Where Have We Been?

This week, Year 5 have got together and discussed all of the different places we have previously visited. It was lovely to share our experiences and discuss a vast variety of different places. It was a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the places that we have been and we were amazed at the wealth of experiences we already have. 

 

How To Steal Christmas

This week, using 'The Grinch' as a basis, the children have developed their own instructional texts instructing him on how to steal Christmas! The children have applied their understanding of bullet points, imperative verbs and time connectives and as you can see, have created some beautiful pieces of work.

Fantastic Gymnastics!

This term Year 5 have been developing their ability to perform balances and counter balances with a partner in gymnastics! They have learnt what it means to show 'excellent gymnastics' with pointed fingers and toes and have developed an understanding of points of contact and canon and unison movements. 

 

ENO Music Project

Year 5 have been very lucky this term to have been chosen to participate in the English National Opera's Finish This… project which invited children to step into the role of an ENO Composer and respond to, and resolve, a purposefully unfinished operatic piece titled ‘Blue, Red, Yellow…’. The children were encouraged to immerse themselves into the Composer role, and embrace their imaginations and experiment with music, colours and text, to create their own bespoke response ending.

We Will Remember Them

Year 5 marked Remembrance Day with a special assembly this week. The children reflected on why we remember the brave people who gave their lives for us and considered how we can honour them. Each child across the school created a poppy which was put into a class reef which, as you can see below, was then put into a beautiful school display. Year 5 will be creating Remembrance Day poems this week and we are very much looking forward to sharing them with you.

Electricity

Year 5 have continued their learning of materials by investigating whether a material is an electrical insulator or an electrical conductor. They were set the challenge of helping a local football team with an issue with their floodlights and had to identify which material conducted electricity the best by considering the brightness of the bulb in the circuit. This was a fantastic chance for the children to consider safe practices when working with scientific equipment and they worked fantastically well in groups of three. 

Term Two: Mex-cellent

This term we will be diving into the world of Ancient Maya. We will be considering what daily-life would have been like for those in the Maya civilisation, identify inventions that we still use today, consider their religious beliefs and significant places and even take part in a Day of the Dead ceremony! This term we also have a variety of important themed days/weeks to take part in such as remembrance week, anti-bullying week, children in need and road safety week. We will also be taking part in an ENO Music Project and getting ready for Christmas with Christmas Craft Day!

 

Singing Festival

Year 5 were given a wonderful opportunity to sing as part of the Dover Singing Festival at Charlton Church on Wednesday 16^th October. After weeks of learning all about Fred and his furniture and Gilly Gilly who lived in Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen by the sea the children sang amazingly and if you were lucky enough to be at the church then I am sure you will agree that White Cliffs were the best school there!

Who will be our Anglo-Saxon Housecarl?

This week Year 5 have been writing persuasive speeches to persuade Earl Harold Godwinson to employ them as one of his trusted housecarls. A housecarl is similar to a modern-day bodyguard and the children have used a variety of persuasive devices, such as hyperbole, emotive language, repetition and alliteration, to ensure that the Earl cannot possibly say no. The children have been able to use a lot of their prior learning within this work and have discussed their experience of using a seax, dane axe and tear drop shield to make sure their application stands out. Some excellent examples of hyperbole (exaggeration) have been used this week, such as "I can spot trouble from miles away" and "I'm so good at my job that even the shadows feel safe!"

Please see some fantastic examples below.

Our Local Anglo-Saxon Burial Site

In History this week, the children have been learning about the Anglo-Saxon burial site that is closer to home than you might think! The children became archaeologists and had to look at Anglo-Saxon tombs and use the information presented to infer what their lives may have been like. We considered real artefacts that were found in Dover such as daggers, bowls, brooches, pins and beads. Our class decided that it is likely that the dagger was used for work rather than at war and that the bowl could have been used to prepare food. It is likely that the brooch and pin would have been used to hold a cloak or other clothing over their shoulders.

Art Week

Art Week in Year 5 this year has meant a host of exciting activities that celebrate art in many forms in different cultures and places around the world. The children have taken part in African Drumming, Columbian Dancing and Indian Drumming workshops this week which have been a lot of fun. In class, we have looked closely at Scandinavian Artwork and have created our own in the form of clay trolls! The Anglo-Saxons were the first group of people who recorded etchings of trolls and they are used a lot in Scandinavian countries. 

"My favourite part of this week has been the Columbian dancing. It felt like I was at the wedding and I learnt some Spanish" (Ergi)

"I loved making the trolls out of clay. I have got even better with using clay!" (Cayla)

"It was really fun to look at the different designs and techniques we can use for our clay trolls" (Lily)

"I really enjoyed the African drumming. We learned a lot of different things about how we make different sounds and how the drums were made" (Jaymie-Ann)

"I found out how the Anglo-Saxons were the first people to document images of trolls" (Soul)

Separating Materials

This week, in our first ever Science lesson together, Year 5 were set the challenge of separating a variety of materials while working as a group. We had to ask for equipment we thought would be useful and eventually we succeeded! We used magnets to separate the paper clips, a sieve to separate the rice, a funnel and filter paper to separate the sand and it took a long time to realise how to separate the salt from the water!

Welcome Back!

We are so looking forward to welcoming you all back to school this term. As you can see, our topic this term is the Anglo-Saxons! This topic has a History focus which amongst many other exciting things, means we will be taking on the role of archaeologists and investigating real artefacts! We will also be researching the Anglo-Saxon diet and recreating some of the meals they would have eaten in those days. Our English text this term is 'Anglo-Saxon boy' by Tony Bradman which is one of our favourite books. Will Magnus and his family survive the battle of 1066?

 

Year 5

We are the Fox Class and the Red Squirrel Class. On this page you will find information about what we are our learning.