Year 5 had a fantastic Christmas Party Day. Miss Nahar planned a day of Christmas activities including making Christmas hats, paper snowflakes, stained glass windows and paper wreathes. She also organised a great Christmas quiz for the end of the day. The children listened to vintage Christmas hits and watched a video of the pantomime provided by our business partners. I think it was one of our best Christmas Party days ever and the children had a great time too!!
We have been working on other art projects this week. The children’s cribs are looking beautiful and we have also explored emotions in our art work linked to the Annunciation.

​We finished our Jabberwocky display and maps of Jabberwocky Island. We all agree it looks beautiful!!

​Year 5 enjoying a fantastic game with Coach Smokie called Jump. This game combined skill and fun. It was a joy to watch the class play and to observe their great team spirit!

Year 5 have been making cribs from clay. They have been inspired by the clay cribs often found in South America. We also made some clay Christmas decorations and used tools to create some lovely patterns. We are part way through the process and will continue next week. Hopefully everyone will have a beautiful crib for Christmas!

Our RE Ambassadors have prepared our Advent Wreath ready for next week.  We used evergreen leaves from our school garden.
 
Our topic in Religion is God’s Covenants – The children have made their own promises to God during Collective Worship.  We have studied the covenants God made with Noah, Abraham and the Israelites.

​Year 5 have studied the poem Jabberwocky. We have discussed the meaning of the poem in class. Part of our learning was to create this beautiful display to help us visualise the characters. We have also written some fantastic scientific descriptions of the Jabberwocky, Bandersnatch or JubJub bird using our imaginations, combining fact and fiction.  Year 5 have also created these wonderful Jabberwocky island maps. The rest of our unit of learning will be based around these maps, writing directions, recipes and a narrative. It is also helping us learn some mapping skills and vocabulary linked to Geography and co-ordinates in Maths.

​Year 5 ended their topic of The Great War by visiting the Mercantile Marine War Memorial located at Tower Hill. After all our hard work learning about the War, it was very moving to visit one of the many memorials dedicated to the men who lost their lives. It was designed by Edward Lutyens; the same architect of the Cenotaph. The children found a name of a sailor to pray for and whilst there we sang our hymn for peace. The children were a delight to take on the visit and showed great respect and interest.

​Look at the wonderful variety of model trenches Year 5 children designed and made during the half term break! They have been displayed in the dinner hall for everyone to admire.  We are very impressed by some of the ingenious ways in which children have designed and made their models: e.g. sandbags sewn from material and filled with couscous or folded and made from a hessian bag; a barbed wire fence made from wire and cotton knots or from tin foil. Some children have painted backgrounds or added photographs.
I think the whole class would agree that this topic has really inspired some beautiful art and design work, as well as a wealth of knowledge!

Year 5 have been studying World War 1 in conjunction with our Class Novel Private Peaceful.
English
We have also listened to some famous speeches by Martin Luther King and Winston Churchill and linked to our novel Private Peaceful children have written speeches either encouraging men to go to war or trying to persuade them not to enlist, using a variety of techniques. Children are very much enjoying our class novel and have used many comprehension techniques this term such as studying characters, prediction and summarising.
Design Technology
The children learned about how World War 1 soldiers were recruited using posters. They studied posters and thought about the emotions they must have evoked in people in 1914. They also learned about the meaning of the word propaganda.  They planned and designed their own posters encouraging men to join the war. They have created some wonderful work!
Art
We studied some First World War artists and analysed their paintings. We also learned about the work of Paul Nash. Children then used his work as inspiration for their own World War 1 painting and gave them appropriate titles.
Geography
In class we have also linked our learning to Geography and used scale on maps to find out the distance between here and the battlefields of France. We have also studied maps of Europe and the world from 1914 and discussed the idea of Empire. 
Black history Month
For Black History, the children researched the soldier Walter Tull and in class we also learned about how he was treated during football matches. This led to a discussion about racism in football today and understanding about respect.  The class made me proud with their thoughtful responses. 

​We are studying life cycles linked to our Creation topic.  The children have learned about the life cycle of flowering plants. We used seeds from our school grounds to investigate and they worked hard to identify the seeds and find their scientific names. We also used the seeds to create classification keys – a very important scientific skill.