Otterbourne Church of England
Primary School
With God's love, all are encouraged to thrive
TRUST
RESPECT
DETERMINATION
TRUST
RESPECT
DETERMINATION
TRUST
RESPECT
Year 5 (Koalas) (pre-2022)
Welcome to Koala Class!
During the children’s first year in Upper Key Stage 2, the pupils in Year 5 begin to take on greater levels of responsibility within the school. They are, for example, offered the opportunity to become school librarians. They are encouraged to become more independent in their learning, taking on responsibility for their personal organisation and study.
The Year 5 teaching team is:
- Koala Class Teacher - Miss Hutchings
- Kangaroo Class Teacher - Mrs Cook
- Science Teacher - Mrs Simmons
- Learning Support Assistant - Mrs Johnson
Homework
In Year 5, pupils will have two pieces of ‘formal’ homework each week. In order to prepare them for Year 6 and life beyond primary school, children are encouraged to spend 30 minutes on each piece of homework. Homework will be set on a Wednesday, and should be handed in on the following Monday. These pieces of homework are:
- English/ Topic - Handed out at the start of each half term with activities to be completed weekly, and handed in each Monday.
- Maths - Handed out on a Wednesday to be brought back to school on the Monday.
There will also be a list of spelling words handed out every other week for children to focus on and learn in preparation for a test in school.
We will look towards using the online platform of Google Classroom to set homework, as well as other online learning activities.
Reading
Regular weekly reading is encouraged. Children should read 5 times a week, and should record this independently in their reading diary. If 5 reads are not recorded in their diary, they will spend time reading with a teacher in school.
P.E.
Although there may be occasional changes due to unforeseen circumstances, in general, indoor P.E. will take place on a Thursday afternoon, and outdoor P.E. will take place on a Friday afternoon. Please ensure that your child has appropriate kit in school with them on these days.
Library Time
Our allocated library time in Year 5 is on Tuesday morning.
Our Class Vision Statement:
We would like Koala Class to be an honest and respectful place where we can learn and thrive. A place where everyone is accepted, listened to, and feels safe. A fun and active class where we can be creative. A place where when you walk in, you smile.
Autumn Term Newsletter
Ancient Greek Day
| Blog of the Week - 21st January 2022 |
| We have (as always!) had another couple of busy weeks here in Koala Class. We have kicked off our Ancient Greeks topic by going on an archaeological dig and discovering parts of Greek artefacts. This week we started to explore our enquiry question 'What did the Greeks do for us?' by exploring and categorising different images that link to things still used in the world today that the Greeks 'invented'. In Maths we have been busy learning all about formal methods of multiplication and division, and we have been using these methods to help us to multiply and divide some very large numbers! In English we have started to explore Greek myths and legends, and have spent time looking at the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. We started by focussing on our precising skills in order to retell the story in a more concise way. This week, we have turned our skills to descriptive writing, and we have written some absolutely fantastic descriptions around an image of Theseus coming face-to-face with the Minotaur. I hope you have enjoyed getting a small taste of what we have been up to over the last couple of weeks! Miss H :) |
Becoming Archaeologists!
Blog of the Week - 7th January 2022 |
| Happy new year! It is lovely to be back at school, and it has been wonderful hearing about all of the exciting things everyone has been up to in the holidays. We have had a busy few days settling back into the routine of school life. In our English lessons, we have been exploring what makes a statement fact or fiction, and we have been exploring potential meanings of words linking to our class text that we are going to be focusing on in our Guided Reading sessions over the next couple of weeks. In Maths, we have spent some time recapping skills linked to multiplication and division that we learnt before Christmas. We have spent time building on this knowledge and today we have started to explore how to multiply two 2-digit numbers together which the children did fabulously with! We will kick off our brand new topic on Monday, which I'm sure the children will enjoy getting stuck into. Have a restful weekend, Miss H :) |
| Blog of the Week - 17th December |
| What a great term it has been, and what a great way to end it this week! We have been very busy this week with the carol service in the church and panto trip amongst other things going on around the school. Between the events going on, Koala class have been focusing on finishing off their DT projects which they have been working on across the half term. The design brief was that they needed to create a toy bird which could be sold in a shop. I'm sure you'll agree from the pictures below that they have done a fabulous job! Have a relaxing break, and a very happy Christmas. I look forward to seeing you all in the new year! Miss H :) |
Our finished DT projects!
| Blog of the week - 26th November |
| This week we have been busy writing formal letters to a local councillor expressing our concerns about plans to expand Otterbourne Waterworks. The children have worked hard generating persuasive words and phrases to encourage them to rethink the proposed plans. I have included an example below of just one of the formal, persuasive letters! In Maths we have been exploring multiples, factors and prime numbers. We found out that prime numbers are numbers that only have two factors - 1 and itself. We also found out that the numbers which are not prime are known as composite numbers. We carried out some investigations around prime numbers, and found various interesting patterns such as a prime number added to another prime number above 2, will always equal an even number. In the afternoons, we have learnt about a range of subjects, including counting in 10s in French, past and present uses of the River Itchen in Topic, and fossils in our Science lesson. Have a great weekend! Miss H :) |
Example letter by Amelia Webb:
Dear Mr Humbly,
I am writing to you to complain about your unacceptable proposal to extend the Waterworks in Otterbourne. I, as well as many are appalled to hear that you could come up with such a disgusting idea, that will impact the valuable habitat.
Surely, such an intelligent person such as yourself will have considered the catastrophic affects the impact could have on the wonderful landscape around the river. For example, the driving across land will have an abysmal impact on the delicate banks and the ancient woodland surrounding the local treasure.
Furthermore, have you ever thought about the dreadful impact the extension will have on the unique wildlife that live there? In addition, these magnificent creatures are going down in numbers and they depend on the river. Imagine if you were the cause for a new species going extinct, it would be an outrage.
Another concern is the consequence this could have on the people who live around the area. If you were to extend the waterworks the affect on the local citizens would be horrendous. The noise from the machines would be disturbing and very annoying. Also, the traffic this would cause would be abominable.
In conclusion, I hope you will consider mine and many others’ opinions and do the right thing for the community.
Yours Sincerely,
Amelia Webb
| Blog of the week - 19th November |
| We have had a very cosy end to the week this week with pajama day to raise money for Children in Need! Throughout the week, we have been very busy learning about multiples and factors in Maths, words ending with ance in spelling, and beginning to put together arguments for why an extension to the Waterworks in Otterbourne should not go ahead in our English lessons. We have also been busy in the afternoons this week exploring how to refer to places you might find in a town in French, as well as perfecting our sequences of balances in PE. We look forward to another busy, fun filled week next week! Have a good weekend, Miss H :) |
| Blog of the Week - 12th November 2021 |
| This week has been centred around preparing for our remembrance service which took place yesterday in the church. The children this week have been focusing on writing poetry which reflects the experiences of the soldiers during the war time. The children looked at examples of poetry, and worked together to generate figurative words and phrases to turn into their own lines of poetry. We then pulled together lines of poetry from across the class, and created our own poem to read out in the church service. You can see this poem below! We have also been busy this week doing lots of other learning! In our topic lesson this week we explored the processes of erosion, transportation and deposition by watching the processes happening on our very own mini river! In PE this week we started gymnastics, and we worked in pairs to create our own sequences of balances. Below are some photos of our playground rivers, and our PE lesson! Have a great weekend, Miss H :) |
Koala Class's Remembrance Poem
The blood bloomed while the guns boomed,
Soldiers fighting for their lives,
In Flanders fields, brave men lay on the cold field,
Lying in the meadow stained with loss,
Some had no choice but to fight.
Inside the trenches the men laid down on the benches,
Gunpowder tiptoeing to their mouths,
The foul taste of death scarred their tongues,
The cruel curse echoed around like the wind,
Slowly the souls wasted away.
The battle was violent, but the guns soon lay silent,
Meanwhile disappointed shells dropped behind.
In Flanders fields some men lay down while others kneeled,
The last scent of sacrifice filled the air,
Finally, victory.
Ready to reunite with their families.
The war was brutal, which is why we have two minutes of reflection,
Poppies pinned to one's chest to show that we will never forget.
| Blog of the Week - 5th November |
| Welcome back to what promises to be another exciting half term! We have had a busy first week back, with lots going on! We have been busy all week preparing for 'Time to Shine' day, creating adverts to persuade children around the school to buy high-visibility jackets which are going on sale. The children have been using techniques such as alliteration, repetition, flattery, presumption, rhetorical questions and slogans to try and encourage people to want to buy the jackets. These adverts will be put up around the school! We have also been busy preparing for our collective worship which we shared with the school today. The theme of our worship is 'belonging' and we focused this worship around the creation story and how humans belong on the planet all together. We have uploaded a recording of this so that you can enjoy what we created. I hope you have a lovely weekend, Miss H :) |
A few photos from our trip to the River Itchen in Otterbourne!
Messy Maths!
| Blog of the Week - 8th October |
| It has been another busy week in Year 5 with lots of learning going on as well as another trip! On Wednesday, we went of on an adventure to St Cross Hospital and the Water Meadows in Winchester. We experienced public transport in order to get there, and even enjoyed a chippy lunch (which I know for many of the children was a highlight of the day!). The children enjoyed a rotation of activities across the day, including a tour of St Cross Hospital, a creative writing session, and sessions looking at stream dipping and the history of the meadows delivered by the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. It was a very busy day, but a very enjoyable one too with fantastic weather! In school this week, we have continued to explore the book 'Journey' and have explored how we can incorporate modal verbs into our writing to express the possibility or certainty of something happening. In Maths, we have continued to explore addition and subtraction, looking at the tricky concepts of estimating an answer, and using the inverse operation to check an answer. The children showed fantastic determination and resilience during these sessions! Finally, in our Topic lesson this week we started to explore the features of a river, and found out what a source, mouth, channel, meander and spring is. I hope you have enjoyed finding out a bit about what we have been up to in Koala class this week. I hope you enjoy looking at a few photos from our trip this week below! Have a lovely weekend, Miss H x |
7th October - Water Meadows and St Cross Hospital Trip
| Blog of the Week - 1st October 2021 |
| I can't believe I'm writing this in October already... How time flies!!! We have had a very busy week in school, with lots going on. Today we joined together as a school in the church for our annual Harvest Festival which was so lovely. The Koalas this week have been working hard in preparation for this, creating written descriptions of a harvest scene. We watched a video together showing scenes of ploughing fields, wildlife enjoying their natural habitats, and fruit being harvested from trees. From this, the children worked either independently, or in pairs to write a description using their knowledge of figurative language techniques. I have included an example of some of the wonderful writing that took place below this post! In Maths we finished off our unit on place value, and today have started applying this place value knowledge by looking at addition and subtraction. We have focused in particular on the use of the formal method of column addition to support our calculation of larger numbers. In Topic we have started to explore our key question which is 'Is the River Itchen unique?', using maps to help us to locate physical and human features of countries, and practicing our use of compass skills to give an accurate description of where something is located on a map. We finished off by creating our own maps of Hampshire, drawing onto our maps key features such as rivers, cities, and surrounding counties. In spelling this week we have started to explore words containing the letter string -cious. There is no spelling test on these words next week, however should you wish to spend some time practicing them, our focus words are: delicious, atrocious, conscious, ferocious, gracious, luscious, malicious, precious, spacious, suspicious. I hope you have enjoyed reading a bit about our week in Year 5, and I hope you have a lovely weekend! Miss H x |
Harvest Scene Descriptive Writing
As the bright, enchanting summer comes to an end, all of the delicious crops turn from a lovely lime-green to a crisp golden colour. The cool, soft autumn breeze sings a charming, beautiful song to the crops, which start to do a lovely dance to the sweet tune. Whilst performing, these crops long to be harvested by the colossal, bouldering giants, which begin to hoover up the golden corn and wheat. As this happens, dazzling swallows gobble up the last of the berries ready for their journey south, soaring like Spitfires across the sky. Now we have reached the time of the year where we can give thanks to the farmers for the food we are able to receive, and give thanks to God for our wonderful earth. As the bright, enchanting summer comes to an end, all of the delicious crops turn from a lovely lime-green to a crisp golden colour. The cool, soft autumn breeze sings a charming, beautiful song to the crops, which start to do a lovely dance to the sweet tune. Whilst performing, these crops long to be harvested by the colossal, bouldering giants, which begin to hoover up the golden corn and wheat. As this happens, dazzling swallows gobble up the last of the berries ready for their journey south, soaring like Spitfires across the sky. Now we have reached the time of the year where we can give thanks to the farmers for the food we are able to receive, and give thanks to God for our wonderful earth.
By Tuula and Rupert
| Blog of the Week - 24th September 2021 |
| It has been so lovely this week to get settled into Year 5 life, getting used to routines of 'normal' school days, and it has been nice to finally get really stuck into our learning across the curriculum. This week, we have started a number of new units of work across a range of subjects. In Maths we started exploring the place value of digits within numbers up to the value of 1,000,000. In our Topic lesson we kicked off our 'Rolling Rivers' topic by going down into the woods, and using our collaborative skills to come together in small groups to build our own mini rivers using a range of natural materials. Our English lessons have been based around the book 'Journey', and we have been focusing on generating word banks full of exciting descriptive language around images from this book. Today, we have finished off the week with a whole school writing day which has been based around the exciting discovery of a time capsule on the school grounds full of photos, uniform, maps of the school, and a half finished story from 50 years ago. The children rose to the challenge of trying to finish off the story today, with some absolutely fantastic continuations of the plot! I hope you have a lovely weekend, Miss H x |
Kicking off our topic by building our own rivers!
| Weekly Blog: Friday 17th September 2021 |
| Wow! What a week, and what a way to start the term!! I'm sure the children will agree that we have had a brilliant second week immersing ourselves in the wilderness and becoming fully fledged Bushcraft tribesmen! The children were fantastic all week and really got stuck into every activity. It was so lovely to watch the way that the children supported each other, encouraged each other, and pushed one another to face personal challenges and fears. I have uploaded a number of photos from the week below for you to look through to see what we all got up to over the last four days! Have a restful weekend, Miss Hutchings x |
Bushcraft Residential Day Three
Bushcraft Residential Day Two
Bushcraft Residential Day One
| Weekly Blog: Friday 10th September 2021 |
| Welcome back to a new (and hopefully more normal!!!) school year! It has been a lovely week establishing routines and getting to know one another as we enter Year 5 together as Koala Class. We have had a busy week of creating artwork for displays, testing our collaboration skills with a number of rather tricky team building activities, and squeezing in a bit of Maths, English and Spelling in between! I have uploaded some photos below of some of the things we got up to in our first week together! Best wishes, Miss Hutchings x |
Welcome to Year 5!
During the children’s first year in Upper Key Stage 2, the pupils in Year 5 begin to take on greater levels of responsibility within the school. They are, for example, offered the opportunity to become school librarians. They are encouraged to become more independent in their learning, taking on responsibility for their personal organisation and study.
The Year 5 teaching team is:
- Koala Class Teacher - Miss Hutchings
- Kangaroo Class Teacher - Mrs Holland
- Science Teacher - Mrs Simmons
- Learning Support Assistants - Mrs Hinton, Mrs Beer, Mrs Palmer and Mrs Armstrong
The children will be split into their base classes (Koalas / Kangaroos) in the morning for Maths and English. They will then come together every afternoon, where they will be based together in Koala Class.
Homework
In Year 5, pupils will have two pieces of ‘formal’ homework each week. In order to prepare them for Year 6 and life beyond primary school, children are encouraged to spend 30 minutes on each piece of homework. Homework will be set on a Friday, and should be handed in on the following Wednesday. These pieces of homework are:
- English/ Topic - Handed out at the start of each half term with activities to be completed weekly, and handed in each Wednesday.
- Maths - Handed out on a Friday to be brought back to school on the Wednesday.
As well as this, regular reading and learning of times tables is encouraged. Children should aim to read 4 times a week, and should record this independently in their reading diary.
We will look towards using the online platform of Google Classroom to set homework, as well as other online learning activities.
P.E.
Although there may be occasional changes due to unforeseen circumstances, in general, P.E. will take place on a Friday.
Library Time
Our allocated library time in Year 5 is on Friday morning. Please encourage daily reading at home.
Bushcraft Residential Day Four
Bushcraft Residential Day Three
Bushcraft Residential Day Two
Bushcraft Residential Day One
25th June - First Aid Training
20th May Outdoor Day - Today the children hunted for faces in the trees in our woods. They had to use their imaginations and put themselves in the hot seat as that tree, answering questions to tell the story of how they came to be there. There were some fantastic tales! In maths, year 5 hunted for different types of angles outside and checked their size using a protractor. They discovered that most man-made objects have right angles.
Egyptian Day - 30th April. Y5 enjoyed dressing up as Ancient Egyptians and joining in a full day workshop with Mr Egypt. They found out some fascinating facts about Ancient Egyptian life, took part in some dancing, ate bread, wrote in hieroglyphics and even got a chance to mummify each other!
Rainforest Survival Day - 22nd April. After reading 'The Explorer' by Katherine Rundell, the children tried to survive for the day in our school 'Rainforest'! They worked incredibly well in teams, developing their skills of communication, collaboration and problem solving to create clean water, forage for safe foods and create a bed in the trees. They particularly enjoyed trying some Creepy Critters!!
World Book Day - 1st April
11/09/20 - A very exciting first week!
It has been so so lovely to have the children back in school, and it has been wonderful to see so many smiling faces ready and raring to go for a fantastic year in Year 5!
This week has very much been spent getting back into the rhythm of being in school, with a focus on wellbeing and transition. Throughout the week the children have created some beautiful pieces of 'self-representing' art to display in the classrooms, participated in some wonderful discussions around 'The Colour Monster', and have successfully worked together to save our new friend Fred!
Below will be some photos from across the week. I hope you enjoy having a look at what we have been up to at the start of what promises to be a very exciting year!
Miss H x
Y5 Home-learning Activity Pack Materials
SUMMER TERM (i) SCIENCE HOME LEARNING : Light and Sight
Science Temporary Home Learning
Welcome to Year 5! (2019/20)
Our Class Vision Statement
We would like our classroom to be a place where everyone is happy. A place where we show determination in all that we do, and when we are unsure, a place where we are encouraged and show encouragement to have a positive mind set. A place where we are respectful by showing kindness and care to one another, and to our classroom environment. A place where we listen, and are listened to. A place where we have fun and enjoy learning!
During the children’s first year in Upper Key Stage 2, the pupils in Koala Class begin to take on greater levels of responsibility within the school. They are, for example, offered the opportunity to become school librarians. They are encouraged to become more independent in their learning, taking on responsibility for their personal organisation and study.
The Year 5 teaching team is:
- Miss Hutchings – Class Teacher
- Mrs Smith - School Direct Teacher Trainee
- Mrs Simmons – Science Teacher
Homework
As well as regular reading and learning of times tables, pupils are also have two pieces of ‘formal’ homework each week. These are:
- English/ Topic - Handed out at the start of each half term with activities to be completed weekly, and handed in each Tuesday.
- Maths - Handed out on a Tuesday to be brought back to school on the Thursday.
In order to prepare them for Year 6 and life beyond primary school, children are encouraged to spend 30 minutes on each piece of homework.
P.E.
Although there may be occasional changes due to unforeseen circumstances, in general, P.E. will take place on the following days:
- Outdoor Games (with sports coaches from R&R Games) – Friday afternoon
- Gymnastics / Dance – Wednesday morning
Library Time
Our allocated library time in Year 5 is on Friday morning. However, the children are also trusted to use the library in their own time. Please encourage them to read daily at home.
Newsletters
Homework
Blog of the Week13/03/20 |
|---|
|
What a busy week we have had in Koala Class! |
Sports Relief
Today we all came in dress up as a sport, as a sports person, or just in sports kit! Along with this, the school set itself a challenge to see whether we could collectively walk a total of 100 miles around the playground. Here are some pictures of Koala Class in action!
Blog of the Week6/3/20 |
|---|
| This week we wrote letters to Mr Baker who is the head teacher of Sesame School in Uganda, to tell him all about what we have been up to since Christmas. In Maths we looked at adding fractions this week, and for our longitudinal study we went down to the pond on a very rainy day! This week we also had an event called World Book Day where we dressed up like our favourite book character. On this day we had two authors called Francesca Tyer and Richard Hardie come in, and we got to write a story with them. It was awesome and fun! By Eddie and Connie |
World Book Day
What an exciting, jam-packed, day we have had! Before I go on to talk about our day, I must start with how fantastic the children looked in their costumes- it was very clear that a lot of thought and effort had been put in, and they looked absolutely brilliant!
Today we have been lucky enough to participate in a range of different book related activities. To begin with, we enjoyed a workshop alongside year 6 with two authors called Richard Hardie and Francesca Tyer. During this workshop, we learnt from the authors about how to write stories, and we worked together to create our very own characters and plot for a story.
During the rest of the day we enjoyed a range of different activities including designing a National Book Token, investigating a 'crime scene' in our school library, writing our own 50 word stories, and designing our very own front cover for our favourite book.
Enjoy a few photos of our day!
|
Blog of the Week 28/02/20 |
|---|
|
This week was Spring into Fitness week where we have done lots of different fun activities relating to sports. |
Spring into Fitness Week!
The children have had a very exciting first week back at school where they have participated in a range of activities all about promoting physical and mental well-being.
Enjoy some photos of what we have been up to!
A little task for the half-term holiday...
Blog of the Week14/02/20 |
|---|
| This week we have been doing lots of fun and interesting stuff like History, Maths, Science and English. In History we have been learning about the Ancient Greeks where we have been looking at the word 'plastik' which stands for the most important things that the Greeks did. Miss Hutchings always jokes that she doesn't like the word 'plastik' because it has a k on the end instead of a c! We also made homework projects on our chosen Greek buildings such as temples and theatres that we shared with the class. Finally, in Maths we have been looking at fractions, and we have had the challenge of making our own guides to adding fractions. By Connie and Paris |
Sharing our homework projects
The children spent time today sharing their Ancient Greek buildings projects with the class. Many children were brave enough to come to the front of the class and share some information about their chosen building along with how they made it. The children then enjoyed doing a walking gallery where they could have a closer look at the finer details of the different projects as well as using the opportunity to ask questions.
Greek Dancing!
Over the past few weeks, Koala class have worked very hard to produce their very own sequence of 'Greek dances'.
The dances include a whole class sequence to depict Spartan warriors, group Spartan warrior sequences, a whole class sequence to depict the story of the wooden horse of Troy, and a whole class sequence to tell the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.
We hope you enjoy the end product of our hard work!
QPRB0936.MOV
Blog of the Week31/01/20 |
|---|
| This week we have done lots of Maths, English and Science. When we did Maths, we were learning about improper fractions and mixed number fractions. In English we wrote a character profile about a character from a Greek myth. Finally, in Science we have been doing the garden bird watch. Our favourite thing however was Art, where we drew our own figures in the style of Lubaina Himid which was really fun. By Noah and Elliot |
Greek Architects in the making!
In our topic lesson today we learnt all about Ancient Greek architecture. To begin with however, we put our drawing and describing skills to the test by doing a 'reconstruction relay' of images of Greek buildings. In groups, the children had to nominate an artist, and the remaining members of the group had 10 seconds each to look at the image before going to describe it to their artist who had to then follow their instructions to draw the building!
We had some great (and some interesting!) outcomes!
Learning a new myth using 'Pie Corbett'
In our English lesson today we explored the myth 'Icarus and Daedalus'. In order to be able to write a precis of this myth, we needed to know the story really well, so we used the method of 'Pie Corbett' to help us. The children were given a section of the story in groups, and they had to draw images for the words in their section of the myth, which they then created actions to represent. We then together as a class learnt each other's actions in order to be able to retell the myth.
Blog of the Week17/01/20 |
| We have had a busy week this week! This week in English we have been doing some descriptive writing about Theseus and the Minotaur, and the moment they met in the maze. Also this week we have done a lot of Maths. In Maths we have been using expanded column multiplication to multiply up to a 4-digit number by a 2-digit number. We have also enjoyed continuing our new History topic all about the Ancient Greeks. By Millie and Olivia |
Beware of the scary Spartan Warriors!
In PE this week, Koala class have been working on a dance routine where they transform themselves into Spartan warriors. They have been working on using short, sharp and quick movements to show power, and have been trying to reflect their character through some fearsome facial expressions!
In small groups, they then started to create their own sequence of spartan dance moves, working hard to ensure that they move in time to the counts of 4 within the music.
Enjoy some pictures of the warriors in action!
What's the Link?
We began our brand new topic 'Glorious Greeks'this afternoon. During this session, the children had the opportunity to begin exploring aspects of Greek legacy. They did this by exploring various images, and asking themselves the question 'what's the link?' to Ancient Greek life. The knowledge that children already had of Ancient Greece really shone through during this task, and the different ideas that the children had of potential links and clues for what Greek life was like based on what they could see in the images were brilliant.
Protest Day!
To conclude our topic, we went out onto the playground to stage a mock protest to stand against proposed plans for a factory being built next to the River Itchen in Otterbourne. The children marched with passion, and would definitely have had their voices heard if they were in a true protest situation!
As the topic draws to a close I must use this opportunity to say how proud I have been of the way that the children have voiced their opinions and concerns with such maturity and clarity. The letters, texts, and speeches that they have written across the half term have been truly incredible!
Blog of the Week6/12/19 |
| This week we have been making protest banners, and with this we have also been writing protest speeches to stop a factory that could be built in Otterbourne. In Maths we have been learning all about how to find the perimeter and area of a shape. In Science we have been learning about polar bears and their problem with global warming and problems with food. Finally, in outdoor PE this week have been doing invasion games and in this we have been practicing dribbling balls and knocking over cones. We hope you have enjoyed reading about what we have been up to this week! By Harrison and Owen |
Protest Banners
We spoke in class today about what makes a successful protest, and how when used peacefully and properly, protest banners are a clear and visual way to get a message across to a large number of people. Following on from this discussion, the children created their own slogans to speak out against the factory that is potentially going to be built next to the River Itchen, which they then painted onto cardboard.
Here are some photos of the Koalas in action!
Creating a class Monet in the style of Pointillism!
In Art today, Koala Class have been applying what we learnt last lesson about the painting style of Pointillism, to create our own class Monet masterpiece! The children were each given their own section of one of his paintings, which they had the challenge of recreating on their own piece of paper.
Once they are all completed, the pieces are going to be stuck together to see what his painting looks like in the style of Pointillism!
Computing with Mr Bagge
Year 5 were lucky this week to have a whole day of computing with Mr Bagge. The children learnt a lot throughout the day, and they thoroughly enjoyed putting their problem solving skills to the test in order to modify code on Scratch, and find and fix any bugs that occurred! By the end of the day, the children had read and answered questions around different codes, and had modified code to create different shapes, and had created code that moved different toys around a toy shop.
Blog of the Week29/11/19 |
|---|
| This week in Science we have been making presentations about fossils and what evidence they give us about the world. This week we have also done some coding in computing and have we learnt how to read and modify code on Scratch 2. As well as that we have done lots of Maths. In Maths this we have looked at prime numbers, square numbers and cube numbers, and alongside those we have been multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000. Thank you for reading our blog! by Max and Megan |
Blog of the Week22/11/19 |
|---|
| We have had a jam-packed week in Koala class with lots of different activities going on. We started the week by going pond dipping with Mrs Smith to kick off our research for our longitudinal study where we are investigating the question 'Does the temperature of the water affect the number of species found in our pond?'. The children found lots of different minibeasts in their sample trays which hopefully you have seen the pictures of further down on our class page! In Maths this week, we started our unit of work exploring multiplication and division. We started the unit by looking at what is meant by a multiple and a factor, and challenged our learning to find common factors of different sets of numbers. We also continued our exploration of rivers this week, where we considered how rivers are used by humans, and how this might positively or negatively impact the river itself. The children had lots of great ideas around this, and really considered both the positive and negative sides in a very balanced yet inquisitive way. We look forward to what promises to be another exciting week next week! Have a good weekend! Miss H x |
Your Time to Shine Day!
The classroom was looking exceptionally bright and colourful today as the children came in wearing their brightest colours to raise awareness of the importance of wearing bright colours in order to be seen when walking near roads. The children worked hard this morning creating their own parking banners to go outside the front of the school to remind people not to park on the yellow lines.
Pointillism Inspired Art
In our art lesson today, we learnt all about an art style called 'Pointillism'. Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small dots of colour are applied in patterns to form an image. It takes advantage of the way our eyes work with our brains in order to blend the individual dots together to create the intended image. The children enjoyed experimenting in this style, and had a go at recreating a painting of an apple using the style of pointillism.
Here are just two examples of the fabulous art produced today, created by Megan and Imogen.
Pond Dipping
The children enjoyed going down to the pond today as part of their longitudinal study investigation. For their study this year, the children are exploring whether the temperature of the water effects the number, and the type of species that live in the pond across the year. The children enjoyed getting stuck in and exploring the pond life they found through their dips, and are looking forward to investigating this further and seeing the changes that occur.
Blog of the Week15/11/19 |
| This week in Maths we've been looking at statistics. In statistics we have learnt all about line graphs. On Monday, it was Remembrance Day so in the morning we had a service where classes from across the school wrote a poem or diary entry and shared it with the school. Today it has been Children in Need day so we have all dressed up in rainbow colours. Some people even coloured their hair or had their face painted! We have had an awesome week and I hope we enjoy next week just as much! by Priya |
Year 5's Remembrance Poem
Year 5 have written their own remembrance poems during English this week. We then chose lines that we liked from the different poems around the class and edited them together to create a class poem to read during our remembrance service at the church.
Outdoor Classroom Day
During outdoor classroom day, Koala class enjoyed going outside with Mrs Smith to create logos for their longitudinal study groups using natural materials!
Brilliant Badminton!
The children enjoyed their final badminton session today. During this session they had the opportunity to fill their 'badminton passport' with stickers by showing off all of the skills they've learnt over the last 6 weeks. The children were sad to be finishing their badminton sessions, but they ended on a high with lots of enthusiasm and enjoyment of the fun games they played!
Badges and certificates will be coming their way in coming days!
Our Trip to the Water Meadows in Winchester
We had a very enjoyable and exciting day yesterday on our trip to the Water Meadows in Winchester.
We started the day by catching the Bluestar Number 1 bus into Winchester. For some children, this was their very first time catching a public bus, and although there were some nerves, the children behaved wonderfully and enjoyed their new experience.
Throughout the day the children participated in 4 different activities: river dipping, exploring the formation of the water meadows and debating the man-made and natural features of it, descriptive writing of the meadow setting, and a tour of St Cross Hospital delivered by one of the Brothers of the hospital.
The children had a brilliant day, and were very engaged by all aspects of the trip (especially the chips at lunchtime!!).
Enjoy some of our photos from the day below!
Blog of the Week18/10/19 |
|---|
|
This week we have made a 'missing' poster about the girl from the book Journey after she disappeared through a red door that she drew on her wall. We have also been to Lyme Regis and have collected lots and lots of fossils that we will examine soon in our Science lessons. |
Fossil Hunting at Lyme Regis!
The children have had a fantastic day today putting their paleontology skills to the test looking for fossils on the beach at Lyme Regis. We started off the day learning about different types of fossils and how they were formed with our guide for the day Chris. The children then got to put all of this into action down on the beach finding some fossils of their very own!
The children were all amazingly enthusiastic for the whole day, and their searching skills were very impressive! I hope you enjoy looking at some photos of our day and of some of our finds!
Blog of the Week11/10/19 |
|---|
|
This week in Maths we finished our learning around place value, and we are now moving onto addition and subtraction with numbers up to 1,000,000.
In Science we have been thinking about how fossils will form.
By Tommy and Ollie :) |
Rivers Researching
During our Geography lesson today the children enjoyed the opportunity to get onto the laptops and research a key river of the world in pairs. The children used their researching skills brilliantly to start to build up a fact file for the river of their choice. Over the next week or so the children will be putting their computing skills into further practise as they choose what method they would like to use to present their research findings to the class.
Year 5 Scientists are getting excited about finding fossils at Lyme Regis next week. Today in science they have been learning about the evidence fossils can provide us with and the variety of fossils that they might find on the Jurassic Coast. There were some excellent and funny guesses about what each fossil might be! Mrs Simmons says well done Year 5 Paleontologists!
'Journey' Writing
The children have been hard at work today continuing their written narratives to go alongside the images in the book 'Journey'. The children were using some fantastic descriptive language today, and were considering beautifully how they could really portray the character's wonder and amazement at entering an unexpected world!
Enjoy a snippet of our writing!
' As Lilly walked through the door, she saw the trees bowing in the wind as if she was the new queen of the forest. The trees were emerald green, but she had a big feeling that there was something different about this forest. It was as if it were magical, but she knew this couldn't be true. Quickly walking along the path, Lilly felt her mind twisting and turning in excitement of what could happen in this new world of adventure. She felt that the river symbolised all of her bad thoughts running away. Lilly looked up to see the beautiful sapphire lanterns performing a light show as if they were actually supposed to perform it to her. She felt like she was living in paradise.'
Harvest Festival
A huge well done must go to both Year 5 and Year 6 for their beautiful singing of our own version of 'What a Wonderful World'. The passion that the children have for looking after the world around us never ceases to amaze me, and the way that they sang the song reflected this perfectly.
We are intending to record the children singing the song so that you can enjoy it again, so watch this space!
Have a great weekend,
Miss H x
Blog of the Week4/10/19 |
|---|
| This week in Maths we have been learning about negative numbers and where they sit on a number line. Negative numbers sit on the number line before 0, and they have a - symbol sat in front of them e.g. -1, -2, -3. On Tuesday we started our new topic in Science called 'Rocks and Fossils', that links to our trip that we will be going on in a few weeks to Lyme Regis. We enjoyed learning our song for the Harvest Festival this week, where we adapted 'What a Wonderful World' to give a message about looking after the world that God has given us. We hope you have enjoyed reading about our week! By Erin and Layla |
Badminton!
The children have been very lucky to enjoy weekly badminton sessions with Mr Cook. The children have been thoroughly enjoying these sessions, and it has been wonderful to watch as the children learn about the game and build up their badminton skills week after week. Here are some photos of the children enjoying their session today!
Blog of the Week27/9/19 |
|---|
|
We have been up to a lot of things this week, for example in Maths we have been looking at numbers up to 1,000,000. We have also learnt all about powers of 10 which is where on the ten there is a little number such as 2, 3, 4 or 5 which tells you how many times you need to times the 10 by itself. |
Creating our own river!
During our topic lesson today, we learnt all about the journey of a river. To do this, we went outside and created our very own Otterbourne School river.
We discussed what we thought would happen as the water began to flow from the source of the river, and we considered the potential movement of the materials sat at the river's source, as well as how the bumps in the land along the way might change the river's course. We watched in excitement as the river flowed, forming meanders and confluences, and even flooding our floodplain!
We then went inside and learnt more about the features that appear along the journey of a river, and started to explore how erosion and deposition might change a river's course over time.
Trip to the Itchen River
To kick of our topic 'Rolling Rivers', we spent the morning down by the River Itchen in Otterbourne. We spent time sketching the river, writing setting descriptions of the river, and working with Ms Simmons to explore which creatures live in the river using the method of kick sampling.
