Term 6

Welcome back! 

We hope you had a lovely half term and are ready for your final term in Year 5.  How quickly this year has gone!

As always, this term is going to be extremely busy - so please keep checking in to find out what we have been doing.

Please see below the letter I have sent out to all parents regarding this term's PSHE.

Term 5

Some of the wonderful crowns made by the children to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III.

As part of our Coronation Celebrations at school, the children learnt the National Anthem.   

This performance demonstrates how far their learning has come.  Their ability to read music and learn new compositions is constantly improving.  The were able to perform the National Anthem after just 10 minutes of learning this new piece of music.

Well done to all the children!

Our podcast update - Click here!

Welcome back!

It is lovely to see the children back and looking forward to continuing their learning.

This term our learning will be very 'hands-on'. 

In Science, the children will be learning about the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals.  As part of this learning the children will be propagating plants and planting seeds.  While in D.T. the children will be learning about what makes a meal healthy, working as a team to amend a Bolognese recipe with healthy adaptations before finally following their own recipe to produce a healthy Bolognese sauce.

Term 4 has been a very busy term for the children! 

Please take the time to read about what the children have been learning and have a look at the photos which show the children not only working extremely hard but, most importantly, enjoying their learning!

In Art, the children have studied Henry Moore.  They have created some wonderful sculptures, whilst in D.T they have designed and made lovely soft toys.  Their sewing skills have really developed and the children have become confident in using different types of stitching such as blanket stitch, back stitch and running stitch. 

Here are the children proudly showing their finished toys!

To design a monitoring device the children firstly had to undertake their own research.  They each chose a specific animal that their device would monitor and  their research skills were used to great effect when researching their chosen animal's key information which helped them to develop a list of design criteria for an animal monitoring device.  In addition to this their computing skills were really put to the test when they used their researched findings and each wrote a program that monitored the ambient temperature and alerted someone when the temperature moved from a specified range. 

In Science the focus for this term has been Properties and Change of Material.  The children have carried out various observations involving comparing and grouping together everyday materials on the basis of their properties, including their solubility and response to magnets; observing how some materials will dissolve in liquid to form a solution, and describe how to recover a substance from a solution; using their knowledge of solids, liquids, and gases to decide how mixtures might be separated, including through filtering, sieving and evaporating.

Want to listen to watch our most recent performance with Peter?

Click here!

Our Class podcast update! Year 5 - 3rd February

January 2023

Happy New Year

Welcome Back Sycamore

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to the exciting year ahead.

This term we will be reading the Firework Maker's Daughter by Philip Pullman.  He called the story a "fairy tale", the novel is both a children's adventure story where the main character undertakes a quest to prove herself, and a metaphor for making art.  Philip Pullman was named by The Times as one of the fifty greatest writers since 1945, he won the prestigious Carnegie Medal in 1995 for Northern Lights followed by the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in 1996.

The children will also continue to advance their trumpet playing skills during our music lesson.  I will be regularly updating the class page with videos so that you can see for yourself how well the children are doing and how wonderful they sound.

The artist that the children are studying this term is Henry Moore.  They will be looking at the various sculptures created by Henry Moore with a view to creating their own sculpture in his style.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM EVERYONE IN SYCAMORE!

This term the children have continued learning the trumpet.  They have also learnt to read music and are able to follow sheet music.  They are thoroughly enjoying it and making great progress!   

Christmas Decoration Day was a great success in Sycamore!  The children really enjoyed the different activities which included: festive cake decorating, painting glass jars with a Christmas design, stained glass lanterns, Christmas door hangers and paper chains and designing a calendar for the New Year

The children enjoyed a surprise visit from 'The Grinch'

The children thoroughly enjoyed our last DT topic – Bridges.  Take a look at the slide show below to see the children exploring how to reinforce a beam (structure) to improve its strength, creating a frame structure with the focus being on triangulation when they built spaghetti bridges that span a given distance and supported a load.  They each built a wooden bridge structure and independently measured, marked and cut their wood accurately before sanding it to ensure smooth edges.  They identified where a structure needed reinforcement and used card corners for support.

 Welcome to Sycamore!

 Mrs Stuart and Mrs Try will be working with the children this year.

We want you to know what a privilege it is to teach your child. Children are all different, unique and precious and it is a huge responsibility being their teacher.  We take the role very seriously and will do our very best to ensure that they are safe, cared for and happy.  We want them to love school and we want to make our classroom a place of laughter and learning!

 I am really looking forward to continuing working with the children this year and I know Mrs Try is as excited as me to be a member of our wonderful class.   The children have settled in well and are extremely keen to learn new things and extend their knowledge even further which is lovely to see!  This term in History we will be learning about the Victorians.   The children will be learning about life in Victorian Britain and the many new inventions during this period of history.       

 Our English will be linked to our history and will include drama which the children will be able to use to help in their writing of different genres, including character descriptions, recounts of stories, dialogue and biographies.

During our English lessons the children will be using a new strategy to support their writing – Talk it, Trade it cards – which enables the children to share ideas.  Our ‘Author of the Term’ is Berlie Doherty.  The children have already carried out some research about her and found out some very interesting facts – ask your child to tell you a little about her.

 PE

We have PE every Tuesday so please make sure your child comes to school in their PE kit on Tuesdays.  As the weather begins to cool, please make sure your child’s PE kit includes jogging bottoms and sweatshirt.

 Reading

Reading records are again being sent home with the children.  Children should be reading every night at home.  I would encourage all parents to listen to their children read as often as possible as this clearly has a positive impact on their writing skills.

 Homework

Homework is sent home in a Homework book.  This is given to the children on a Friday and is due back in school on Thursday.   It will consist of spellings, English, Maths, and something linked to another subject.   

Our class timetable is below for your information.

If you have any concerns or questions, please do come and speak to us after school and we will do our very best to help.