English
Hornbeam had great fun developing their oracy skills this week. We wrote free verse poems and, using the correct intonation, tone and volume, read them aloud to the class!
Geography Day
The children started the day learning about the history of the Olympic Games - luckily our Ancient Greece knowledge helped us out tremendously! We tested our knowledge with a quiz before focussing in more detail on the current hosts, Japan.
As well as learning geographical facts about Japan, such as the tallest mountain, climate, culture and how long it would take to get there, we also looked more closely at the samurai. This then allowed us to create our own samurai helmets and decorate them with our Japanese initials!
In the afternoon, we focussed on our chosen country - Kenya. Luckily, our wonderful Mrs Huggins has been to Kenya so was able to bring in some beautiful items to show us! We learned about their culture, religion, climate and how they feel lucky to be able to attend school! We then went on to do some rice picking from Kenyan baskets, practise balancing a water carrier on our heads and played some music on the African drums! We also created some beautiful sunset landscapes!
What a busy day we had!
Maths Challenge Morning
Year 5 pupils were lucky enough to have a maths teacher from Preston Secondary school deliver a maths challenge morning. In teams, they answered questions which they may come across when they get to KS3. It is no surprise that the children did fantastically and had a great morning!
Sports Day!
Year 5 had a fantastic day competing across a range of sports - including Japanese themed activities to follow the Olympic Games this year.
It was unfortunate that the parents couldn't come and watch, but this didn't stop the children having a brilliant afternoon with lots of smiles, cheers and team spirit all round!
Year 5 had the pleasure of being sports leaders for our Global Games Day. We taught Year 3 and Year 4 children how to play a variety of games and understood the importance of leadership and giving clear instructions!
All activities were completed in bubbles and Year 5 children were socially distanced from the other year groups.
Visit to Melbury Estate
Year 5 had a fantastic day visiting Melbury Estate. We had the opportunity to look around the dairy farm and learned how the cows are looked after, where they are milked and how the farm produces their own energy from the waste!
We then moved to the estate where the children were lucky enough to try Venison sausages and look at deer and their antlers. We then met the game keeper who showed us some pheasant chicks and explained how he looked after the estate and managed the animals. Moving on from there, we learned about the variety of trees they have on the estate and were even told how to measure the height of a tree using just a stick and a tape measure! After that, we spoke to the butler who showed us the different parts of the beautiful house and explained when each part was built. He talked about how, in previous times, the family would ring for the butler and we even had a go at using an old telephone and bell before playing some croquet on the lawn!
Finally, we were lucky enough to watch the farrier in the stables remove and fit a horse shoe!
All of the children had such a fantastic day and, as always, did the school proud!
Year 5 were lucky enough to benefit from the opportunity to have a visit from local and popular personal trainer, Russ Wells. In this time, Russ talked about how he has created a successful business and not at any point let his disability hold him back. During the session Russ also discussed the importance of friendship, families, being your own person and not letting anyone restrict you from achieving exactly what you desire in life. Children also were encouraged to ask questions as they went along, to further understand the variety in life experiences of the community around us.
Russ works at Goldenstones Gym in Yeovil, under the name of RustyPT.
What a busy week we have had leading up to half term!
Hornbeam class attended a zoom meeting with two authors - Anna James and Nicola Skinner. They provided some great tips for those who are interested in writing their own books, as well as telling us how they came up with some of the characters in their own books!
We also completed our final lino prints based on the Victorian artist, William Morris. They look FANTASTIC! It has been great to see all of our planning and designing come together to create these masterpieces!
In science, we tested the affects of air resistance and made our own parachutes with different surface areas. We had great fun testing them to see which would fall to the floor first!
Finally, to end the week on a fantastic note, we had our crazy hair day! Well done to the children AND parents, who have obviously put a lot of effort into the crazy hairstyles!
6 lucky children were also invited to a tea party with Mrs Hodgson. There were beautiful table manners - nice to see the pinky fingers!
In Art, Year 5 have been following William Morris which links with our Victorian topic. They have been designing their own pictures, taking inspiration from nature, ready to print themselves in a few weeks. This has linked fantastically with Mental Health Awareness Week, which has a focus on connecting with nature.
Crime and Punishment
In our Crime and Punishment topic, the children have been looking at old maps of Victorian jails and following real life cases of Victorian children who have committed crimes. There were a few raised eyebrows when we discovered the punishment for stealing gooseberries!
As part of PSHE, we looked at how we communicate. We discussed how different phrases can be interpreted when said in different ways. Having the understanding of how our words could be interpreted in person and online means that we will take the time to stop and think before we speak or send messages.
The children had great fun role playing different scenarios!
Before half term, the Year 5 team set Hazel and Hornbeam children the challenge of running, walking or cycling as far as they could in the week's break to promote good physical and mental wellbeing. With our heavy and unavoidable reliance on technology since Christmas, we thought it a good idea to promote some time away from screens. Children were required to record their total distances and pass them over to their teachers.
Once we had all of the miles in, we decided to add them all together and see how far we had travelled as a collective. Our combined totals showed that we travelled a whopping 485.1 miles between us! This is the equivalent of travelling from Preston Primary to Amsterdam (via Calais and through Belgium), with a few miles left over! What an achievement!
National Marine Aquarium
Year 5 have enjoyed following the live lessons from the National Marine Aquarium. Over the past few weeks we have looked at underwater volcanoes and navigating the ocean. We had a go at making our own volcanoes, compasses and even did some density experiments!
Home and School Learning Weeks 1 to 3
The year 5 team have enjoyed all of the work and creative activities that have been sent in during these past few weeks - the dedication from everybody, whether in class or at home, has been wonderful! Well done!
Victorian Day
What a tremendous effort Hornbeam class made with their costumes, we had chimney sweeps, maids, the Suffragettes and even some gentry! We had great fun participating in lots of Victorian activities - the children even enjoyed their Victorian lessons! They were lucky enough to have a go at writing on slate as the Victorian children would have had to do. We picked our own Victorian names and, after practising our Victorian handwriting, made our own name tags.
After lunch we had played some Parlour games that included the memory tray game and "pass the slipper."
RE
As this weekend marked the beginning of advent, in Hornbeam class we created our own Christingles. We discussed the symbolism of each part before making our own!
Art
This week, Hornbeam have been looking at the artist Keith Haring, who was the inspiration for the Change4Life characters.
We had a look at examples of his work and had a go at creating our own.
Science
Hornbeam class have had great fun this week testing the properties of materials. We tested the hardness, solubility, transparency, response to magnets, electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity of a variety of materials. The overall favourite was definitely the hardness test - dropping a 1kg on an object, followed closely by attaching the objects to an electrical circuit! We confirmed our hypothesis that our metal objects would be good conductors and the rubber items would be good insulators.
Remembrance Day
After writing some thoughtful poems for Remembrance Day, Hornbeam have created a wonderful piece of art to display in our classroom.
African Drumming
To celebrate Black History Month, we had the opportunity to learn about the history and culture of African Drumming. After a quick demonstration showing us how to hold the drum in the correct position, we were able to play our own fantastic rhythms!
Maths
Recently, our maths has consisted of fractions, decimals and percentages. We have really challenged ourselves and we are now super quick at converting between each!
PE
We have been having great fun in PE over the last few weeks, incorporating a variety of skills such as balance and coordination into some competitive team games.
English
This week in English, we are looking at the language in poems. We have been spotting unfamiliar words in The Jaberwocky by Lewis Carroll and using context to replace them with our own choice of words. We will also be looking at the use of archaic language in William Blake's Tiger poem and using our skills to create our own!
Congratulations to our new language ambassadors for this year - Sophia, Natalia and Seri-Ann!
These children have been chosen to represent our school, as great role models for promoting languages across the school. Our Ambassadors play an important role in the organisation of Language Days in our school and closely work with teachers to promote the importance of learning a foreign language in primary schools. They enjoy their role as Language Ambassadors because they are proud of their cultural heritage and the languages they speak. This also gives them a chance to encourage other children to have the opportunity to speak a language that they do not learn in school.
This week, we celebrated National Poetry Day by reading out loud some of our favourite poems and explaining why we loved them.
Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes was a favourite amongst the class!
Geography
Over the last few weeks, Hornbeam have been learning the terminology of rivers by matching key words with their definitions. We have also been using an atlas to find the longest rivers in the world!
A special mention to Calleigh for wanting to do some extra maths and working out how long the rivers would be if we added all 15 of them together! (39,076 miles!)
Art
Hornbeam class have enjoyed learning about graffiti and debated the positives and negatives of the art. We also learnt all about the history of graffiti - that it was first found in Ancient Roman buildings!
Welcome Back!
What a fantastic first week we have had in Hornbeam class! It has been so lovely to see how well every single child has settled back into a "normal" school routine. Their enthusiasm for learning and infectious laughs have been refreshing and all the adults in Hornbeam class are very much looking forward to this year with the children!