Welcome to Sycamore Class
Our class teacher is Miss Lloyd and our TA is Miss Milson

In Term 2 our P.E. days are Tuesday and Wednesday.

Victorian project homework is due Monday 5th December with the expectations of 4 pieces of work to be completed; we can't wait to see your hard work.

Sycamore's Smarts Awards

Wallingford Museum Trip

As part of our Victorian project work, Sycamore visited Wallingford Museum where we were able to experience and learn about the stories of real people from Wallingford during the Victorian period. We used our detective skills to look at census data whilst exploring the features of the old workhouse. Alongside this, we were sent on an object hunt with descriptions of the item we needed to find. During our hunt we were exposed to a range of memorabilia and artefacts used during the Victorian period. We gained lots of information about how life was different to ours and how hard people had to work in order to use these objects to make a living. Further to this, we studied the features of the painting 'Thames Side Conversation' by George Dunlop Leslie and discussed how the artist had depicted the difference between rich and poor during this time period. 

P.E. 

As part of P.E. this term, Sycamore have continued to practise their skills within football and hockey. We have been very lucky to have had a football coach come in and take some of our sessions. We have practised finding space, turning with the ball and passing unchallenged, selecting an appropriate conclusion to our running with the ball by either passing, shooting or dribbling. We have also looked at playing in a restricted position, and changing positions within a game, working as a team and implementing our skills together as a team, as well as controlling a bouncing ball with more accuracy.

Children in Need Challenge

To take part in our children in need challenge, both Sycamore and Chestnut class decided to task themselves with seeing how much further we could run than a marathon around the school field. We worked out that 4 laps equated to 1 mile and in order for us to collectively run further than a marathon we wouldn't need to run many laps at all with 29/30 children per class. In order to make the activity more challenging, we wanted to see how much further we could run within 20 minutes. We managed to run a total of 409 laps, beating our target by over 305 laps! 

Writing

This term, Sycamore have enjoyed their new project which explores the Victorians. Our writing work has been largely based around the book ‘Street Child’ by Berlie Doherty. We have applied our retrieval and inference skills to make informed assumptions about characters as well as considering how the author has developed characters and settings form what we have reads alongside listened to or seen performed. We have created our own discussions which considers whether Jim Jarvis should leave or stay at the workhouse by writing in role and using evidence and appropriate connectives, whilst considering both sides of our discussion. Further to our writing, we have supported ideas by using drama, freeze frames and hot seating to help us get into character.

Maths

Within maths this term, Sycamore have worked incredibly hard to apply their understanding of fractions by recognising and finding equivalent fractions, converting mixed numbers to improper fractions and improper fractions to mixed numbers, added and subtracted fractions as well as comparing fractions. Further to this, our multiplication and division unit saw us exploring multiples, common multiples, factors, prime numbers, cube numbers, square numbers, and multiplying/dividing by 10, 100 and 1,000. We have really pushed ourselves to also apply our knowledge to more word problem questions.

PSHE

Within PSHE this term we have been focusing on the unit 'Celebrating Difference'. We have explored different cultures and our attitudes towards others, how to use strategies to manage our feelings during different friendship conflict situations and how to problem-solve solutions. As well as looking at the difference between direct/indirect bullying and how to encourage others to make the right choices. We have also looked at the value of happiness regardless of material wealth whilst also respecting our own and other people's culture. 

Music 

During music this term, we have built on our skills from term one by applying our understanding of the G and E notes within songs as a class. We have focused on using our fingers for changing notes quickly as well as keeping in time with the rhythm. 

Our learning during term 1:

P.E.

In P.E. this term, Sycamore have enjoyed consolidating some of their skills in netball by focusing on using their skills in game situations. We have practised techniques for the bounce pass and putting this into game situations whilst focusing on defending and attacking positions. We have also looked at finding space, communicating with teammates, and using different techniques when trying to find space such as dodging, sprinting, and fake dodging. Further to this, we have highlighted the importance of pivoting in a game to make more successful passes. As well as practising our one handed and two handed shooting whilst working cooperatively to defend and attack during play.

In addition to Netball, Mrs Sage has led team building P.E. games to help us work collaboratively and communicate effectively.

Writing

This term, Sycamore have shown much enthusiasm for our writing work about Shakespeare’s Hamlet. We have used our inference skills to draw out clues and ideas about characters as well as used our sequencing skills to plot important events in the play. The first aim of our writing this term has been to create a discussion piece deciding whether to avenge Hamlet’s father and murder Claudius. We came up with both for and against arguments and held our own class debate (which got rather heated!) where the children were able to get into role and discuss their points. We also explored types of conjunctions and how we can include these in our writing to add on to ideas as well as explain them. Our second aim of writing was to create a newspaper article to report on an incident towards the end of the play. To support our writing we had fun using drama to act out scenes, used IT to video our discussion and reflect on working in role as a character as well as hot seating to create and incorporate speech in our text. We have also challenged ourselves to use brackets, semi-colons and sentence starters.

Morning Mile

Every Friday morning, the year 5 classes head out for a mindful and energetic morning mile (many do more!). It's a time to get some fresh air, socialise with friends and improve their fitness. Each week the classes are given a challenge. Over the last two weeks lots of the children challenged themselves to running a Mini Marathon 2.6 miles. They loved having a goal to stretch for by walking faster or increasing their speed over a long distance. It was great to see the pride they had when they achieved their new goals and personal best.

Reading

Within our reading lessons this term, we have looked at a range of fiction and non-fiction texts including: poetry, picture books, chapter books, classics and newspaper articles. We have used our reading viper skills to depict different text types. We have worked hard to practise our summarising and inference skills as well as using our retrieval skills to gain information from the texts. 

Take One Picture

To start our journey in Sycamore, we have had fun exploring the wonderful artwork of ‘The Great Wave Off Kanagawa’ by Hokusai. During our project we have used our research skills coupled with our IT skills to create posters documenting information about the artist and their artwork. Following this, we applied our geographical and map skills to locate, identify and describe the physical and human features of Japan/Tokyo. 
 

In addition, we applied our creative skills to plan our own descriptive writing pieces to describe the great wave focusing on our five senses as well as producing our own Japanese Haiku poems linking to nature. Our artistic skills were also used to plan, design and make our own styrofoam prints of the great wave using layer with ink paint.
 

Furthermore, we were very excited to make our own sushi as a team using our measuring skills whilst following step by step instructions. 

Science 

This term, Sycamore have been investigating forces and how objects are affected by these. We have used research skills to explore the background of Sir Isaac Newton and his explanation of gravity. We ave also explored Air Resistance and friction. We have carried out our own investigations to measure types of surface and their impact on friction. We have used our observational skills to record our results in a table and calculated averages.

Maths

During maths, we started the term by recapping our understanding of place value. We explored decoding Roman Numerals and representing numbers to 1,000,000, using more than and less than, partitioning, comparing, ordering and rounding numbers. Further to this, we looked at addition and subtraction by practising mental strategies, adding and subtracting numbers with more than four digits, using the inverse to check our work, comparing calculations and solving multi-step addition and subtraction problems. We have also started multiplication and division by exploring multiples, common multiples, factors, common factors, prime numbers, square numbers, cube numbers and solving problems using our knowledge of squaring. 

Music 

This term, Sycamore have started their musical journey by playing guitars. We have started by focusing holding and sitting correctly with the instrument to allow us to access the notes we wish to play. We have begun to practise playing E, B and G notes both individually and in succession. Following this, we added our notes to background music and have played along together as a class.

Art and Design 

This term, we have been focusing our artistic skills towards designing and making our own Tudor Rose. Linking to our Hamlet theme, we have researched the background of the House of Lancaster and House of York which combined to created the Tudor Rose. We began our designs by sketching our own version, thinking about the patterns and colours. Following this, we used layering and mark making to construct our own clay model. 

If the event of self-isolating or further lockdown

In the event of your child needing to self isolate, please use the homework links above that your child can access for a range of subjects. In the event of our class bubble isolating or a school closure lockdown, we will be using Teams online. Your child will need their username and password to access Teams