Sycamore Year 5

Welcome to Sycamore class 2020-2021

Welcome to Sycamore class. Our teacher is Mrs Taylor, and our teaching assistant is Mrs Stockley.

Over the year we will use this page to capture snapshots of our learning, progress and experience.

Please feel free to get in touch  if you have any queries. 

Keep checking our page to see all the exciting things we do in school!

Updates - our PE days for this term will be on Monday and on Wednesday (starting 7.9.20)

Please can children come to school in their PE kits for these days (please see our Parent Information Document for further details on PE kit)

Gardening sessions take place on Thursday afternoons and Forest School sessions are on Friday mornings

Children will be informed when the class has a slot for gardening, and an email from the office will be sent to parents notifying the day of the Forest School and information about wet weather clothing.

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

Recognition of Achievement

Home Learning - beginning 12th November

Hi Sycamore! I hope you’re well – there will be work here for Thursday and Friday to help you continue your learning at home and your online learning will begin on Monday using Teams.

Each day we will have a Maths, English and Project challenge; if you have any questions please get in touch through the box above and I can get back to you! If you would like to share your learning with me, please send it into the office and they will forward it on. If you have your Homework book at home, please record all of your learning in there but if you haven't, you can use a book from home or record on paper. 

Friday 13th November

Happy Friday, Sycamore! I hope you enjoyed your learning yesterday and found out lots of new, fascinating things about the planets in our Solar System that you didn't know before. 

Today's Maths Learning is to apply your knowledge of Factors you explored yesterday to solve problems. Just to recap, here is a great video which sums up what factors are and how to find them:

Factors are the whole numbers which are multiplied together to make a number (we call this number a multiple). 

Here's an example:

These are all the different FACTORS of 12 = 3, 4, 6, 2, 12 and 1 

3 x 4 = 12           3 and 4 are FACTORS of 12

6 x 2 = 12           6 and 2 are FACTORS of 12

12 x 1 = 12         12 and 1 are FACTORS of 12

Q: How many different factors of 20 can you find?

Q: Is 3 a factor of 16? True or False?

Now, try to apply your knowledge to the challenges below (you can work from Beginner upwards or you can start on the challenge level that fits you best). 

Your English project today is to investigate the contributions of a space figure called 'Mae Jemison'. Find out as much as you can about her and create either:

1) A mind map with lots of facts (and maybe images if you'd like)

2) An information poster or leaflet 

3) A 'This is Your Life' style video

Use your retrieve skills to gather as much information as you can from the information below - a video and the website link - and then apply your summarising skills to record your 5ws and how facts.

These questions can help you to guide your research:

• What is Mae Jemison famous for?
• What was her childhood like?
• What was her education like?
• What career did she have before her space interests?
• What happened during her NASA career?
• How did Jemison spend her time after she retired?

Your project task today is to apply your picture smart skills to create an image of one of the planets (or the Sun or Moon) using a media of your choice.

For example, you could use collage to create the red, rocky surface of Mars, pencils to sketch the firey Venus or use watercolours to paint the bluey tones of Neptune.

Think carefully about:

• Colour matching 
• Blending to create tones and shades
• Using mark making to recreate textures

Thursday 12th November

Morning Sycamore Class!

Your Maths challenge today is linking to our learning this week about multiples. This is a quick recap:

3 x 4 = 12                    12 is a multiple of 3 because it is in the 3 times table. 

10 x 5 = 50                  50 is a multiple of 10 because it is in the 10 times table.

Today, we are going to be looking at the inverse to a multiple, which is called a 'factor'. Watch this video on BBC Bitesize to help you understand what factors are and then apply your knowledge to the challenges below; you can choose to work from Beginner to Competent to Proficient or you can go to the challenge level that suits you best. You can use the times table grid to help you, if you need it.

Your English Challenge today is to deepen your confidence at spelling words with silent letters.

1) Write each word from the silent letter words poster into your book 3 times, checking you have written it correctly (especially the silent letter!)

2) To help you learn how to use these words in your writing, choose 6 of these words and write either sentences, silly stories or a rap.

3) For an extra challenge, use a dictionary (a book or an online dictionary like https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ ) to help you find additional words with these same silent letters. See how many you can find!

Your project task for today is to learn all about the planets of our solar system.

1) Watch the video clip to help you deepen your knowledge of the planets; you can make notes if this will help you!

2) Record the order of the planets with a fun mnemonic to help you remember (e.g. My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets)

3) Using your new knowledge from the video along with the information sheet above, create a set of Top Trump style cards. Each card needs:

* A drawing of the planet

* A range of information, including: Distance from the Sun, Named after, Days in a year, Temperature

* Outstanding presentation 

Sycamore have settled back to school in a fabulous manner, showing a keenness and a positive growth mind set towards their learning and behaviour.

Sycamore class have had a super week enjoying their Take One Picture Project based on Claude Monet's painting 'Dusk in Venice'

Popping with lots of questions, they used expert research skills to explore facts about his life, his inspiration for his art work and the techniques he used. Lots of interesting facts were discovered including ; he had lots of  famous friends  such as Degas, Manet and Renoir, and that he mainly painted outside. Using light, he often created the same picture in different colours depending on the time of day as well as the Seasons. For this reason, he often had to work quickly. 

Having found out amazing facts about Claude Monet, the children were keen to experiment with different art techniques in their sketch books, including stippling, scrumbling and hatching. Feeling confident, they couldn't wait to apply their skills to their own recreation of the painting.

The children were fascinated to learn that Monet and his friends created an art movement known as Impressionism, and that all the artists used the same criteria for their work. These included:

- They never used black

- They used different light 

- They mainly worked outdoors

- They worked against time

- They would used layer of paints

To compliment their beautiful art work, the children rounded off their project by writing poems. By including powerful verbs, exciting adjectives and interesting adverbs, they were able to visualise what it would feel like to be painting in Venice. Using their 5 senses, they captured the atmosphere in a creative and imaginative way.

Finally, they enjoyed finding out about his other famous paintings, that were often painted at his beautiful home in France and included water lilies.

During Art lessons, Sycamore class have explored the symbolism of the Tudor Rose which originates from the Elizabethan period during which Shakespeare lived. 

"The red part of the Tudor rose represents Lancaster and the white rose represents York. There is more red than white because Lancaster won the fight" (Amy)

"The Tudor rose was formed by 2 places joining together called York and Lancaster. York was white and Lancaster was red. They had a big battle but some of Richard's men weren't sure which side to be on and in the end they chose to be on the red side. After a while Richard was killed so Henry became king. He joined the roses together making the Tudor rose"

(Daisy)

Hamlet

The children have really excelled themselves whilst studying this term's project of Hamlet.

By reading the play as a class and by using their inferences skills, they have explored the character of Hamlet and  investigated the question as to whether Hamlet should or shouldn't avenge the death of his father. 

During their English lessons they have been learning how to use contrasting and agreeing conjunctions to offer different points view when writing their discussion texts.

Below are some examples of introductions to these discussion texts.

The children worked collaboratively to create S2S and used these as a framework for writing their discussion texts.

These steps included:

• Title
• Introduction -  to explain what the discussion is about
• Paragraphs to show each side of the discussion
• Conclusion to summarise and make a decision
• 5 W sentence openers
• Written in the 1st person
• Punctuation including capital letters . , ?! ()
• Sequencing conjunctions such as firstly, conclusion
• Agreeing conjunctions (eg: in contrast , on the other hand)
• Disagreeing conjunctions (eg: furthermore, on the other hand)
• Written in the present tense

Hamlet Storyboards

Following on from the question of whether Hamlet would avenge the death of his father, the children were eager to see what course of action he would take next and were keen to read more of the story.

They discovered that as well as Hamlet having a plan, King Claudius, his evil uncle also had a plan of his own.

The children then decided to plan the next part of their writing by mapping out the events using the storyboard method. 

To strengthen their plans, they wove in ideas for powerful verbs, fronted adverbials and time connectives to be used later in their writing.

Hamlet Display

Sycamore Class have also been focusing on the country Denmark in which Hamlet is set.

By using technology, globes and maps, the children identified the location, capital city, neighbouring countries and seas, as well as exploring the geographical features.

'All about Denmark' Posters

As well as exploring the geographical features, the children also researched facts about the people and culture in order to create an information poster all about Denmark

Forest School

On Friday 9th October, Sycamore class excitedly walked down to the recently revamped Forest School, which includes a mud kitchen and a wonderful outdoor television! This delighted the budding thespians amongst the class who pretended to be actors  presenting their own version of  'Fir Tree's Got Talent' show, much to the amusement of the other children. Others worked diligently on creating woodland creatures from clay and natural resources, whilst some built a bug hotel and went bug hunting. 

RE

In class RE lessons, each term is  centred around a 'big question'

This term Sycamore class have been pondering over the question; 'Do Muslims need the Qur'an?'

In the very first lesson, the enthusiasm was magical in the room as the children were bursting with so many questions that they wanted to investigate . They decided that these would form the direction and structure of their future lessons.

The long list that they compiled is used each week to assess what they have learnt and what they would like to learn next.

Have a read of all the fabulous questions they generated together.

Harvest

Despite Covid restrictions, the children at Fir Tree were still able to enjoy a Harvest assembly thanks to  Reverend Rice who kindly compiled a video clip. Following on from this, Sycamore studied a poem and identified the rhyme, repetition and rhythm. This inspired them to explore rhyme in their own poems

Science

This term's science is all about Forces. The children have found out that forces are either a pushing or a pulling action. They discovered that there were many different ones including:

• air resistance
• gravity
• water resistance
• buoyancy
• friction
• reaction force

They were excited to hear about Isaac Newton's law of gravity and that force is measured in Newtons. Excitedly they investigated the weight of objects using a newton meter, understanding the difference between weight and mass

They came up with these definitions:

Weight: a measure of the strength of gravity on an object. It is measured in Newtons

Mass : The amount of 'stuff' inside an object. It is measured in g, kg, lb etc  It always stays the same even if the pull of gravity changes

The children then wanted to investigate the effects of air resistance. The question that they focused on was:-

Will the length of the helicopter blade change how long it takes to fall to the ground?

They predicted what may happen and were careful to make it a fair test by ensuring the variables stayed the same. They had great fun testing their helicopters and watching how their fall was affected by cutting a cm of the blades each time they launched it. 

They concluded that the surface area affects air resistance and that the shorter the blade the quicker the helicopter falls.