Seal Class

We had a very exciting visitor this week: Mr Hall who showed us all how to use a compass and follow a map. We had an orienteering lesson! It was lots of fun and we used the map to try and find tiny flags which he had hidden around the playground.

In maths, we have been understanding how the fractions line means the same as divide. This has really helped us to understand how to write improper fractions as mixed fractions. We have been using this knowledge to solve mazes, crack codes and also answer maths word searches!

Another exciting event that has happened this week is Sports Day! On Wednesday, we all partook in some activities on the field which included long jump, football shooting (think England have given some inspiration in the Euros) and speed bounces – to name a few! Afterwards, we had lots of fun together in the fun run!

You may have noticed that our sunflowers have moved from the pots outside of our classroom! That’s because this week, we have been busy planting them into the ground (just next to the garden).

We have also finished our Charlie and the Chocolate Factory English unit of work and we are moving onto writing an imaginative piece based upon the book: The Great Chocoplot by Chris Callaghan. This week, we heard the beginning of the story being read to us by the author himself (Chris) and imagined what would life be like if there was a real Choco-apocalypse! I would definitely miss a chunk of dairy milk! We then researched deadly animals that lived in the rainforest because this is where cacao trees grow; they give us the main ingredient to make chocolate.

In maths, we have been learning how to order and compare fractions with different denominators. This has been quite tricky but we have persevered and shown great resilience.

We have had a very busy week this week. We have all worked very hard completing some summer term tests.

The children have shown great progress and resilience this week; they should be very proud of themselves!

We have also ended our recent English unit: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The children have been planning their independent writing to describe what happens after Willy Wonka arrives at the gates to greet Charlie and the other contestants. Our imaginations have been super creative; especially describing the first room that Charlie walks in to! We’ve had chocolate crocodiles, chewing gum bubbles attaching onto children (so they float!) and even candy mushrooms that turn you microscopic size! I can’t wait to read the finished writing on Friday!

In RSE, we have been talking about how babies develop and also discussing healthy and unhealthy relationships. We are becoming great listeners and also using this as an opportunity to ask thought-provoking questions surrounding the subject in a sensible way.

Another great week Katherine Johnson, well done!

Welcome back Year 5!

I hope that you all enjoyed a well-deserved and sunny rest during the half-term. We have had a great first week back to Katherine Johnson Class. The sun has been shining so we have begun planting some plants in our Year 5 gardening bed. Each class in the Junior school has been given a gardening bed to plant some plants of their choice. Before the half-term, we had a discussion as a class to decide which plants we would like to plant. We have planted: strawberries, tomatoes (2 different varieties), lavender, some lettuce (donated by Mrs Hammond – thank you!), a giant sunflower (again donated by Mrs Hammond) but our most exciting plant is… the walking stick kale! When this plant has fully grown (it will grow taller than some of us), it can be made into an actual walking stick! We spent some time as a class researching this – it is very cool! We found out that Kew Gardens once planted 3 of these and also made them into walking sticks. We are looking forward to taking care of our plants and watching them grow.

In English, we have begun our new writing unit which is based on the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. We had two experiences this week (before beginning our writing), to explore the difference between the two films as well as a taste test! In our taste test, Miss Bugg gave us a variety of different chocolate/sweets and we had to close our eyes and describe the flavours and texture. Some of us were very surprised with the sour snake!

In maths, we have been looking at key words and how to find them in word problems; they give us clue as to whether we should add, subtract, multiply or divide. We have also used all of our knowledge to create our own garden patch; Miss Bugg only gave us a certain amount of money to use. This has involved us adding up the cost of our plants; using multiplication to work out the cost for water over the month and subtraction to work out how much money we have left to spend. Overall, we have had a fantastic week back in school learning!

A fantastic week to end this half-term!

This week we have been very busy putting our creative hats on by making Mayan masks from milk bottles (they’re very versatile!). We had to cut the milk bottle to the correct shape for our mask, then use our paper mache skills to cover the milk bottle (it was pretty messy!) and lastly we decorated them. They look brilliant – well done year 5s!

In maths, we have now finished mastering all 4 operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Well done!

Our class sentence stacker is complete for our diary in our English unit based around Scott from the Antarctic. We have worked very hard to complete our own diary entry in our independent write. Our writing has come on leaps and bounds this last half-term! I have really enjoyed seeing the children’s confidence in writing and vocabulary improve.

An enjoyable half-term had by all the Katherine Johnson Squad! I wish you all a restful and happy half-term break – the sun is even joining us for the week off! I can’t wait to hear what you have all been up too.

Following on from our last weekly update, we have had another great week in Katherine Johnson Class!

We had an extra fun experience day in English, where we practised pulling a sled with weight on it. This is because Scott from the Antarctic and his team used to pull a sled with more than 100kg on it! We tried pulling Miss Bugg (who isn’t quite 100kg!) and then had some sled races! I think we realised how difficult and tiresome it is pulling a sled.

In English this week, we have begun writing our diary entries and our class sentence stacker is looking great. The class sentence stacker is where we take a sentence from different children in the class and put them together to create our own ‘class story’ or in this case class diary based on Scott and his teams experience racing to the South Pole.

In Maths, we are learning a new method to divide: bus stop method! We have enjoyed learning about what division means (sharing) and also what happens when sometimes we cannot share or divide a number equally – we’re left with remainders. We practised this using matchsticks and seeing how sometimes numbers can not be shared equally.

This week, we have enjoyed learning about the Mayan game called Pok-a-tok. We have looked at the rules of Pok-a-tok and also practised playing this outside. It was harder than you think; we had to pass the ball to one another without using our hands or feet. We had to be very inventive in our passing! We also felt (with weights) how heavy an actual Pok-a-Tok ball would have been – 3.5kg! A lot heavier than any of us thought. Luckily, Miss Bugg didn’t use a ball this weight!

In English this week, we have finished writing our independent adventure stories. The children should be very proud of how much their writing has improved across the half-term. It is amazing and lovely to see the class enjoying writing. Watch this space J.K Rowling! We are now starting our new non-fiction unit and will be creating a diary entry from the perspective of Scott of the Antarctic. Scott was an explorer who raced the Norwegians to be the first to get to the South Pole. Unfortunately, they lost the race but tried their hardest. We have found the structure of a diary entry and also created our own camps outside; imagining what it may have been like for Scott and his team.

In maths, we have started learning about short and long multiplication. As a class, we are becoming experts in this and have enjoyed a multiplication treasure hunt and murder mystery!

Another fantastic week in Katherine Johnson Class. Well done Year 5s!

After the extra long weekend, we have enjoyed a week back in class together! We have been exploring different Mayan cities and discussing how each city had its own set of rules. We discussed the benefits and disadvantages of this as a class and then designed our own Mayan city! We had to think carefully about the buildings we needed and where they would be situated in our city, as well as making sure that we could provide food as well. They wouldn’t of had Mayan McDonalds back then (which some of us were highly disappointed about!).

We have also started learning how to code a Times Table maths game from scratch; this will be a project that we will build upon weekly! We are becoming fantastic coders!

In English this week, we have been planning and writing our own independent adventure stories. They have been fascinating to read and the children are very proud of them! Well done to all of Katherine Johnson on producing some interesting and fantastic adventure stories! Your writing has come on leaps and bounds!