replaced our Thursday PE for this term so only a swimming kit is needed on a Tuesday.

On Tuesday, we all went down to the local war memorial and paid our respects to all soldiers and war personnel on Remembrance Day. I was very impressed with the levels of respect maturity shown from all children during this.

As we reach the wet, muddy weather, please make sure your child has bought a spare pair of shoes and clothes that can get muddy for break times and lunch times. Unfortunately, if they don't have these, they will need to stay in the sheltered area/playground area, not on the field or forest.

What a wonderful week we've had in Year 5 this week!

It has been rehearsal central with practices for both our Christmas production and our class assembly. We are excited for you to see what we have achieved! A reminder that this is on Thursday next week at 2.45pm. 

Group 2 experienced their hour in the pool swimming, enjoying some games and challenges set by Diedre, our swimming coach. Thank you for your patience and understanding while we sorted out the traffic issue from last week. We are all back to normal with two half an hour sessions being held next week.

Stars of the week this week were: Ben for excellent effort in his learning this week and Enhar for always upholding class expectations and behaviour.