Swallows - Year 5

Welcome to the Summer Term

Who can save our blue planet?

Welcome back to the Summer term!  This term promises to be incredibly exciting, with our trip to Leeson House just around the corner.  Here's hoping for some good weather over the coming weeks!

I am excited to announce our new topic for the summer term.  We will be exploring Our Blue Planet and thinking about how we can help preserve our wonderful world for future generations.  We will be studying different regions of the world and thinking about the impact of human behaviour.

PE will be on Wednesdays (morning and afternoon), and don't forget 'Fit Friday' is back too!

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Many thanks

Mrs McCall

Science - plant reproduction

We have been looking at how plants reproduce in science this week and in order to further understand the structures of flowers, we completed a flower dissection.  We presented the flower parts and labelled them.

We looked at the male and female parts of a flower and talked about the process of pollination in plants.  We played the 'pollination game' using cheese puffs.  We all took on the role of a bee, collecting nectar from the flowers and in the process gathering 'pollen' on our fingers and hands.  We talked about how this pollen gets deposited on the stigma of other flowers and pollination occurs.

Leeson House 2018

Wow!  What an amazing time we had a Leeson House.  The children behaved brilliantly throughout and we were very lucky with the weather.

We arrived at Leeson and headed off on our first walk - down to Dancing Ledge, it was a steep (and windy) climb down, but very sheltered once we were on the ledge.  We enjoyed lunch and made some pebble sculptures, before heading back up again.  That bit was hard work!

We heard all sorts of stories about the local history as we slowly made our way back to the centre.

After a short interval, packing and making beds, we had some dinner and then off we went on our second walk of the day.  

We spent day two in the centre, orienteering in the grounds and playing team games - a great time was had by all and I was impressed with how much the children worked together to encourage one another.

On Wednesday we stayed in the classroom for about an hour until the weather improved and then headed off to Swanage for lunch.  It was a lovely walk and the sun eventually started to shine for us.  Following lunch, we had ice creams before picking up the minibus to take us back to Leeson and then onto our coach for the journey home.

Everyone had a fantastic time, there were smiles and laughter throughout out stay and I am sure you have heard plenty of wonderful stories - memories I know the children will treasure forever.

Dragon Eye DT

During Viking day, we all made some amazing 'dragon eyes' out of clay.  This week we found time to start painting them.  We used acrylic paints to create beautiful designs on our 'eyes' and I think you will agree they look amazing!

National Science Week 2018

We have been celebrating National Science week in class (and out of class) this week.  Luckily, Mr Twiss was due to come back to see us this week and we had another investigative lesson learning all about levers and thinking about 'work'.  Lots of questions were raised by the class and Mr Twiss had a great time!

On Thursday we had a great time at Shaftesbury Upper School for the first of our 'taster days'.  The children enjoyed history and languages, but perhaps the highlight was being allowed to use the Bunsen Burners to carry out a chemistry investigation.  A great time was had by all!

Safer Internet Day

We discussed the importance of keeping safe online and talked about how we put personal information online.  We talked about how we can keep ourselves safe when posting 'selfies' and the importance of remaining anonymous.

We explored a variety of real life problems using role play and thought about what woudl be the best response in a variety of scenarios.

FA skills with Mr Scott

We have had an amazing time learning new skills with Mr Scott.  We learnt the importance of using our bodies in a variety of ways when playing sports.  We talked about being agile and co-ordinated and looked at how we can improve our balance in order to have more control in game situations.

A visit from Santa?

We were very surprised when we came into the classroom this morning.  The chairs were knocked over and there were muddy footprints all over the table!  

We then stumbled across a pile of reindeer poo!  And most importantly, a letter from Father Christmas himself!

It appears Rudolph is unwell and Father Christmas is worried he will be unable to deliver all of the presents on time.  He asked for Swallows help finding a material which would provide the least amount of friction on the runners of his sleigh.

Swallows used their scientific knowledge to devise an experiment to test which materials would be best.  They have written their results in a letter to Santa which Alfie promises to deliver during his forthcoming trip to Lapland.

Football Fun!

Swallows Class were invited to help Year 3 improve their football skills today.  The children really enjoyed the opportunity to share their skills and knowledge and help other to improve their game.  I was really proud of their efforts and the way in which they coached the younger children.  They all made me feel very proud.

Well done to Doves Class too, who showed they really have what it takes to represent the school as they move into year 5 and 6!

Creating TV programmes using 'green screen technology'

Swallows Class have been enjoying using green screen technology to produce short episodes of a children's TV programme all about Space.  They have all planned their episodes and written play scripts with each person in their team being given a role to play, including the very important camera person!  One of the episodes has been shared below, however, most of the movie files are too large to put on the website, so please do come in and watch your child's episode when you have time.  

Friendship Week 2017

Swallows have been looking at friendships this week.  We have been talking about our experiences and sharing examples of what we consider to be a good friend. 

We watched an animation called 'For the Birds' and talked about the bullying issues it raised.  We discussed what we meant by bullying and used STOP to help us remember this (Several Times On Purpose).  We talked about the conversations the birds were having and discussed the impact of this on the Big Bird.

We acted out the animation adding our own dialogue.  After some discussion we wrote a persuasive letter to the smaller birds asking them to think about their behaviour and consider the impact of their actions.

We have talked about  the different ways we react to people who are being unkind and discussed some strategies for managing difficult situations.  We have also used role-play to act out some different scenarios.

The children felt empowered when everyone was asked to write something that they like about each member of the class on a piece of paper.  There were smiles all round as the children read the wonderful comments other children had written about them. We all shared the comments which gave us the biggest smile.

Finally we reflected upon all we had learnt over the week, these thoughts were added to our display which we will keep in the classroom to remind us of our work this week.

Solar System Homework

WOW!  What an amazing array of wonderful solar systems your children have created this half term!  

Everyone had a chance to talk to the class about their models, explaining how they had made them and including interesting facts about the planets.  We were super impressed with the amount of effort going into their homework and would like to thank all of the parents for their support with this.

We are trying to find imaginative ways of displaying all of the work in the classroom, so make sure you pop in to have a look at the work created.

Our Solar System

We had fun using fruit and vegetables to represent the planets in our Solar System.  We compared sizes and discussed how the gas giants are far larger than the inner planets which are made of rock.

We went outside to look at the distance between the planets, we were surprised by how vast our solar system is.  We talked about how we can sometimes see Mars and Venus in our night sky and how far away they look.  This gave the children some perspective about how far apart the planets are.

Harvest Service

We all really enjoyed the Harvest Service in church this week.  In case you missed it, or couldn't quite hear the words, below are the words your children generated and were then turned into the 'Harvest Rap'.

Now God made the world, a wonderful place

He made everything, full of taste

We thank Him for spuds, broccoli and peas

Everything that’s good for me.

So our God is great, we’ll give you a tour

He made our cereal, Weetabix and more

He gave us the sunshine and the honey bees

He gave us the flowers and awesome trees

Pumpkins, carrots, Brussel sprouts and beans

Parsnips, cabbage, all our greens

We hope to help those who are in need

And think less about, our own greed

So we ask you God to hear our plea

Help those who have, much less than me

Help the farmers who work to grow our food

We share with them our gratitude

So we give thanks to God this harvest time

And we hope you like our harvest rhyme

So we end our song and take off our hat

And we thank you for hearing our harvest rap

Mrs Day did mange to take a short video, which I will attempt to post on here for you shortly.

Swallows 1st Guitar Lesson

We all enjoyed our first guitar lesson today, we are learning classical guitar and found out all about the parts of our guitar today.  Once we felt confident we all had a practise of our first song.  Our guitar teacher was very patient and by the end we had learnt our first tune!

We have all been given a guitar to practise with at home and are already looking forward to next weeks lesson.  Guitars need to be back in school by next Wednesday to ensure nobody misses out on Friday.

Happy strumming Swallows!

Swallows Trip to Weymouth

We had an amazing day at Weymouth Outdoor Education Centre.  The children really threw themselves into their activites, enjoying Kayaking  and paddle boarding in the morning and rock climbing and caving in the afternoon.

Everyone challenged themselves to try something new and they all succeeded.  There were smiles all round as they reached the giddy heights of the climbing rock at the back of the centre and we were blessed with great weather despite the storm the night before!

A big well done to all of the children - I was so impressed with their excellent attitude and great teamwork!

Space Poetry

Today we started thinking about our space poetry. We listened to 'Space Oddity' by David Bowie and considered what the story was behind the lyrics.  We looked at other poems, and noticed how their meanings changed depending on how you 'performed' the poem.  In our pairs, we practised saying the poems out loud using expression and intonation to see if we could really understand the hidden meaning she in the words.  Some of us then performed the poems to the whole class.

Rights and Responsibilites - Our Class Charter

This week we have been thinking about our rights in the classroom and discussing our class charter.  We have thought about the responsibilities we all have in the classroom and the ways we can ensure we have equal rights.  We are hoping to have completed our class charter by the end of the week and it will be on display in the classroom for the rest of the year to remind us all of our responsibilities to one another.

We have also been discussing our whole school text 'Willy the Dreamer', talking about our hopes and dreams for the future.  We are looking forward to sharing this with you on Friday in our sharing assembly, 2:30pm in the church.