For our spelling test next week, children will be asked to spell a selection of words that they have previously learnt this year. Children should briefly recap each spelling focus and spend time consolidating their learning around these words. They may choose to focus on the words they spelt incorrectly when they were tested on them previously.
Our spelling test will be on Friday 16 December 2016.
This week we have two homeworks as normal (our final homework of 2016).
The first is Creative:
I can prove I use the 8Rs outside of school.
This homework will help children to see that the 8Rs are useful for life in general and not just learning. They could respond in numerous ways:
These are just a few, simple suggestions. I’m sure you, and your children, will have a wonderful array of creative responses to this statement.
The second is ‘Mathletics‘:
Children should complete these two tasks.
Again, if you have any problems, do not hesitate to contact me. I will endeavour to resolve them. However, some problems such as technical issues may be beyond my control.
Yesterday, in PE, Y5 became urban freestyle dancers.
We had a great time choreographing and performing an urban-style dance -off. We started by performing a section of the routine that we were given before creating our own short dance sequences in groups.
I was particularly impressed with the fantastic attitude shown by all of Y5 throughout the lesson. Despite dance not being everyone’s favourite PE subject, they all got involved, gave it a go and, most importantly, had fun. It’s important that we challenge ourselves to do things we might not always do on a regular basis – taking a ‘safe risk’, you could say.
Here’s a collage of pictures from the lesson. You might not recognise some of us as our urban dancer alter-egos!
This week, as usual, we have two homeworks. Both pieces are due on Thursday 08 December 2016.
The first is Talk Time:
I can reflect on my start to the year.
This links to our current SEAL theme: The 8 Rs for learning. It is an opportunity for children to think about their own learning and their attitude towards it. In class, we reflect a lot on our learning and Y5 are very good at this. They are honest and are not afraid to admit to making mistakes: this will undoubtedly make them better learners in the future. I’d like them to be as honest in this reflection as possible. Is their attitude consistent across the day/week? Is it consistent across subjects? And most importantly, I’d like them to make suggestions for how they could improve. No matter what is said, this conversation should be positive as it should lead to improvements.
The second is Practice Makes Perfect.
I can show I understand word classes.
We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about word classes so far this year (nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, articles) and this is a chance for children to show that they have remembered this learning.
Children have been given a sheet to help them show their understanding.
This week, we started our new mini-topic: Forces. We’re focusing on levers and pulleys.
To begin with, we used some paper and a toy car to figure out what we we already know about forces. Help at home by asking your child what forces act on a toy car or a falling piece of paper.
After that, we investigated levers and pulleys. Levers and pulleys are essentially a mechanism to exert a larger amount of force with less effort. To demonstrate this we did a little experiment:
That’s right. Despite weighing less than half what I do, Noah was able to lift me up. Ask your child how this works?
We also thought about more common examples of levers and pulleys – ones we might use in everyday life like scissors (ask your child about how were going to remember the silent ‘c’ in the word scissors) and lifts.
Tomorrow, we’ll begin working on a little project, in which we’ll apply our knowledge of forces, levers and pulleys: (attempting) making a rube goldberg machine.
Hyphens
This week’s spelling activity focuses on the use of hyphens. Children should sort the compound adjectives below in to words that need a hyphen and those that don’t. They need to be careful though – I’ve tried to catch them out.
| Hyphen | No hyphen |
man-eating actionpacked heavy-metal good-luck
hand-picked over-sleep mine-field tip-toed
state-of-the-art under-whelmed re-organise re-do
reignite cooperate coown foot-ball
Next, children should add two more of their own to each column.
Our brilliant STEM week continued today as we were visited by a representative from Marks and Spencer’s. We learnt about one of their biggest sellers: ‘Melt in the Middle Chocolate Pudding’. After learning about the history of the organisation, we learnt all about the chocolate desserts.
For example, did you know emulsifiers are used to ensure the cake lasts longer? They help the natural oils and waters remain mixed so you don’t get an oily pudding. After a bit more theory we were lucky enough to do a taste test. We sampled the pudding and gave it scores out of 5 – full marks from me!
After that, we reflected on some learning from Monday afternoon about staying safe online. We made iMovies to inform others of the dangers around online hackers.
A collage of our learning.
As usual, children will have two homeworks this week. One of these is Mathletics.
Score 100 points on Mathletics.
Children can choose to score these points on ‘Live Mathletics’ or by completing activities (top tip: it’s quicker to score points on activities). I have asked children what they think is a reasonable amount of points to get and we all agreed that 1000 points was realistic, would improve learning and wouldn’t take too long.
Children should have completed their Mathletics activities by Thursday 01 December.
Words I commonly spell incorrectly
This week, we investigated the spelling mistakes children have made so far this year. Children found words they have spelled incorrectly, found out how it should be spelled, made a list of the mistakes they’ve made and identified the spelling patterns/rules they commonly make errors with.
I will not give them a word list this week. Instead, they should practise the words they identified as ones they commonly misspell and learn these. A partner will test them on these words on Friday 02 November.
Children should use this page to show which strategies they used to practise – we’ll look at even more strategies in our spelling lessons this week.
Neither did we. But it’s true: Lemons float and limes sink!
After we discovered this we predicted which objects would float and which objects wouldn’t float. Then, we investigated.
In our investigation, we learnt that whether an object floats has nothing to do with its weight, but its density. For example, in our investigation, we found that an empty can of coke floats and a full can of diet coke floats despite being heavier. Furthermore, a tiny paper clip didn’t float.
Right at the end of our lesson, some of the children enquired further:
We hadn’t planned to but we investigated it anyway – science is fun and we should enquire and investigate as much as possible. Ask your child what we found out!
Ask your child why a lemon floats but a lime sinks. They should be able to give you a ‘text-book’ answer including the words ‘density’ and ‘particles’.
