Northern Lights
Our idea for calendars this year, is based around The Northern Lights.
Since the beginning of time, people have told stories and legends to explain natural, but mysterious occurrences. The Northern Lights is one example. The Vikings thought the Northern Lights were caused by the shining weaponry of immortal warriors. The Alaskan Inuit people believed the lights were the souls of salmon, deer and other animals. The Menominee Indians thought the lights were the torches of giants living in the North.
Following a session finding out the facts, we set to work on designs for our calendars. I was amazed how much the children understood about the phenomenon of The Northern Lights.
The Northern Lights are actually caused by electrons from solar winds. They are attracted to the poles by the magnetic fields found there. They mix with gases in the atmosphere, causing the gases to glow. Solar flares can also cause the Northern Lights to appear.
Using chalks and smudging techniques, some great design began to emerge. The children chose colours carefully and mixed these to create a vision of light.
The finished gallery.
What a performance!
Well done to all the children for such a great Christmas performance this week. A lot of hard work has gone into this production and many many rehearsals.
Thank you also to all who came to watch. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
A few pictures below.
Cultural Creative Homework
Here are just a few of our creative homeworks from this week. It is great to see how proud the children are of their religions and cultural experiences. One homework, in particular, really had us engrossed and we were keen to learn more. One child came into school loaded with two very special cakes which are a part of a celebration held yearly in France.
Kings Day is also known as the Epiphany and takes place on January 6th. It’s the day the Three Kings are said to have presented their gifts to Jesus.
On this day, the three Wise Men arrived from the East, guided by the Star of Bethlehem, bearing gifts for the divine infant. In France, it is on 6 January that the Wise Men figurines in the nativity scene are placed around baby Jesus; in the lead up to this date, they were either hidden or being gradually moved closer and closer to the stable. French people also celebrate the Epiphany by eating the “galette des rois” (Kings’ cake) ceremoniously!
The cake is eaten most traditionally in northern France and is a flat round cake with an almond/butter filling called frangipane. The tradition is to bake a trinket or bean inside the cake. It’s called la fève in French, which means broad bean. That’s because originally they always baked a real broad bean inside the cake. Now the trinket is also called la fève.
Whoever gets the slice with la fève is King or Queen for the day. They’re given a golden cardboard crown to wear all day long. Their duty as king or queen is to buy or make the next galette des rois!
Other homeworks included:
- a Scratch project
- a cultural game
- places of worship
- rules for religions
.
Have a great break!
What a start to the year we’ve had! It’s been a pleasure to get to know all of you over the first term. I hope you all enjoy a well-deserved break and come back to school ready and fresh to learn on 02 January.
As it’s the holidays, there’s no homework this week but there is a few things I think you should try and do over the festive break:
- spend time with family
- spend time with friends
- play outside
- throw a snowball
- build a snowman
- read a book, or two (or three)
- do something nice for your parents or carers
- spend some time relaxing and being mindful – remember our workshop?
- investigate something you observe
- be polite to everyone you meet
- eat a few treats (and plenty of veggies!)
- and, last but not least, have a generally awesome two weeks
Well done, Year 5 – here’s to more hard work and fun in the new year!
DT – Puppets
Finally, we evaluated our finished products.
We thought about what went well and what we found difficult. We also considered what we would do differently if we were going to do it again.
DT – Puppets
Once we’d seen our puppets, we had to decorate them. We tried to follow our designs as closely as we could!
” My puppet changed a little bit but looked almost the same as my design. It had short, yellow hair and I used pen to make the cheeks look red.”
DT – Puppets
After we’d practised sewing, it was time to make our puppets using needles, thread and pieces of felt.
“The sewing was hard. I had to be resilient because I got a big knot of thread in my puppet so I had to start again!”
DT – Puppets
We’ve been designing and making puppets this half-term.
We started this project by first designing a purposeful, functional and appealing product.
DT – Puppets
After we’d designed our puppets, we practised tying knots, threading sewing needles and sewing using pieces of binka fabric.
“Putting the thread through the needle was tricky at first!”
“We had to use triple knots because one knot was too small and the thread came out.”
“At first it was a bit tricky but then I got the hang of it and was quite good! “
Creative Cultural Homeworks
Here are our favourite creative homeworks. It is great to see how proud the children are of their religions or how enthusiastic they are about their cultural experiences.
