Guess who?
Last Friday, we had another go at drawing our faces. We looked carefully at our facial features. Can you spot your child’s self-portrait?
James and the Giant Peach
Last week, we were reading at an extract from James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl.
We practised the skill of inference through ‘hot-seating’.
Hot-seating is where one child becomes a character and then the rest of the class asks the person questions about their behaviour, background, motivations or feelings.
The child then has to answer the questions in character!
Help at home by hot-seating with your child when reading their guided reading book!
We are historians!
This half term in topic, we are historians.
In history, we are learning about the Romans and Anglo-Saxons.
This is our vocabulary for this topic:
| chronology | arrangement of events or dates in time order |
| empire | a large group of countries or states ruled by an emperor |
| invasion | when a country or region is invaded by an armed force |
| tax | a payment you must make to a ruler or government |
| to resist | to stand up to or fight back against something |
| innovation | an improvement or replacement for something |
| bias | a viewpoint that may be based more on opinion than fact |
| kingdom | an area of land ruled by a monarch (a king or queen) |
Before we learn about how the Romans came to invade Britain and how the Anglo-Saxons lived after the Romans had left, we needed to learn about what the timeline of British history looks like.
A timeline shows us the chronological order of events.
We have learnt that before the Romans invaded, Britain was living in the Iron Age. The people who lived at this time were called Celts.
The Celts:
- lived in tribes
- were farmers
- lived in wooden, thatched huts
- had no rulers but did have chiefs
- made tools and weapons out of bronze and iron
After the Romans invaded, who had power in Britain changed. During the Iron Age, there were lots of tribes each with their own chief. However, in Roman Britain, there was one emperor who was in charge of the whole Roman Empire.
Help at home by asking how power changed from Iron Age Britain to Roman Britain.
Maths: Adding with different denominators
For the past two lessons, Year 5 have been learning how to add fractions with different denominators.
Firstly, we recapped Year 4 learning where we added fractions with the same denominator. 
We then moved on to fractions with different denominators. To add these types of fractions, we need to find equivalent fractions that have the same denominator. Once we have fractions that have the same denominators we can add them like we did previously. Have a look at a worked example.
Help at home: Have a go at these questions.
Spring term after-school clubs
*UPDATE*
We do have the following availability for clubs should your child wish to sign up.
The after-school clubs for this term are available for booking. We hope your child/children can get involved with our extra-curricular activities.
Please contact the office if you have any queries about the after-school clubs.
Living and Learning: D:side drug education visitor
This week, we had a visitor: D:side Dave! Dave came in to talk to Year 5 about the impacts of smoking and vaping.
First of all, we played a game of ‘Which is the most dangerous?’.
- Knives or a plastic cup?
- A toolbox or a Year 5 maths book?
- Smoking or vaping?
The discussion led us onto the impacts and risks of traditional smoking. Have a look at the key points:
We then talked about the different types of vapes and e.cigarettes and how their packaging is incredibly similar to some packaging for sweets. Take a closer look:
Finally, Dave spoke about how smoking and vaping can impact our health.
Help at home: How many different health impacts can you list in a minute?
Spring 1: Week 2
Maths
This week, we continued to engage with counting activities. A key focus this week has been the stable order principle – understanding that the position each number holds in our number sequence does not change. To help us understand the stable order principle, we used cubes, blocks and other resources to make staircase patterns.
When making our staircase patterns, we discovered that each number has a value of 1 more than the previous number.
Help at home: Make a staircase pattern at home. What will you use?
Poetry Picnic
This week’s poem is a short poem called I can build a snowman.
Literacy
This week, we continued to read Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. For our writing challenges, we created missing posters and drew pictures of some of the things we would pack if we went on a journey to the South Pole. We also enjoyed watching the live penguin cam at Edinburgh Zoo. 
Help at home: With an adult, use the internet to find out some interesting facts about penguins. If you don’t have access to the internet, you could look at a non-fiction book. Please bring your facts to school!
PE
On Tuesday, we enjoyed our PE session with a Foot-Tech coach. This half-term, we’ll be developing our fundamental movement skills: running, hopping, jumping and skipping.
Here’s a snapshot of some of our winter learning activities this week…
Home-link challenge
Year 2 trip to Abbey House Museum
What a great day! Year 2 learned a lot about the past by being transported back to Victorian Leeds. At Abbey House Museum, the children found out how people lived over 100 years ago and explored the street and all the shops, including the grocers, the chemists and an ironmongers.
Help at home by discussing how life was different in the past. Ask your child what they remember from our trip to Abbe House Museum.
Abbey House Museum trip
Year 1 had a tremendous day at Abbey House Museum which took us back in time to Victorian Leeds. We explored the street and all the shops, including the grocers, the chemists and an ironmongers. After that, we had a wonderful time eating our excellent lunches! In the afternoon, we explored the toy museum upstairs and even Mr McGriffiths found a toy he used to play with! The final part of the day was a workshop with a member of museum staff where we learnt about life in Victorian times. We were able to handle and use the artefacts and we learnt lots and lots.
Science – fossils!
Hello!
Our new science topic is Fossils!
Last week, we learnt about what a fossil is and what different fossils there are in the world.
A fossil is the remains or trace of a living thing that lived a very long time ago. They can be fossils of animals, plants or even animal poo!
We decided that fossils are important because they tell us a lot about the past. For example, we know a lot about dinosaurs, what they looked like and even what they ate because of fossils that we have found.
Mary Anning is our key scientist as she is known as one of the greatest fossil hunters to have ever lived. She found fossils in Lyme-Regis and she made amazing discoveries just from observing and studying them! We’ve been reading about her during our reading fluency sessions.
If you have a fossil at home that you are happy to bring into school, please do! We would love to have a look at different fossils in real life.
Help at home when you are travelling somewhere, quiz each other on whether an object is living or not living and whether it could be made into a fossil! Is this pen living? No! Is this rock living? No! Is this apple living?
