| 26/04/24 |
Kingfishers have enjoyed writing a diary entry in Maia's point of view about her thoughts on moving to Brazil. We really focused on emotive language and how we can 'show' and not 'tell' how Maia is feeling. Towards the end of the week the children focused on creating a description of the rainforest using expanded noun phrases. They even had the chance to draw their descriptions to life! The children have learnt how to calculate angles around a point and to add angles up to 180 degrees. They applied their learning by drawing the angles they can see on the playground too. In geography, we learnt about the location of different rainforests around the world and how to explain their location using geographic vocabulary. |
| 19/04/24 |
What a wonderful welcome back Kingfishers. This week we have enjoyed learning about our new topic 'Amazing Amazon'. Our new power of reading text is 'Journey to the river sea' and this week we have engaged in meaningful discussions on our thoughts of the cover, chapter 1 and setting. Towards the end of the week we have started planning a diary entry of Maia's experience of life in London and her thoughts on moving to Brazil. The children developed their location knowledge on rainforests around the world in geography as they begin to learn about South America in their new geography topic. What a thrilling P.E lesson we had practising our athletic skills in running and jumping. In music, we have started a new instrument - the ukulele - and are revising over notes we learnt in year 3 and 4. Our class had an amazing opportunity to visit Sky Academy studios on a tour of the site and participated in workshops creating their own news reports and movie trailers. What a busy week it has been. Have a relaxing weekend! |
| 22/03/24 |
What a wonderful week we have had in Kingfishers class. The children have been writing a biography about Henry VIII and we discussed the differences between an autobiography and a biography. The children enjoyed supplementing their history knowledge on Henry VIII's wives into their biographies and enhanced their sentences using a range of compound sentences, complex sentences and relative clauses. In science, we learnt about the changes that happen in the later adulthood stage of life and addressed the myths about the elderly in this stage of the human life cycle. The children have worked really hard in maths when calculating perimeter and area of different shapes. It was amazing to see the different ways the children used to work out the area of compound shapes. In DT we have been designing our own tudor tart and we are looking forward to make some delicious 'made of honour' tarts that King Henry VIII loved. Have a brilliant weekend and we will see you next week in our last week of term. |
| 15/03/24 |
This week we have enjoyed learning about Tudor entertainment and decided to use our research in creating a fact file. The children learnt about Tudor music, theatre, sports, jousting and public executions in how these events were the centre of entertainment. We had an engaging lesson revising all of our learning in fractions, decimals and percentages through Tagtiv8. It was wonderful seeing the children apply their knowledge of equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages by representing their learning with the number tags on the basketball court. In History, the children created a joint google slides presentation with our research on the lives of Henry VIII's 6 wives. I was so impressed with the children's ability to learn 3 new chords in music when playing the recorder. They learnt G, F and E and used these chords in different songs. To celebrate British Science Week, we conducted an experiment looking at particle sizes and how they affect our airways. Have a wonderful weekend! |
| 08/03/24 |
Kingfishers have been superb this week. We have learnt to round numbers to 1 decimal place or tenths and have started learning about percentages. What percentages can you see over the weekend? Can you work out some of them too, in shops? We enjoyed reading week and created a wonderful story about someone who got stuck. This is based on our picture book 'stuck' by Oliver Jeffers. The children loved getting to know context information about our author and how he got into writing children's books. This week we also learnt about the battle of Bosworth and why it was significant in the Tudor monarchy. Next week we are looking forward to Science week. Have a good weekend! |
| 01/03/24 |
This week the children have been working very hard in maths to work out decimal numbers, including tenths, hundredths and thousandths. They enjoyed using their learning on equivalent fractions and decimals during Tagtivate maths. In writing, we were writing a non-chronological report on crime and punishment during the Tudor era. The children were very intrigued by the different types of punishments that were used and we had a riveting discussion about the link between the crimes and punishments that were made. In Science, we learnt about the prenatal stage of the human life cycle and how the foetus grows at different points of development. The children shared their views on smoking during PSHE and how to avoid harmful things to keep healthy. In reading, we were learning about the Battle of Bosworth and children worked on their retrieval skills using skimming and scanning techniques. We are looking forward to this weekend as some of our children are attending the residential trip to Bowles. They are so excited to challenge themselves with new activities and to develop their teamworking skills. Have a brilliant weekend and we will see you all next week to celebrate book week at Darley Dene. |
| 09/02/24 |
All of the adults in Kingfishers are so proud of the children's effort, confidence and enthusiasm in preparing and performing the class assembly. Thank you to the families and friends of Kingfishers that came to support the children in the assembly. This week we have written a diary entry from Roger's perspective of all of the experiences he has encountered in 'I was a Rat'. The children really thought about Roger's emotions and how to link the events of the book using tense and time adverbials to chronologically share Roger's journey in first person perspective. The children have worked really hard in maths as they learnt how to multiply integers by different fractions and enjoyed fraction snap on our 'no pen day'. It was so wonderful seeing the different items the children bought in for show and tell day and they had an even better time telling their year 1 book buddies about their special items. We ended the week with an Sumerian Invention day and the children made Sumerian clay pot and clat tablets using ancient hieroglyphs. We wish you a brilliant break and we all look forward to seeing you after the half term. |
| 02/02/24 |
This week Kingfishers have had a wonderful time creating a product to sell for Enterprise week. After much deliberation and passionate pitches, the class voted on their favourite waffle pop flavour. They created a bar chart to represent the number of votes and the results showed that Dessert Dreams was the most popular waffle flavour. Tied in 2nd place with 8 votes each was Waffletacular and Melted Hearts. The children got so immersed in creating a product description for one of the three flavours. They used incredible language devices and the 5 senses to describe how tasty their waffles were going to be. We are so excited about having our Sumerian invention day next Friday to round up our topic on Ancient Sumer. We will see you all next week. |
| 26/01/24 |
This week, Kingfishers have enjoyed writing a persuasive argument about whether corporal punishment should be bought back in schools or not. We had a brilliant time interviewing Mr Moody, Mrs Gibson and Mr Calderwood (all the way from Australia) about their experiences growing up with corporal punishment in school. The children have been working tremendously hard learning how to use short division and finding the best efficient method to divide. Next week, we are looking forward to maths week and cannot wait to produce our class product for all the parents to see. Have a wonderful weekend. |
| 19/01/24 |
This week we have researched information about corporal punishment and have thought about how this affected Roger in our book. We thought of points to agree and disagree with the behaviour system in the 1800s and 1900s and compared them to the behaviour strategies at Darley Dene. The children have tested their knowledge of using long column multiplication by applying this method to solve word problems. We have been learning more about Ancient Sumer and how the city was built around rivers. We created a fact file game in our books on the information we have learnt so far about the Sumerians. Have a wonderful weekend Kingfishers, and we will see you next week. |
| 12/01/24 |
What a wonderful week we've had Kingfishers! Our brains have been 'bamboozled' by the mystery that is Roger the Rat (we think). We investigated his life in the novel and created a wanted poster to ask the public for help in finding more information about him and where he comes from. In maths we have been working very hard in learning how to use column multiplication when multiplying 2 digit numbers by 2 digit numbers. What is your favourite formal method to use, area model (grid method) or long column multiplication? We enjoyed starting gymnastics this week as we completed a circuit learning how to forward roll, balance and finish. It got very competetitve during Netball as our chest passes were challenged during a team activity game. The children were so intrigued by the inventions made in ancient Sumer and we are eager to find out next week about the other life changing inventions they created. Wrap up warm for the weekend and see you all next week! |
| 05/01/24 |
It is so wonderful to see so many of you back this New Year.I hope you had a brilliant Christmas and an even fabulous New Year. Kingfishers have been introduced to their new class book for this term 'I was a Rat!'. They have been so captivated by Roger's story so far and made insightful predictions about his journey in the book and his origins. Next week we will be starting P.E on Wednesday and the children need to come into school dressed in their sports kit. Have a lovely weekend, and we will see you all next week for a full week of learning ahead. |
| 15/12/23 |
This week we developed our maths knowledge by adding fractions with different denominators and adding those fractions that are bigger than 1. It took us a long time to remember the steps involved, but we rehearsed and practised adding fractions smaller and greater than 1. I am so impressed with the hard work that Kingfishers put into the Christmas Concert rehearsal and the performance at the church. It was so lovely seeing so many of you coming to support the children and share the Christmas cheer. The adults in Kingfishers were delighted to join the class in their Christmas dinner too. |
| 08/12/23 |
This week we have been getting creative in writing poems on how the character's feel about Salim's disappearance. The children used wonderful similes, metaphors and rhyming couplets to portray the confusion, guilt and sorrow the family felt. I was so impressed with their ideas and they got to publish their poems too. In maths we have been adding fractions with the same and different denominators. We used alot of our times table knowledge to convert the fractions so that they had the same denominator. The children have been working so hard to practise their Christmas concert songs for next week. We are looking forward to share with you the heartwarming songs they decided to sing to bring some Christmas cheer. We had our final dance lesson with Heather and we recorded the thrilling performance to share with you soon. Have a wonderful weekend and I will see you in the full final week of school next week. |
| 02/12/23 |
Kingfishers turned into superstar actors as they acted out different scenes from the London Eye Mystery book. We took freeze frame photos to develop our character analysis by adding direct quotes on our freeze frame pictures. The children loved being in role and immersed themselves further when we did hot seating. In maths we have continued looking at mixed numbers and improper fractions and learnt how to convert them into one another. We also ordered and sorted fractions that are less than 1. It was great seeing the children put their effort into dance this week (as they finished their choreography) and they went head to head with other groups in defending, shooting and attacking opponents in P.E. I wish you a wonderful first weekend of December,as we count down with our advent calendar the days till Christmas holidays. See you next week Kingfishers! |
| 24/11/23 |
This week has been eventful as we continued to practise for the KS2 Christmas concert, competed in the Times Table Rockstars Battle against the other year 5s in the Lumen schools and found out what really happened at the London Eye in our power for reading text. The children learnt to distinguish between reported and direct speech and included these examples in their newspaper reports. They really enjoyed hot seating as the class interviewed the different characters. We started a new topic in maths and have been exploring equivalent fractions this week. Have a wonderful weekend Kingfishers! |
| 17/11/23 |
This week we have been learning to multiply and divide by 10, 100, and 1000 and the children have been wonderful mathematicians. |
| 10/11/23 |
Kingfishers have been maths wizzes this week in finding the factors of different numbers and working out their common factors too. We explored square numbers and cube numbers as we began to learn these maths facts to strengthen our fluency recall. This helped when the class put their understanding of square numbers and factors by using the Tagtiv8 bands in their maths lesson to merge P.E and maths together. In writing we have been finding facts about the city of London and especially focusing on the london Eye as it is the main attraction in our book 'The mystery of the London Eye'. The children used these facts to create a persuasive leaflet about the different attractions in London. Kingfishers have started dance lessons for indoor P.E and have been loving the choreography from Heather as they made bold movements to the song 'This is Me' from the Greatest Showman. Have a wonderful weekend Kinfishers and we will see you next week. |
| 03/11/23 |
What a wonderful week back into the second half term. The children wrote some terrifying descriptions of a haunted house on Halloween, using various language techniques to describe the house through the 5 senses. They definitely gave me chills! We put our science hats on and conducted an experiment using torches and balls to represent Earth. We were investigating how day and night happens on Earth and and how it links with the time zones of other countries. The children made insightful predictions about our new book 'The London Eye Mystery' and where they thought Salim had disappeared to. They have to wait and see how the investigation will unfold this half term, as we learn more clues to uncover the truth about his sudden disappearance. In maths we have started our new topic on multiplication and division and looked at what a 'multiple' is. Keep practising your timetables on TTRS and reading daily. I look forward to seeing you all next week. |
| 13/10/23 |
This week we have been planning and writing a newspaper report on the chapters that we have read so far in Cosmic. Our favourite moments from the book have been Liam's Lies, his adventures as a pretend Dad with Florida Kirby and his 'crispy new world feeling' on the Cosmic ride. The children thought of some fantatsic and creative headlines and subheadings for their reports and used 3rd person pronouns throughout their writing. Mrs Hoyles and I were so impressed with their hardwork and engagement with their newspaper reports. Our maths knowledge was developed as we practise using mental strategies, column subtraction and addition also. It's so great to see the children keeping up with their times table rock stars too! We drew up our own solar system either following the heliocentric or gercentric model of the solar sytem. The children were fantastic at distinguishing the two models. Keep up the daily reading and have a happy HAPPY weekend Kingfishers and we will see you next week! |
| 06/10/23 |
This week we have been writing a persuasive advert on the theme park 'Infinity Park' that's in our book 'Cosmic'. The children used modal verbs, alliteration, onomatopoeia and exaggeration to convince their audience to go. They added colour and personalised the rides by using their name in a space pun and came up with some wonderful space themed attractions. Our maths knowledge was tested when rounding to the nearest 100,000 with numbers up to 100000! We rounded up are place value topic by discussing our strengths and improvements in this area. Next week we will be starting addition and subtraction in our maths topic before the half term starts. The children enjoyed having the mobile planetarium in our hall as they deepened their knowledge of space. We touched real moon rock and star gazed inside the dome to learn about the star constellations. Keep up the daily reading and have a happy HAPPY weekend Kingfishers and we will see you next week! |
| 29/09/23 |
This week we have been planning and writing a play script on the chapters we have read so far in 'Cosmic'. The children have even started to perform their scripts today and the performances will continue through to next week. In the scripts, we have been working on our stage directions, recall of events in the book and how we use our voice when we perform. In music, we have continued looking at space sounds inspired by David Bowie and we had a chace at exploring different sounds when composing our own space like rhythm. Our maths knowledge was tested when rounding to the nearest 10s, 100s and 1000s in numbers up to 100000! It was so lovely to see so many of you for our 'meet the Teacher event'. The children have been working very hard in their core lessons and it was great to share with you what we have been learning so far. When reading 'Cosmic' we found out where Liam's latest lie has found him - almost driving a car! Luckily, his dad was there to save him... this time! Our reading carousel this week has been focused on his adventures with Florida Kirby at their local shopping centre, where they are testing how much they can get away with Liam pretending to be Florida's dad. Keep up the daily reading and have a happy weekend Kingfishers and we will see you next week! |
| 22/09/23 |
This week we have been planning and writing a persuasive letter to one of the teachers in the school. We are hoping to convince them to let the Year 5's plan an exciting trip to a place that knows all about space. Hopefully, our persuasive writing will entice this teacher! In Science we have been distinguishing the difference between how a planet 'orbits' and 'rotates' around other planets in our solar system. We found the two models that were used to explain the movement of our solar system: the Geocentric and Heliocentric model. In particular, we had a go at recreating Galileo's telescope that helped prove the heliocentric model. Our maths knowledge was tested when practising how to partition numbers to 1 million! The class was very passionate about working out what each digit stands for in the place value chart. When reading 'Cosmic' we found out where Liam's latest lie has found him - pretending to be a Teacher! Our reading carousel this week has been focused on this chapter where Liam's 'brown candyfloss' hair got him into the staffroom at his new secondary school. Keep up the daily reading and have a happy weekend Kingfishers and we will see you next week! |
| 15/09/23 |
This week we put on our investigator hats and researched about the 8 different planets in our solar system in Science. Miss Nhambure has been blown away by some of the amazing facts we have found. Did you know that there is water on the moon? In maths, we have been building up our knowledge of place value and can read numbers up to 1,000,000! We have shown what the different numbers can look like representing them using deines and counters too. At the start of the week we set goals for our year in PSHE and talked about our vision for ourselves in year 5. We hope to build friendships, work hard and be resilient in all we do. In writing, we looked at the different features of a diary entry and identified these so we can include them when writing our own diary entries from Liam's point of view in our class book. We continued reading 'Cosmic' and started to predict the marvellous ways Liam can get back to Earth with his family. We're loooking forward to find out what happens next on his space journey and if his parents will find out where he really is. Have a wonderful weekend Kingfishers and we will see you next week! |
| 08/09/23 |
What a wonderful welcome it has been to the start to the school year. Kingfishers have settled in nicely into year 5 and have already shown their positive attitude to learning and resilience within the classroom. The year 5 team have been so pleased to get to know all of the children and are impressed with the enthusiasm for learning in our new topic 'Out of this world', in which we are reading 'Cosmic'. The children have created a non chronological report about space using research on the chrome books. This knowledge was highlighted in science where we learnt about the Earth, Sun and Moon as a spherical body. Kingfishers attempted to make their own spherical body using resources from the classroom and found it positively challenging to create a spherical body. In History, we asked questions that we wanted to know about the Battle of Hastings and are looking forward to find out more about this historic battle. I hope you all enjoy the sunshine this weekend and I look forward to seeing you next week! |
