Year 5A!

We have been learning all about forces as part of IPC lessons – from gravity to friction, to floating and sinking, pushes and pulls, air and water resistance! It has been so much fun! The best part about this topic are all the tests we get to conduct. Here are some photos of showing the different work we have done.

The first 4 photos show the work we were doing to test the effects of friction on the wheels of toy cars. We had to plan and conduct our test and remember to keep our tests fair.

 These next photos show the work we did to test floating and sinking. It was such a lot of fun getting outside again and testing our knowledge of floating and sinking. A big thank you to Miss Louise for lending us the trays to use for our tests!

Our first test, though, was testing air resistance. We talked about when we had seen air resistance at work in the real world, we looked at the clothes people wear when they participate in races, we looked at the shape of cars and bicycles that people use in races and discussed why certain materials and shapes might be more effective than others. Then…we designed our own parachutes!

 As this term progresses we will use our understanding of the different forces to design and build fun fair rides that include moving parts. We will be able to talk about how forces have been used to make our rides work.

We hope you will be able to pop into our class to have a look at our rides when they’re finished!

We have had such a busy week this week, preparing for our part in Peter Pan! As well as rehearsing our song and dance we have been making our own costumes! Making costumes is quite a complicated task, with so many different steps!

We thought about what sort of text you would need to make each of those steps clear and easy to follow, of course we realised what we needed was an instruction text! So, we have made a note of all the resources we needed to make the costumes, what problems you might encounter and what order to do things.

Next we wrote up all of our ideas as a set of instructions. Here is what Joyce wrote:

Every week in Year 5 the children prepare a ‘news’ presentation to sghow to the whole class. the presentation are normally about 1 minute long and the topics include things like favourite animals, festivals, Miri. the presentations can take different forms. The children can write a poem about the week’s topic, write a short fiction story about the topic or present factual information more formally.

This week our topic has been Festivals. We have learnt about flower festivals in the Netherlands, Sinterklaas, the kite festival in Bintulu and Filipino festivals.

Anne-Karlijn wrote a poem about Sinterklaas:

Sinterklaas comes with his black piets

With lots of pepernote made out of wheat

He arrives dressed in white and red

And a miter on his head

He gives out presents on his birthday

And then we all say hooray

We all can’t wait til 5th December

That is a day we will all remember!

We have really enjoyed hearing about the differnet dfestivals that take place all over the world and look forward to nexdt week when we’ll be hearing about animals!

In our music lessons Miss Emma has been teaching us all about music connected to space. She always says, ”Don’t make music, be the music!” We have used our voices as instruments, used the new instruments we have in school – the keyboards, the piano and the drum kit and made music with non-percussion instruments. It has been brilliant fun!

We have had some extra special teachers this week!

Our IPC topic this half term is Our Place in Space. We have been learning all about the history of space exploration, conducted experiments to see the movement of the sun and researched facts about the different planets in our solar system.

In Year 6 the students have been learning about Space too!

So, this week Miss Mandy and her Year 6 students invited us to have an extra special space lesson in the ICT suite! There, the Year 6 students showed PowerPoint presentations about their space research to groups of 2 or 3 Year 5 students.

We took notes from their presentations and wrote about them in our IPC books.

Here are some of the facts we learned:

- there is a mnemonic to help us remember the order of the planets: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas! (can you think of another mnemonic to remember the order of the planets?)

- all the planets rotate around their own axis

- the changing shadow on the moon is caused by the Earth

It was great fun sharing our learning! Thanks Year 6!

Miss Chloe, Mr. Hennie and Miss Cath have been taking our swimming lessons this term and we have been SO busy!

We have practised:

1) breathing

2) front crawl arms

3) front crawl legs

4) push and glide

The list goes on! It has been brilliant fun, even though it is a little cold sometimes!

This term in our PE lessons, Miss Chloe has been teaching all about the A,B,Cs of Pe -

A for Agility

B for Balance

C for Control

We have assessed our levels for each of these skills using loads of different tests. We’ve used tennis balls, basketballs and cones to see which areas we are strongest in and how we can improve.

After each ABC test we have applied our new skills to a very competitive game of dodgeball! Awesome fun!

Sept. 7^th 2011

Dear Parents,

Welcome back! I hope you had a happy, relaxing summer and are ready for a great first year at Tenby International School!

Firstly, I would like to introduce three new students to the Year 5 class, Arturo, Reina and Mukhriz. Welcome! I hope you enjoy your time in our class, we are all looking forward to getting to know you.

Miss Shirley, whom most of you will know from last year, is going to be working in both the Year 5 and 6 class full time this year, helping to support the children’s learning. We are really grateful to have her join our little team!

The IPC units of work we will cover are:

1. Our Place in Space
2. Artists’ Impressions of the World
3. The Physical World
4. Making the News
5. The Big Historical Picture

Our first unit of work “OUR PLACE IN SPACE” lasts for 6 weeks. We will focus on history, information and communication technology (ICT), international tasks and science and through these areas the children will be given the opportunity to develop one of the core skills; independence.

In History we will be:

v  Learning about what people once believed about space

v  Finding out how they changed their minds

v  Discovering why Galileo got into trouble

In ICT we will be:

v  Using the Internet to carry out some of our research and to see space in a new way.

In Science we will be:

v  Learning about the movements of our Earth, the Sun and Moon, and how these movements affect us.
In Physical Education we will be:

v  Improving core skills and confidence in PE

v  Develop knowledge and understanding of fundamental movement; ability, co-ordination and balance.

v  Develop knowledge and understanding of fundamental movement; ability, co-ordination and balance

v  Progress fundamental skills of kicking, jumping, throwing, striking, running and catching.

v  The development of the fundamental skills will be experience through a range of activities from swimming, invasions games, gymnastics, trampolining and striking and fielding this term.

In Music we will be:

v  Using Gustav Holst’s The Planets for inspiration, students will create a musical journey through space. Using classroom instruments and voices we will compose and record an original composition to represent each of the planets we visit. All students will perform as part of a group, but some might perform sections on their own.

For our entry point for this unit we will create a “Space 100 line”. I have asked your children to bring in items in connection with/that have a link to “Space” for example: a picture, photo, object, food, toys. The aim is to get at least 100 items by Monday September 12^th.

Literacy and maths lessons will be linked to our Space topic where possible and in addition to this we will be covering the following units:

In literacy: narrative writing, reading comprehension, non-fiction writing and recounts.

In maths: place value/ordering and rounding, multiplication and division, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratio & proportion, handling data and ongoing are timetables and telling the time from both digital and analog clocks.

Homework: The aim is about 30 minutes per day. Initially, I will give the children the following pieces of homework as I get to know them, this will change as the term progresses.

Homework will be set on Mondays and collected on Fridays.

-          Language homework will be explained by the specialist teachers separately.

-          10 Spelling words per week

-          One Maths task

-          One IPC task

The children should also read for15 minutes of reading everyday. It would be helpful if you sat with your child as they read and asked questions about the story or new words they encounter. The children should keep a log of their reading in their reading diaries.

Please make sure your child brings a bottle of water (refill at water fountains), a healthy snack and lunch and their hats to school everyday.

On Tuesday September 13^th there will be an information evening, open to all parents, another letter will be sent home with further details about this.

Our weekly timetable will include:

Monday:         Assembly

1^st Language (10:00 – 11:00)

Tuesday:        Music (10:00 – 11:00)

Wednesday:   1^st Language (9:15 – 9:45)

Library

2^nd Language (12.30 – 13.05)                        

                      Culture

Thursday:      Swimming (8.05 – children can come to school in their swimming kit)

2^nd Language (13.05 – 13.40)

Friday:           PE (8.10 – 9.10 – children should come to school in their PE kits and bring a full change of clothes for afterwards)

ICT (10.00 – 11.00)

Mental Maths & Spelling Tests

Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 in the city of Florence. She was the daughter of a rich English family. When she was young her parents wanted her to become a socialite and learn how throw big parties and serve tea, Florence Nightingale however did not want to become a socialite and when she told her parents about it they got angry.

Florence Nightingale wanted to become a nurse but her parents would not let her because they did not want her to work in the dirty hospitals.

When she was 16 she came to an agreement with her dad that if he let her go to Germany to study medicine she wouldn’t tell anyone about her plans and their family wouldn’t be embarrassed by her actions.

During the Crimean war, Florence Nightingale was put as a nurse with 38 other nurses. The hospital she worked in during the Crimean was a dirty building but she got men to clean it up and she also got the supplies they needed in the hospital. She got named the lady with the lamp because she always walked the hallways with a lantern.

Florence Nightingale saved many peoples lives but became ill with a sickness she got while working in a hospital. After she got the sickness she was not able to travel anymore but people came to her for advice.

Florence Nightingale died when she fell asleep at noon and did not wake up again.           

By Maro Emakpor

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11th 1884; she had two younger brothers Elliott Jr. and Gracie Hall.

Not long afterward, her mother died of a terrible disease called diphtheria. Elliott (Eleanor’s dad) was deemed unfit to care for the children, so Eleanor and her brothers were sent to live with their grand mom. Soon Eleanor’s father died when she was just nine years old.                                                                   

Eleanor’s grand mother decided to send her to Allenswood when she was 15, a boarding school in England. There, girls were given a progressive education and taught to be independent. Eleanor blossomed at Allenswood and showed the beginning signs of the woman she would become later in life. After three years at Allenswood, Eleanor returned to New York. Her uncle, Theodore Roosevelt, was now the president of the United States. “Uncle Ted” always called Eleanor his favorite niece. He taught her the “Roosevelt rule:” Never show fear. Eleanor learned a strong sense of responsibility and took it seriously.

Eleanor married her cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt on March 17th 1905.

Eleanor held press conferences for women only. She also urged her husband to appoint women to governmental positions. She argued that everyone, including women, youth, and black Americans, should be included in FDR’s programs. Those ideas led to her recognition as a new kind of first lady.  She was a great leader who helped her husband Franklin Roosevelt, the country and the world work towards peace and tolerance. She fought for human rights for justice and for all. I think she brought great changes to her country.

by Sose