Year 5 have had a fantastic day out on our STEM Discovery Centre trip. We took part in lots in exciting activities including designing our own tote bags with exploding paint and learning about the Mars rover.

We also had some time in the exploration room, which had lots of interesting things to look at and use, including an augmented reality sand box and a static electricity ball!

We have finished reading our core text for this term: Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. We have created our own book reviews to explain our thoughts and opinions about the story.

'The book is about a boy who is stranded on an island with company. He fell of a boat in the ocean, left alone to die...'

'I liked the part where the turtles came to Kensuke's kingdom because it felt heart warming that Kensuke helped them when they were born and they came back to where they were born!'

'I love that the book is imaginative and creative. I would recommend it to my Opa because he likes reading'

Year 5 have had a wonderful day out at the University of Hertfordshire. Poplar class took part in a murder simulation and got to crack the case! It was led by former Metropolitan Police Inspector Ash Hornsby and the Law School team. The children learned about each stage of a criminal investigation and exactly what role the police, lawyers and courts play in bringing a murder suspect to justice. We took part in the cross-examination and some of them took on the role of barristers.  

Year 5 represented Fairlands wonderfully throughout the trip and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing all of the interactive and amazing things the University had to offer!

Year 5 have been performing Shakespeare today!  In small groups the children performed the scene where Macbeth and Banquo meet three witches on the heath.  The used intonation and prosody to read and interpret all those very tricky old English words.  They did a fantastic job!

Year 5 have had a fantastic wow day today! We all gathered in the hall to find out that we were going to be making bridges, as part of our 'Raging Rivers' topic. We had to use a lot of lollipop sticks in order to build the structure for our bridges. We then sketched out and painted a landscape that included a river to put our bridges on. At lunch time, we gathered materials to put on our landscapes to further enhance the 3D effect. All adults were really impressed with our resilience and determination throughout the day and we all really enjoyed it. We can't wait to take our masterpieces home with us tomorrow!

Poplar class have had an excellent world book day! The book we have been looking at is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, an oldie but a goodie! We even had our very own pair of Oompa Loompas in the class! We started off by creating our own sweet inventions, just like Willy Wonka. We had to use expanded noun phrases and figurative language to describe our inventions. We then did a class vote on our favourite sweets and chocolates and used our Maths skills to create a bar chart to represent this information. We drew along with Quentin Blake, the author of lots of Roald Dahl's books, to have a go at sketching Willy Wonka and his Oompa Loompas. In the afternoon we took part in two fun world book day quizzes and got into the hall to take part in some drama activities acting out some of our favourite scenes from books.

Pine Class really enjoyed World Book Day today.  After a quiz to get us into the mood, we learned about Mrs Allan's favourite childhood book, "The Magic Faraway Tree".  The children planned and then wrote an adventure set in their own make-believe land found at the top of this incredible tree.  In the afternoon, they all then brought their lands to life by drawing them using different media including twigs we gathered ourselves to represent the top of the tree.

In our topic lessons this half term, we have worked really hard on planning and making a collage of earth with a painted background. We also sculpted our own planets and painted them, they all turned out wonderful!

We have really enjoyed learning about Space this term and the children have really impressed their teachers with their scientific knowledge, well done Year 5!

Ask your child: 

What shape is the earth?
What planets are in our Solar System?
How do planets move in our Solar System?
How does the moon move?
How does day and night occur?