TTRS: ‘The TOURNAMENT Tyranny’ – Spr 1 Wk 5

SEALS – Hope the OUMTC (practice test) parts of TTRS are helping. I think it is finished now, so do check your profiles for the results! They really helped US in Year 5, last year… Keep up the progress, but I should FAR more of you scoring over 200. (‘Mr. Crickett is watching… always watching!!)

REMINDER: we would expect at least 200 points scored, each and every week. That should take you 15 – 20 mins of committed gameplay. Mr. C will be giving the scores to your teachers, each TUESDAY night, to see how people are doing (and to spot those NOT achieving! Hmmm…). The tournaments run weekly, from Thursday 7pm, to next Thursday, at 6:30pm.

Anyway, the scores for this week’s Tournament:

WINNERS were… PUFFINS, with 27,328, then CORMORANTS second (HOORAY!! AT LAST!!), with 19,598 (but you really have just 3 people to thank for this…) and SEALS last, with a weaker 8,860. PUFFINS WIN!!

And the Top Five are (receiving a merit): Eric (what a star, sir!), Sahaj (thumb, S… thumb!), Evelynn (getting back on form), Luciana & Nico!

TTRS: ‘The TOURNAMENT de force’ – Spr 1 Wk 4

Things are heating up now that SEALS are back in the mix: I’m seeing ‘new faces’ rising up the leaderboard, and we have a member of SEALS in the Top Five! And I’m seeing better progress in Cormarants’ efforts too. Being snappy and accurate with our tables will be CRUCIAL in the SATs next year, Year 5… keep upp the better effort!!

REMINDER: we would expect at least 200 points scored, each and every week. That should take you 15 – 20 mins of committed gameplay. Mr. C will be giving the scores to your teachers, each TUESDAY night, to see how people are doing (and to spot those NOT achieving! Hmmm…). The tournaments run weekly, from Thursday 7pm, to next Thursday, at 6:30pm.

Anyway, the scores for this week’s Tournament:

WINNERS were… PUFFINS, with 26,928 (VERY nice!), then SEALS second, with 8,052 and CORMORANTS last, with a weaker 4,448. PUFFINS WIN!!

And the Top Five are (receiving a merit): Sahaj, Luciana, Saira (welcome back) Nico, and Callum (great work, sir!!)

TTRS: ‘The TOURNAMENT trainer’ – Spr 1 Wk 3

This week sees the return of SEAL CLASS to the fray! Remember, Seals, the MTC test IS approaching… Year 5 can easily prove that constant practice on the TTRS tournament REALLY helped us last year!! (Psst… the MTC is almost EXACTLY like a TTRS session!)

REMINDER: we would expect at least 200 points scored, each and every week. That should take you 15 – 20 mins of committed gameplay. Mr. C will be giving the scores to your teachers, each TUESDAY night, to see how people are doing (and to spot those NOT achieving! Hmmm…). The tournaments run weekly, from Thursday 7pm, to next Thursday, at 6:30pm.

Anyway, the scores for this week’s Tournament:

WINNERS were… PUFFINS, with 36,536 (a stonkingly high number!), then SEALS second, with 8,155 and Cormorants last with a rather measly 4,944 (that’s not a strong score, Cormorants… you can do better). PUFFINS WIN!!

And the Top Five are (receiving a merit): Luciana, Sahaj (WITH an injured thumb!),Joshua C, Saira (way to go, S!) and Nico (wait, they’re ALL from Puffin class! Cormorants & Seals…)

What are we doing this week? (Cormorant & Puffin)

Last week was a success and children showed a fantastic attitude towards their learning, let’s have another great week!

This week we are learning:

Literacy

Our reading lesson is carrying on with the focus of ‘Prediction’ – using evidence from the text to infer and predict what we think might happen next, using this evidence to justify our opinion. ‘I think ….. might happen because in the text it says…’. Then, for the rest of the week, we will continue to apply and improve our persuasive writing techniques in our Charity event brochures, including: time adverbials, punctuating for the purpose of parenthesis (the use of extra information punctuated by brackets, commas or dashes).

Maths

We are continuing our learning surrounding fractions and decimals. We will be ordering and comparing decimals with up to three decimal places – using our prior knowledge of place value to reason with our comparisons. We will be learning to round decimal numbers to the nearest whole number, and the nearest one decimal place – applying our rhyme of ‘0-4 hit the floor, 5-9 touch the sky’ to help us round accurately. Next, we will solve fraction and decimals problems – connecting our knowledge of fractions to division (linking to our learning last week around improper and mixed number fractions). Finally, we will consolidate our learning in comparing and ordering fractions – using our knowledge of multiples and fractions to make links between different denominators in fractions.

History

We are continuing our topic of the Victorians. Last week, we learned about the Industrial Revolution and some of its inventions. This week, we are focusing on the expansion of the Railway network throughout Britain during the Victorian era, forming opinions about whether this expansion caused great change for Victorians.

Science

We will be defining the Earth’s tilt and axis in order to explain why we experience day and night. We will be learning about the Earth’s rotation over a 24-hour period and the Earth’s orbit around the sun over a 365 day period, linking this to our knowledge of seasons, too.

PSHE

We are beginning our learning surrounding friendships – in particular, learning about peer pressure and peer approval. We will be defining peer pressure, including positive peer pressure and negative peer pressure – comparing the differences and learning how we can recognise and address peer pressure.

Spanish

We are applying our words and phrases used in relation to food and drink. We are going to be having simple conversations, similar to what we would have when asking for food/drink in a shop.

D & T

We are going to be learning about different combining techniques, making our own dough and practising how to knead and roll the dough effectively.

How you can support your child’s learning at home:

  1. When your child is completing their reading homework, encourage your child to read to you and then ask them questions about how they think a character may be feeling and what they think the next action might be and WHY (using words and phrases from the text which give them clues)
  2. When asking your child about their day at school, encourage them to practice using time adverbials verbally: how something happened, when something happened, how often something happened. Also, you could encourage your child to persuade you to do something each day – maybe that’s why they should have a particular food at dinner time; why they should be allowed extra screen time or why you should take them to the park at the weekend!
  3. You could put a certain amount of coins in front of your child and ask them to say / write the number as a decimal – above 1 and smaller than 1. Perhaps if you’re putting sugar in your tea or you’re measuring something to go into a meal, you could ask your child to describe the amount you’re putting in (using fractions and decimals e.g. 1/4 or 0.25, 1 and 3/4 or 1.75).
  4. For history: if you get the bus, train or any public transport to/from school or when going somewhere in the week, ask your child to give their opinion about what life might be like without these things and why these things are/aren’t important.
  5. PSHE: Discuss peer pressure and peer approval with your child. As the children get older, peer pressure and the feeling of wanting to impress our friends may grow, discuss the potential positive and negative impacts of these with your child to aid their knowledge and understanding.

AND….TIMES TABLES ROCKSTARS!! Last week, Cormorant lost 😦 Not only for the competition will TTRS be benefitting them, but also in our learning at the moment, having secure knowledge of our times tables is extremely important for their success.

Let’s have a FANTASTIC week!! 🙂

Curious Cormorants…

We have had a great week of learning in Cormorant this week, we have been engaging our curiosity and asking lots of different questions which has been amazing.

In History, we learned about the Industrial Revolution – looking at different images and learning about its impacts in order to reach our own conclusion about whether the Victorian era was an era of great change.

In Science, we were learning to describe the shape of the Earth. We learned new vocabulary and phrases such as: oblate sphere and equatorial bulge.

In Computing, we began our topic of Stop Motion animation. We looked at different examples of stop motion clips, including Wallace and Gromit and the Lego Movie and decided the key features a stop motion must have to make it a good one.

Literacy lessons were teaching us about using different persuasive techniques in order to create a persuasive brochure for a charity event. We have started by looking at the name, location and activities we would include. Today, we started applying these techniques to write to describe our first activity.

In Maths, we have been learning about tenths, hundredths, thousandths; ordering and comparing decimals and fractions (which the children showed great resilience and growth mindset towards), and comparing decimals and fractions including improper fractions and mixed number fractions.

Finally, in Art, we started to look at the work of William Morris. We used rotational symmetry to create our own William Morris based art work.

Great work, Cormorants! Have a lovely weekend and don’t forget…TIMES TABLES ROCKSTARS!!! 🙂

Spellings List – Spring 1 Week 2 – Spring 1 Week 3

Year 5 Spelling words, these will be tested in a random order so beware!

PAST

PASSED

PROCEED

PRECEDE

AISLE

ISLE

ALOUD

ALLOWED

AFFECT

EFFECT

TTRS: ‘The TOURNAMENT tracker’ – Spr 1 Wk 2

Apologies for the gap in contact – a lengthy bout of Covid and Xmas break to blame… but WE’RE BACK ON IT!! Time to catch up with our tournaments in full. This week, somehow, SEALS class were left off the tournament: I’m investigating now, but HAVE scheduled a NEW tournament (already started), so all can play this week

REMINDER: we would expect at least 200 points scored, each and every week. That should take you 15 – 20 mins of committed gameplay. Mr. C will be giving the scores to your teachers, each TUESDAY night, to see how people are doing (and to spot those NOT achieving! Hmmm…). The tournaments run weekly, from Thursday 7pm, to next Thursday, at 6:30pm.

Anyway, the scores for this week’s Tournament:

WINNERS were… PUFFINS, with 22,206, then CORMORANTS second, with 3,2028 (that’s not a strong score, Cormorants… you can do better). PUFFINS WIN!!

And the Top Five are (receiving a merit): Sahaj, Nico, Luciana, Milan and Joshua C (wait, they’re ALL from Puffin class! Cormorants…)

Coming up in Cormorant & Puffin classes… w/c 15.01.24

Below, you will find a brief summary of what we will be learning this week.

Literacy

We have a focus of writing to persuade over the next few weeks. This week, we are learning about the key components that are included in persuasive writing. We are working towards writing our own persuasive piece of writing, in the form of a brochure, to persuade people to attend a charity event. This will have a focus on mindfulness techniques to promote positive mental health.

Maths

Our topic for the next few weeks in maths is Fractions and decimals. This week, we will be learning to compare and order fractions; recognise and write decimal numbers as fractions; to recognise and use thousandths to help us read and write decimal numbers before moving into recognising mixed numbers and improper fractions. It’s a busy week!

Computing

We are beginning to look at Stop Motion animations. We have seen these lots in things we will have watched – Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and the Lego movie as examples. We will be focusing on ‘what makes a good’ stop motion animation.

Science

In Science this term, we are focusing on the theme of the Earth, Moon & Sun. We are kicking this topic off by learning what an ‘oblate sphere’ is in order to accurately describe the shape of the Earth.

History

We are learning about the Victorian era. This week, we are going to be learning about a HUGE event in history – the Industrial Revolution. We will be assessing the causes and the results of the Industrial Revolution, including how we can still see the impact of this era in today’s society.

Geography

Linking to our learning in History, we will be looking at Croydon through the victorian era. The focus this week will be about the travel and transport in Croydon and assessing how transport and travel has transformed in Croydon, since the Victorian era.

R.E.

In R.E., we are carrying on our learning from last term, about Sikhism. We have already learned about the different Guru’s and their influence on the Sikh religion and now we are going to be learning about the Sikh holy building – the Gurdwara.

Art

This term in Art, we are learning about textiles. We are starting this topic by looking at how rotational symmetry is used by artists in textile design. Our focus artist this term is William Morris.

How your child’s learning can be supported at home:

  1. If you receive any brochures through the post, encourage your child to have a look at the brochures. What features do you notice? If it is an advertisement, how is the product being sold to the reader? What techniques are used to try and persuade the reader to buy/use the product?
  2. Encourage your child to notice any fractions in objects around the house or in the community. For example, using a clock to tell the time; recognising fractions in a pizza when it’s sliced up – what fraction has been eaten?; recognising decimals and fractions in money – what decimal is the price of the food shop (for example)? What might this look like as a fraction?
  3. If your child is having some screen time, why not encourage them to go onto google earth and explore the shape of the earth? Where are we? How does the Earth have to rotate to get to Australia or the USA?

And…as always, TTRS! Cormorant class have unfortunately been losing the competitions between Puffin and Seal class…:( Let’s see if this week we can surprise the other classes and win!!

Spellings List – Spring 1 Wk 1 to Spring 1 Wk 2

Here are this week’s 10 spellings (to be learnt and tested at the end of week – SPRING 1 WEEK 2)

Here is a useful file, containing all the statutory spellings for Year 5:

EMBARRASS

PRIVILEGE

CRITICISE

PARLIAMENT

SHOULDER

MISCHIEVOUS

CONVENIENCE

PREJUDICE

QUEUE

YACHT

Make sure to practice them thoroughly, Year 5… and in RANDOM ORDER (as that will be how we tackle them in our weekly tests!)

Reading Diary Questions: Spring 1 Wk 1 – Spring 1 Wk 2

Greetings, Year 5!

As mentioned weekly, the children will need to write a few comments about their book, in the comments section of their reading diary.

Question for Weeks Spring 1 Wk 1 to Spring 1 Wk 2:

FICTION 

Monday: 

How many of our recent YEAR 5 SPELLINGS can you find used? Always check current page & the ones before and after…

Tuesday: 

What ATMOSPHERE is the story trying to make you feel? Think about your emotive reaction…

Wednesday: 

Make up a word and give it a definition. How could you add it into the book you are currently reading?

Thursday: 

What would you like to persuade the author of your book of? What arguments would you use? (ex. I want to persuade CS Lewis to write another Narnia book because…)

Friday: 

Pick 2 characters, how do you predict their relationship will change and develop over the course of the story?

Weekend: 

What other story does this book remind you of and why?

NON-FICTION

Monday: 

Find some use of CONJUNCTIONS – “BONUS” if we can find examples of FANBOYS or ISAWAWABUB! Record the WHOLE sentence that uses them…

Tuesday: 

Find a weak example of a CAPTION: have a go at writing your OWN for the same image it showed…

Wednesday: 

What is a new vocabulary word you have found in your book? Can you find the definition in a dictionary?

Thursday: 

Create a question for the author and how you would persuade them to answer it (ex. Writing a thoughtful letter, showing your interest in the subject). 

Friday: 

Why is the subject of your book important? Give 3 reasons and explain. 

Weekend: 

Write down 3 facts you have learned from this book.

Please could we ensure that all children are bringing their reading diaries into school, every day; and that they are commenting in them, throughout the week. (And also throughout Half-term break!)

Kindest regards,

The Year 5 Team

Art – Drawing & Sculpture

This term, Year 5 have been learning about drawing and sculpting in Art. We have been looking at examples of structure, sketching our own ideas for our sculptures and learning a range of sculpting techniques – including wire manipulation and clay moulding techniques.

Today, we were able to put our final pieces together. We used wire (which the children had to fold, twist and coil), clay (which the children had to sculpt, mould and smooth) and a range of clay tools to add finer details to our sculptures. The children were creative, imaginative and really enjoyed getting creative (and messy!) to build their sculptures. Some examples are below: