Oak Tree Class Blog
Oak Tree Class Blog
Week 6, ending 10 October
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Izzy
Special Mention: Teddie
A super well done to these pupils this week!
It has been another splendid week for the children in Oak Tree Class.
In Ukuleles, we have moved onto chords, which was fun. We are now strumming along to Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’, which is fab progress.
Our new English unit is going to be linked to our Victorian topic, as we are looking at creating an onomatopoeic poem about working in a mill. Watch this space! And our topic lesson, based on Child Labour in the Victorian era, has spread across two weeks – hopefully the children will come away from these lessons having a good understanding about the life of a child in this era (and may also appreciate more that they didn’t live then!)
But, for me, the best part of this week has been the final publishing of our Victorian diary entries. Every pupil has made a neat presentation in pen and the standard of their presentation AND the content of the diaries has been stunning! Many children have been given permission to use handwriting pens, which has delighted them. As well as displaying these pieces, I shall be sending home copies so you can also praise them for their superb efforts, too. It is encouraging to see this standard of work at this point in the year. Well done everyone!
In Art this week, the children have been drawing in pencil, the structure of a bridge. Hopefully these little masterpieces will be displayed in time for parents’ evenings next week. (*Don’t forget to sign up, if you haven’t already done so.)
If you know your French numbers (un, deux, trois etc), do practise those with your child. We have been learning up to 31 this half term.
Have a good w/end….and we are STILL looking for cardboard tubes….!
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Two reminders for this week:
The snack to be brought in for their morning break must be a healthy snack. Over the last couple of weeks there has been an increase in children bringing sweets, crisps, chocolate bars and biscuits in to eat at morning break. Pupils will be asked to put these back in their bag and take home. Thank you for your support with this.
Homework in Year 5 should really take no longer than 30-40 mins. And I really hope that the children are working through it in a mature manner. I don't want this to be a stressful situation for you as a famialy. Once your child has done maximum 40 minutes of work, please do let them stop and sign the sheet accordingly.
Week 5, ending 3 October
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Elijah
Special Mention: Evie
A special well done to these pupils this week!
This week, we have held our elections for Oak Tree’s class representative for the school council. I was so impressed that all of these children bravely put themselves forward: Erica, Luna and Louise. All had promising manifestoes, but ultimately, Ericawon! Congratulations, Erica– we look forward to your new role!
Ukulele lessons have been progressing very well in Year 5. The Harry Potter theme is now recognisable (!) and we also had a lot of fun picking our way through an AC/DC riff!
We have completed all work on Place Value in maths lessons this week, but certain aspects of it were very tricky, so we may have to re-visit this over the year. (Any help you can give your child in recognising the value of digits and rounding larger numbers to 10, 100 and 1000 would be very worthwhile at this point.)
We have begun to work our way through addition and subtraction too. Homework will be on consolidating the skills of rounding…
I hope you all have a fab weekend – please send in more long cardboard tubes for Design Technology this term.
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
PS Could you please remind your children that a break time snack needs to be a healthy part of their lunchbox! A piece of fruit is ideal. Thank you.
Week 4, ending 26 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Sophie R
Special Mention: Aarav
A really well done to these pupils this week!
Classical music has been the soundtrack for Oak Tree Class’s mornings. Vivaldi’s Season of Spring seemed to be the most well liked – the children said they recognised it from assemblies.
Not only has this been the week for our first school visit in Y5, it has also been fun to delve further into Victorian life in our English lessons (Victorian diary entry planning) and in our topic lesson (history). The children have been brilliant at imagining what life must have been like back then – their experiences on the trip will really help them to add details into their work next week. I shall try to put lots of Armley Mills photos on the class gallery – fingers crossed! The behaviour of our Year 5s was excellent on Thursday – I was very proud of them all.
Hockey lessons continue in PE for Oak Tree Class (Mondays and Thursdays) and just to let you know, our DT unit on Structures starts next week. We would really appreciate you looking out for any long cardboard tubes and sending them in asap.
I hope you have a lovely weekend – homework this week is spellings, maths and grammar.
Yours,
Adrienne Amos
Week 3, ending 19 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Princess
Special Mention: Harry
A special well done to these pupils!
Even the changeable weather has not been able to detract from our fabulous week in Oak Tree Class! We have also managed to excel ourselves in learning Place Value for Y5 AND worked tremendously hard to develop reading skills. I was impressed by the children’s progress in skimming and scanning during Wednesday’s lesson – these important skills will help each child become more proficient in locating valuable information in the future.
In PE, we continue to learn more about the skills involved in hockey. This week, we have practised accurately passing to a team member, then aiming to shoot into the goal.
In Y5, we spend quite a lot of time at the start learning how to write neatly and legibly with a pen. Transferring neat handwriting skills from pencil to pen can be very tricky for lots of children, but gradually every child will have the chance to write with pen in all English and Humanities lessons in Year 5. (It is sometimes a good idea to ask Santa to bring a nice, blue handwriting pen (not biro!) at Christmas…)
Homework this week is reviewing and demonstrating understanding of partitioning large numbers. This is a core skill in Y5 Place Value. There are also the usual weekly spellings. Please do not spend longer than 30-40 minutes on homework - I always explain the tasks to the children before sending them home, but if it is taking longer (or is a huge stress!) just write onto the sheet where you reached after this allotted time.
Next week, the children will be going on their educational visit to Armley Mills on Thursday. You have received all the information by letter, but do shout if you need further info.
Main points:
usual school day timings
packed lunch needed (disposable wrappings only please. No lunch boxes)
Victorian style costume (just like their Oliver! production in Y3)
Once again, our DT project this term relies on a whole host of long cardboard tubes (like kitchen roll and wrapping paper tubes). It would be great if you could scour the house for any of these and send them into school over the next two weeks.
Have a nice weekend,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 2, ending 12 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Luna BG
Special Mention: Layton
Well done to these pupils!
This week has been a really settled and happy week. It has been remarkable how mature the children have been since moving up to Y5 – this bodes well for a successful year. Well done, Oak Tree Class!
In Maths, we have been developing our knowledge and skills in Place Value, learning how to recognise numbers up to 1,000,000. In English, we have been writing a short piece of narrative, from the point of view of a character in our class novel, Street Child. We have been focusing on key writing skills from Y4, including using conjunctions; this has given me a great baseline to build upon during the next school year.
In our topic session, we placed the Victorian period on a timeline. This skill of chronology is so important in primary school education.
Just to remind you, we plan to go to Armley Mill on 25 September and we hope that you will encourage your child to dress as a Victorian to help with the atmosphere! The children will require a packed lunch too. (This does not have to be Victorian styled, though!)
As well as the weekly spellings to find and learn, for homework this week, the children will be reminding themselves about Roman Numerals. Wednesday, when it is due to be handed in. Thank you in advance.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
PS Plea again for kitchen roll/wrapping paper tubes again. We currently have 6.....