Autumn 1 2024

As part of our science learning about Earth and space, we held the ‘Great Space Sleepover’. The children enjoyed listening to some space stories, going on a star walk, watching a space movie (with hot chocolate and popcorn!) and then snuggling down to sleep in the school hall! We were incredibly lucky with the weather and were able to spot some of the constellations we have been learning about, as well as having a really good view of the Hunter’s supermoon.

 

 

We had great fun in PSHE, making up a group game using an object chosen at random. This helped us learn the importance of following rules and why it is important that they are clear to everybody. We enjoyed sharing our games with the rest of the class.

  

    

In art, we have been learning about the work of William Morris. We created our own motifs inspired by his work and used these to create stunning print work.

   

As part of our work on mental health, we spent time discussing and making our ‘network hands’. These are the people that are there for us if we need help.

    

---------------------------------------------------

Summer 2 2024

We were invited to take part in a poetry competition at St Albans High School. Our team did an absolutely brilliant job and were fantastic ambassadors for Year 5. They were praised for their excellent team work - real Beech Hyde Team Bees!

We thoroughly enjoyed performing in our end of year production, What a Knight!

In Unique Week, we celebrated everything that makes us who we are. We made dream catchers to share what makes us special.

In maths, we enjoyed creating patterns and pictures with a line of reflection.

     

During Beech Hyde Careers Day, we talked a lot about aspirations, dreams and what makes us happy. We used these elements to think about what career we might like when we are older. Here are some of our hopes and dreams.

In art, we have been learning about art from other cultures.

  

-------------------------------------------------

Summer 1 2024

In English, the children have been enthralled by the story of 'Varjak Paw'. They have written super stories, working hard to build suspense and tension.

Our science topic this term is researching and comparing different life cycles. We compared the life cycles of an amphibian and an insect and thought about all that we already know about animals and life cycles.

     

We have also created these fabulous posters about an endangered animal.

  

We celebrated Mental Health Week by having fun with our daily mile and designing leaflets to promote moving for our mental health.

    

In history, we have been learning about the Anglo-Saxons. We ended our topic by enjoying an Anglo-Saxon day at Chiltern Open Air Museum.

    

In French this term, we have been learning how to talk about our pet.

 

We brought in photographs of our pets and have written about pet what we have.

In RE we have been reflecting on some Deeper Thinking Questions.

We have been making some persuasive posters about how to better care for our environment. We think they are creatively stunning! RE this term is about researching different creation stories. We will be covering creation stories from different beliefs, including: Christian, Jewish, Polynesian, Ancient Egyptian, Viking, Hindu, Islamic and Aboriginal.

       

-------------------------------------------------

Spring 2 2024

In French this term, we have been learning how to describe what we have been wearing. We have been learning the names for different clothes and recapping different colours to try to describe what we are wearing in more detail such as je porte un pantalon vert.

We celebrated the start of British Science Week by dressing up as scientists, here are some of our fabulous costumes.

    

Mr Spencer from St Albans Boys School visited our class to teach us about time and how we can use the sun or sand timers to tell the time. He showed us how to make our own sundial. We also learnt how to use a bottle to make a water clock, just like the Ancient Greeks, who called it a clepsydra. We needed several attempts to adjust the amount of water in our bottle to try to get exactly one minute.

      

We have been continuing with our topic of properties of materials, which includes learning about soluble and insoluble mixtures, reversible and irreversible changes. We enjoyed mixing vinegar and bicarbonate of soda to watch a glove inflate. It causes a chemical reaction that produces a salt (sodium acetate) and water, as well as carbon dioxide gas which is why the glove inflated.

As always, World Book Day was great fun - the children enjoyed dressing up as a character from a book and we spent lots of time through the week reading and talking about books.

                          

In English, we have been learning about Shackleton’s Journey. We are really proud of the work we created.

  

  

To finish our Pole to Pole topic, we were excited to meet a real-life polar explorer, Al Sylvester. He spoke to the class about his expedition to the South Pole and the challenges he and his team faced. It was a great lesson in how to be a resilient tortoise!

  

Spring 1 2024

In French this term, we have been learning how to say the days of the week and the months of the year. We have made a Joyeux Anniversaire display and have written our birthdays in French.

In science, we are learning about properties of materials, which includes learning about soluble and insoluble mixtures, reversible and irreversible changes. We will be deciding if cornflour and water is a solid or liquid and hope to make use of our school kitchen later this term to create some irreversible baking extravaganzas! We thought it was very interesting that the butter melted in the warm water, but didn’t dissolve. The marshmallows took the longest to dissolve.

   

Our first science lesson of the term gave us the opportunity to think about the properties of different materials: Were they magnetic? Would they fit through the holes of a sieve? We worked in our table groups to separate the materials that were given to us all mixed up.
  

  

We enjoyed NSPCC Number Day - we were all very intrigued as to who had the highest number on their clothes! The class enjoyed the opportunity to play games that involve number and patterns such as snakes and ladders, connect 4, dominoes and uno; we were really impressed with their team spirit and focus.

    

  

Our maths team were fantastic ambassadors for Beech Hyde during the HfL Maths Challenge - they showed determination, resilience and great team-work.

We marked Mental Health Week by making worry dolls. We also enjoyed sharing objects and photos of people and places that make us feel happy and safe.

    

In English this half term, we have been studying The Highwayman. The children enjoyed performing the poem and they have created some super pieces of writing in response.

   

Our reading scrapbook has had some super entries and is really helping to inspire the class with their reading choices!

  

In PSHE, we have been thinking about our dreams and goals. The children created their own books based on the ‘Little People, Big Dreams’ books.

In history, we have been studying the Ancient Greeks. We ended our topic with a Greek Day. The children enjoyed having the opportunity to dress up, eat Greek food, design pottery and learn some Greek dancing!

  

  

Autumn 2 2023

In computing, we are learning about cryptography - the art of keeping information secret and safe. We began by thinking about how people sent messages before phones and the internet. As part of this, we learnt about semaphore and Morse code; we enjoyed decoding and encoding secret messages.

                  

Instructors from the Hertfordshire Cycling Team came and spent a week with us to help us with our level 2 Bikeability. We learned how to ride safely on the road and thoroughly enjoyed the course.

As part of our work on Remembrance, we made cardboard poppy tiles. We were really proud of them.

In science this half term, we have been learning about different forces and have been carrying out a number of investigations. The first investigation we did was to question whether the length of a pendulum affected the number of swings the ball did in a set amount of time. We have been learning about variables and why we need to have some parts of our investigation stay the same; such as the size of the ball at the end of our pendulum- if we are investigating the length of the drop.

We also investigated which material would be best as a parachute, giving the person jumping the longest time in the air. We had great fun making the parachutes, attaching them to our characters and then climbing the PE equipment to get to a good height!

   

Au Salon du Thé - Our French lessons have taught us how to order food and drinks in a café in a French speaking country: a very important topic! This is some of the vocabulary we have been learning and making sure we are using the correct determiner (un or une).

We have also learnt some key phrases to help us when ordering and paying the bill:

In Maths this half term we have been learning about multiplication, division and addition and subtraction. We have been learning about the rules for divisibility.We had great fun working out if numbers were divisible by 4 using the Carroll diagram.

 In DT we have been investigating cam mechanisms and using these to make our own moving toys. We all thoroughly enjoyed our DT day!

                

We marked ‘No Pens Day’ by taking part in the largest show and tell; nearly everybody in the class brought an item in from home to talk to the class about. These ranged from cuddly toys to violins and everything in between! We also worked in small groups to role play a scene from Theseus and the Minotaur which we have studied in English.

    

---------------------------------------------------

Autumn 1 2023

In art, we have been studying the work of William Morris. The children researched his life and created their own factfiles. After looking at some of his famous pieces of work, they designed illuminated letters in the style of William Morris. They also designed a motif and used this to create a printing tile; using a block-printing technique, they created a print of their work.

    

We marked World Mental Health Day by thinking about the people we can talk to if we feel worried or upset. We created our network hands to help remind us. We also enjoyed reading the book ‘Find Your Happy’ by Emily Cox. We discussed times when we might feel sad, worried or frustrated and created ‘happy place’ postcards which we can use to help us if we are finding things difficult.

    

In science, we have been learning about Earth and Space; as part of this, we held a space sleepover. After setting up our beds in the school hall, we listened to some stories about how constellations were named. We then went onto the playground to look for stars – unfortunately, the weather was not on our side and it was very cloudy! However, we had lots of fun using a star app on the iPads instead. Finally, we watched a space-themed movie and then snuggled down in sleeping bags in the hall. It was a brilliant evening – and everyone managed to get some sleep!

We have made models of the Sun, earth and moon to help us learn about how the moon orbits earth and that earth orbits the sun. On Thursday 12th October we enjoyed listening to a talk about the Euclid Telescope which was given by an Astrophysicist called Benjamin Joachimi.

               

Reading is an important part of Year 5 life! Our reading scrapbook has been popular with a long list of children waiting to take it home. We also enjoy our weekly visits to the library; here are some of our recent book choices.

In geography, we have been learning about the UK’s National Parks. Working in pairs, the children chose one of the 15 parks to research and then produced a leaflet encouraging tourists to visit.

   

Our french topic En Classe has helped us to learn the vocabulary for different stationary that you should find in our classroom. The children have been learning how to say ‘Dans ma trousse j’ai …’/  In my pencil case I have… and can now name about 10 different items that would be found, such as a rubber, a reading book or a pen.

Maths this term has given us the opportunity to re-visit place value. We have been reading, writing, ordering and comparing numbers to at least 1,000,000 and determining the value of each digit. We have been learning about negative numbers and have been learning to read, write, order and compare numbers with up to 3 decimal places. We have been recapping multiplication and division with a focus on multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 100. Our current unit is looking at properties of numbers, such as multiples, factors and common factors. Here are two examples of a factor beetle:

                    

------------------------------------------------