Our fantastic finale - A 1940s day!

At the end of our topic, we had a 1940s day and we came to school dressed in 1940s attire! On the day, visitors John and Richard came in to talk to us about World War 2. Richard brought in lots of objects that were used in the war for us to look at and explore. There was a wide variety of things from toilet paper to soldiers’ uniforms to machine guns! We were also put through our paces when we learnt the drill that WW2 soldiers were taught. To end what had been a fun-filled day, we had a tea party, where we learnt to waltz and raised a plastic cup to celebrate VE day and the fact that the war had ended!

Wartime baking!

In DT, we looked at food and seasonality. We learnt about rationing in the war and how people supplemented their diets with fruit and vegetables that they had grown at home. As it's spring, we found out which vegetables are available and adapted a recipe to include these and ensure that we used ingredients available during WW2. We taste-tested the vegetables to choose the ones we thought were most enjoyable and then baked our own spring vegetable turnovers! We're pretty proud of the results. Masterchefs in the making!

Investigating light

In science, the children were asked to carry out three different experiments linked to light. They were given the instructions and equipment but had to think carefully about their results and what they showed, ready to feedback to the class.

Afterwards, we discussed our findings and thought about what our investigation taught us about light. We learnt that light travels in straight lines and can't pass through opaque objects. We also learnt that light can be reflected and change direction but that even when this occurs, it still travels in straight lines!

Munch 'n' Maths!

Thank you to those parents who joined us for our Munch 'n' Maths session! It was lovely to see you all and I know that the children enjoyed having you in school. If you missed the session and would like to know what was covered, please see the PDF below. We spent the morning looking at addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of fractions as this makes up an important part of the Year 5 and Year 6 curriculum. If you would like any more advice or support, please don't hesitate to get in touch! 

Pulling on our heart strings... 

Today in science, the children had the opportunity to dissect a pig's heart in order to have a closer look at the structure and identify the different parts that they had learnt about. The children were able to identify the right and left atrium and right and left ventricle as well as blood vessels such as the aorta. They were fascinated to see how thick the muscle around the heart was and how strong the heart strings were!

Questions, questions, questions!

In Guided Reading, we've been working on asking open-ended questions about the text that we've been reading to help us think more deeply about the characters, plot and setting. The children worked in groups to complete a question grid where they had to incorporate two question stems into each question! 

What was life like on the Home Front?

In our history lessons, we've been learning about the Home Front. We've looked at the Home Guard, changing roles of women, rationing, air raid precautions and "make do and mend!" We then used this knowledge to write a non-chronological report answering the questions: "What was life like on the Home Front?" or "How did people prepare for the war at home?" After drafting, the children had the chance to publish and present their work however they chose. We're very proud of the finished results!

RAF Cosford

On Tuesday, we went to RAF Cosford for the day and had a wonderful time! The children were fascinated to see the planes they've learnt about in real life and were surprised by how large they were, especially the bomber planes! We took part in a 4D cinema experience so got to experience what it might have been like to fly in the Battle of Britain, sat in a cockpit and had a workshop on the Blitz. The children asked a million questions and kept the museum staff very busy! They were beautifully behaved and were complimented on their knowledge and enthusiasm by the member of the team who led the workshop. Check out the pictures below - I think you can see from the smiles on everyone's faces how much we enjoyed the day!

Read 'n' Feed

Today was Y6's Read 'n' Feed session and it was lovely to see so many parents in school! From a teacher's perspective, it's also really lovely to stand back and watch you all work with your children - they absolutely love having you in school! There was a lot of enthusiasm for reading and learning in the hall today so thank you for your support!

If you weren't able to attend, please don't worry! We will be holding other parent sessions in the near future so keep an eye out for details on the newsletter. The slides from the presentation are below and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to send me an email, phone school or catch me on the playground! Miss Cutler

Musical maestros

In music, we've been developing our skills by learning how to play a tune on the glockenspiel. We looked at the song "Bacharach Anorak" which is a tune written in the style of Burt Bacharach and learnt a melody to play as an accompaniment. Later on in the half term, we're going to look at improvisation and compose our own melody using the C major scale. Check out how it's going so far!

The circulatory system!

In science, we've been looking at the circulatory system and the journey of the blood around the body. This was quite a tricky concept to get our heads around so we took the learning outside and got active! We drew a heart, pair of lungs and body on the playground and then got to work as the blood, moving around the body to collect oxygen (or tennis balls in this case!) from the lungs before travelling through the heart to be pumped to the rest of the body. Walking it through really helped us to understand the circulatory system better.

What lead to the outbreak of WW2?

In history, we've been looking at the significant events that lead to the beginning of WW2. The children were incredibly curious about how the world could have gone to war again so soon after WW1, knowing the heartache that war causes. They were fascinated to learn about the Treaty of Versailles and Hitler's rise to power in Germany. We created giant timelines to show the order of the key events and explore how they were linked. 

Multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000

In maths, we've been consolidating our multiplication and division skills by working with decimal numbers. To make sure that we understood, we created a human place value grid and moved the "numbers" into different columns to see how the value changed when we multiplied and divided. We found it was a lot easier with real numbers as they stay in the columns they're put in!

It's what's inside that counts!

In science, we kicked off our module on "Animals including Humans" by recapping some of our learning from lower down the school. We were given the challenge of showing what we knew about the organs in our body. We created life size drawings by drawing around each other and then arranged the organs to show where we thought they were in the body. We discussed their purpose and checked to see if we were right. It made for some interesting (and entertaining!) discussion!

Adventure in PE

Our PE module this half term is OAA (outdoor and adventure) and today was all about the adventure part! We took part in some team building activities, designed to build up trust and help us to work more efficiently as a team. We had lots of fun, which we think you can probably tell from the expressions on our faces!

We're poets and we know it!

Inspired by Angela Yardy's poem, we wrote our own alphabet poems about the war. We wrote them in her style and made sure that each line began with a consecutive letter in the alphabet. Some of us even took on the challenge to organise the poem in rhyming couplets. Check out our writing - we're very proud of it!

Performing poetry

In English, we've been looking at poetry about WW2. We've been collecting vocabulary that describes the war so that we can use it in our own writing. We looked specifically at a poem called "World War 2" by a poet called Angela Yardy. It was an alphabet poem where each line began with consecutive letters in the alphabet. As part of our work, we chose a section of the poem to learn off by heart and perform in groups! 

Playing detective for our Sparkly Start!

Our theme this term is "Battle of Britain" and the children were very excited to discover that they would be learning about WW2! Our sparkly start involved being history detectives and looking at a variety of artefacts from the war. Children were able to examine each object (gas masks, posters, hats, water bottles, ration books, suitcases, telephones and more!) and they tried to work out what the purpose may have been and who it might have belonged to or been for. This let us share what we already knew and ask questions about what we didn't know! Plus, it was fun playing dress up!