Olympic Torch Relay

Today the children took part in our 'Olympic Torch Relay.' The children at our school took it in turns to complete a short walk in the local area with our very own Olympic torch!

Our class completed the walk with Year 1 and Year 3. We were really responsible and helped to look after the younger children. We are looking forward to the real Olympic torch arriving in Birmingham soon!

Apollo 11 Moon Landing in Y5

As part of their homework this week, the children have been given some lines to learn for our re-creation of the Apollo 11 moon landing. They have also been asked to bring in some smart clothes to wear for our performance.

We will be making props on Thursday and rehearsing on Friday. We hope to film our moon landing on Monday. We will be using a 'green screen' to make our film look realistic.

Apollo 13

Over the next few weeks, we will also be looking at the film 'Apollo 13.' Take a look at the trailer below.

E.T.

Take a look at the film trailer for E.T.

We have been watching this film in our literacy lessons this week. We have created a zone of relevance board, learnt how directors can create different moods/atmospheres and have created a storyboard of events.

We will be using our storyboard to re-write sections of the film as narrative.

Apollo 11

Yesterday afternoon, Year 5 learnt all about the first moon landing. We read some memories from people all over the world who remembered watching this event on the television. We then created a mind map of facts all about the Apollo 11 mission.

We found out that the moon landing took place on July 20 1969. We know that the crew of Apollo 11 were Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon and his first words were 'This is one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.' Buzz Aldrin described the moon as 'magnificent desolation.'

The astronauts displayed the American flag and then carried out different experiments. They collected 22kg of moon rock samples to bring home. They spent 21 hours on the surface of the moon and over half a billion people watched them on televisions across the world. They left behind a plaque which read:

Here Men From The Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We Came in Peace For All Mankind.

The astronauts returned home on July 24th 1969, landing in the Pacific Ocean.

Once we had found out our information, we completed some independent writing. We imagined that we were Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin and we recounted the events of the lunar landing. We even tried some space food so that we could get a better understanding of what life is like for an astronaut. We liked the ice cream but we didn't like the strawberries.

Here are some photos of our work:

Space Race

Today we have found out about the 'space race' between the USA and USSR. We spent some time discussing the Cold War and were able to use the key words 'capitalist' and 'communism'.We created a time line of events and spent lots of time discussing who had been leading the space race before Neil Armstrong completed his moon landing.

We then had a look at the famous space race front cover from TIME magazine and had a go at creating our own. We learnt that China has now joined the space race and that the aim is to put humans back on the moon in 2020 as well as explore other planets.

We finished our lesson by thinking about which country had the most impact on the 'space race.' What did you think?

Here are some examples of our magazine covers.

Rocket Launch!

On Friday morning, every child in Year 5 had the opportunity to launch the rocket they had made. After our successful launch mission, the children produced a graph to show the distance travelled by each rocket. The children then worked out the mode, median, range and mean of the data.

After lunch, we wrote a short explanation text on how our rocket worked. The children demonstrated some excellent understanding of Sir Isaac Newtons Laws of Motion. Very impressive!! The children then worked hard to write their very own instruction texts. I was pleased with how much they had remembered from our instruction unit earlier in the year.

Here are some photos of our rocket launch. I was really impressed with the rockets the children made and it was obvious that they had put a lot of effort into their homework. Well done Year 5!

Launch time!

How did you make your rocket? How far did it travel? How could you have improved your rocket?

Blog Homework

On Friday, the children in Year 5 were sent home with a letter containing information about our class blog. As homework, they have been asked to comment on our space page. Comment number one should include three facts they have learnt so far and comment number two should be about the photos which have recently been uploaded.

I would like to say a big thank you to the family members who have took the time to share and comment on the blog with their children. Its great to have such fantastic support in Year 5 and be able to share our work with you! I look forward to seeing you in a few weeks time for our Joyning the Learning open afternoon.

Miss Sawicki

Space Year 5

This half term we have started our 'Joyning the Learning' topic- Space Explorers!

During this topic we will be given lots of different missions so that we can complete our NASA astronaut training!

This week we completed our first mission! We worked together in groups to transform our classroom into a NASA space station. Some of us draw and painted the moon, some of us made our very own space shuttle, and other children created a poster picture of a UFO visiting Area 51. Take a look at our amazing classroom. What do you think?

As part of this mission, we also had to find out about the space shuttle. We started by identifying the different parts of a rocket, including the payload, the engine, the fuel tank, rocket boosters and the control pit. We looked at different rockets and identified each section.

We then worked in pairs to find out about different space shuttles. We looked at Discover, Challenger, Columbia, Endeavour and Atlantis and created some great posters. The posters went straight up on our research wall. Here are some examples of our work:

We then found out about how a rocket works. This involved some complicated science but by the end of the lesson we were all able to explain in our own words how a rocket works. Take a look at our explanations:

On Friday, we will complete our mission on space shuttles by launching our own pop bottle rockets that we have made for homework.

Queen's Diamond Jubilee

During the last week of half term, Year 5 learnt all about the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. We found out lots of information about the Queen. We imagined that we had been made Queen or King for the day and wrote a biography about our life as a member of the Royal family.

We solved word problems about the Diamond Jubilee celebrations and created our own graphs displaying ticket sales for the celebrations.

At the very end of the week, our school hosted our own Diamond Jubilee celebrations. The children were asked to bring in their own food, and on Friday morning we made our own Diamond Jubilee themed cakes. Here are some photos from this great event:

Union Jack flag

Our school hall

All of our food!!