Hawks Class

wb 16th April 

We've had a great first week back after the Easter holidays! Our new topic for this term is Oxford and in English, we will be using some books by Philip Pullman to inspire our writing. The first book we will be reading is called Clockwork, and as we started to delve into it this week, we learnt about some famous clockwork clocks with figurines. As the apprentice clockwork maker in the story is struggling to come up with which clockwork figure he is going to make for his town's clock, we decided to come up with our own character to help him out! After learning more about haiku poetry, we then wrote some haiku poems about the clockwork characters we imagined. Miss Cook and Mrs Duan were so impressed with the creativity and vocabulary used in the poems and we're all excited to carry on reading more of Clockwork together! Well done Y5!

w.b 18th March

Production Week!

This week, the year 5s performed their production of Mystery at Magpie Manor with the year 4s. They did such a fantastic job: learning their lines, perfecting their dances and singing their songs. They've put in so much hard work over the last few weeks and we were very proud of them! Thank you for all your support in the audiences and in the run up to the performances with your help practising lines and sourcing costumes. Well done Year 5!

wb 4th March 2024

This week in year 5 we have been designing and creating pop-up books for our DT project. The design brief mentioned that the pop-up books should be a nursery rhyme and written for the year 1s. We learnt new skills of how to make a sliding piece, a pivot piece and a pop-up or speaking piece for our books. The children designed the whole book and used different materials to colour in their designs. The children were then able to read and share their pop-up books with children from year 1.

wb 26th February 2024

For our Earth and space topic for this term Science Oxford visited the Year 5s with an amazing Planetarium experience. The children were immersed in a giant inflatable dome with a 360-degree view of the night sky. They embarked on an adventure, travelling into orbit, landing on the Moon, and boldly going where no humans have gone before. The children were able to explore and ask questions about our planet and space. They all had great fun and have come away with some great facts!

wb 22nd Jan 2024

Last week year 5 visited the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford to watch The Oxfordshire County Youth Orchestra. The incredible orchestra performed a variety of sea-themed music including Henry Wood's Fantasia on British Sea Songs and a medley of music from the film, The Little Mermaid. We also sang a few sea shanties where some children from Eynsham got to join in and play some instruments. The children in year 5 were also pleased to watch their very own music teacher, Mr Brown, play the French Horn in the orchestra!

wb 8th Jan

This week in English, we've been reading and exploring Greenling our new class text. As Greenling is a modern fable, we started the week recapping some more traditional fables and identifying the different morals they teach us. We then made some predictions about what Greenling could be about based on the front cover before reading the story and working out what the fable was teaching us. Today, we have created some storymaps to illustrate the key events in the fable; with some including key words and phrases. Please take a look at a selection below!

wb 20th November 2023 Didcot Trip

Last Wednesday, Year 5 went to Didcot Railway Centre for an evacuee experience day as part of our history topic on World War Two. We were thrown into lots of different activities similar to those experienced by evacuees during the war. We practised putting out fires, experienced an air raid in a shelter and did some problem-solving on the train lines. After lunch, which we ate in a train carriage, we got to go on a steam train (driven by Mrs Duan) like evacuees would have done. There was even a ‘bomb on the line’ drill whilst we were en route to our destination! Once there, we had to do some more evacuee jobs including collecting eggs, helping the postman, do some washing and even some polishing! The children all showed the 3Rs brilliantly, all really enjoyed the day and learnt so much from our experience day!

wb 13th Nov '23

This week in DT we were given a design brief to create a piece of abstract art using motorised technology called ‘Doodlers’. We started by investigating using electrical series circuits with and without a motor. We then tinkered with some pre-made Doodlers to explore what makes the doodler more/less effective, such as using pens rather than pencils. We then got to make our own Doodlers and used them to create some amazing abstract pieces of art!

w/b 6th November '23

In our history lesson this week, we were learning about the rationing of food that took place in WW2. After learning why rationing took place, what was rationed and how it worked, we got to try some of the foods that were either rationed or eaten as part of day-to-day diet during the war. We learnt how important food was to the war effort, and after reading some facts about each food (including a fact about one lady who got fined £45 for throwing her leftover bread to the birds instead of using it!) we got to have a taste! We tried milksop (bread soaked in milk), Spam, Mars bars, cucumbers, radishes and carrolade (apple juice with carrot puree). Carrolade and radishes were surprisingly popular whilst the Spam got some mixed reviews!

wb 30th Oct 2023'

Mandarin

This week in our Mandarin lesson we had great fun as we practised writing the Mandarin characters for the numbers 1 to 10. We used 'magic paper' and paintbrushes to draw out the characters. We needed to control our hand movements and learn how to hold the paintbrush correctly to make sure that the characters were in the right place.

wb 9th Oct 23'

World Mental Health Day

On Tuesday it was World Mental Health Day. Every year group went to an assembly all about mental health and its meaning.

In year 5 we discussed what our mental health is and we came up with some activities that can help it:

• We did some mindfulness colouring whilst watching and listening to a calming video.
• We did some breathing and movement exercises outside.
• We went on a mindfulness walk and discussed who and what makes us happy.

wb 25th Sep '23

Exploring Roman Numerals

In maths this week we have been breaking some Roman Numeral codes, working out the secret messages that have been written. We discussed where we see Roman Numerals today and why it is important that we continue to learn about them. Here is some of our work:

wb 18th Sep '23

Investigating air resistance with parachutes

In science, we have been exploring forces and how they affect different objects. This week we discussed how air resistance and gravity interact and work against one another. We conducted an experiment where we timed ourselves running without a parachute and then with a parachute to investigate what effect it had on our running speed. We discussed how air resistance created by the parachute slows us down and why this is useful and effective for skydivers.

w/b 4th Sep'23

Our First Week in Y5

We had a great first week in Year 5 getting introduced to our new topic for the term of World War Two. In History, we explored some artefacts from the war including helmets, gas masks and ration cards. Miss Cook and Mrs Duan were really impressed with our analysis skills and teamwork as we investigated the items and worked to deduce what the purpose of each item could have been. We did really well and only really got stumped by the air raid rattle. In English, we started our new book Once by Morris Gleitzman and had a great time completing some drama as we got to know chapter 1 of the book and learn more about the main character Felix. Part of our work this week was to story map the key parts of the chapter and our teachers were wowed by some of the work produced.