Margaret Wix Primary School
Excellence, Creativity, Individuality!
Admirals (Year 5)
Welcome to Year 5
Our class is called Admirals.
Admirals are taught by Miss Islam and are supported by Mrs O' Connor.
Things to remember:
Reading books will be changed every Monday and every Thursday. Library will take place in class on a Tuesday. Please remember to bring back your book each Tuesday, so you can choose a new one.
Outdoor P.E will take place on Friday afternoons. Please come into school wearing your PE kit on Fridays.
Welcome back to our final term in Year 5! Please enjoy browsing through the photos below to see what we have been up to.
Our Learning:
Weeks 5-6
We have had a brilliant final two weeks in school and have been working as hard as ever! Have a read of our learning highlights over the past fortnight:
- In Science, we have been investigating thermal insulators using ice cubes and bubble wrap! The children carried out their own comparative tests and also enjoyed identifying soluble and insoluble materials. It was certainly a very smelly and messy classroom thanks to the flour and vinegar!
- In English, we have enjoyed writing our own spooky stories and have used a range of writing techniques to build drama, suspense and tension.
- In Maths, we have been revising our knowledge of angles by linking it to art. The children have created wonderful geometric animals and identified acute, right, obtuse and reflex angles.
- In History, we have continued to learn about the Titanic, focusing particularly on the use of primary and secondary sources to help us learn more about the tragedy. We then enjoyed researching what life was like aboard the ship for first class, second class and third class passengers.
- In PE, the children are developing their throwing, catching and teamwork skills. We have taken advantage of the beautiful weather and really enjoyed playing rounders this week!
-In Computing, we have used an excellent program called Storyboardthat to recreate story summaries of the books we are currently reading in our Guided Reading lessons.
I think you'll agree that the children have been working extremely hard! Have a wonderful half term and see you all again on Tuesday 8th June!
Miss Islam
Weeks 3-4
The children are working incredibly hard across all subjects and approaching each challenge with a smile on their faces and an excellent, positive attitude. Admirals Class truly are a joy to teach! Here are are some of our learning highlights over the past fortnight- enjoy browsing through the pictures!
- In English, we are really enjoying reading The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman. We have had a big push on developing our inference skills and have enjoyed writing letters to the main protagonist, Lucy, where we have shared our imaginative ideas to help capture the carnivorous beasts in the story.
- In Maths, we have been developing our ability to problem solve and focused on using formal written methods for short and long multiplication, as well as short division.
- In Science, the class have carried out a comparative test using ice cubes and bubble wrap to investigate thermal insulators. Many of us were surprised by our results but learnt that bubble wrap is indeed a good thermal insulator as it stops the heat from the surroundings reaching the ice cube. Why not carry this investigation out at home? Remember, you can only change one variable in a comparative test!
Welcome back to Summer Term! We are so pleased to be back and looking forward to all the great learning that will take place over the next few weeks!
Weeks 1-2
We have had a busy but BRILLIANT start to the term- here are are just a few of our learning highlights so far:
-Learning about the true and tragic story of the 'unsinkable' Titanic in our history lessons
-Classifying a range of indoor and outdoor objects based on their properties in our science lessons
- Writing story summaries of the book The Promise by Nicola Davies in our English lessons
- Adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators in maths- this was very tough but we have cracked it!
- Writing on our new Gratitude tables to show our thanks to all of the people who helped us during an extremely difficult time.
Hello everyone! Happy Holidays! Wow, I can not quite believe how quickly Autumn Term 2 has whizzed by! The children in Admirals class have shown a great deal of resilience, perseverance and kindness this half term- they really are a credit to Margaret Wix School. Please enjoy browsing through the photos to find out all about the great learning which has taken place
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In English, we have enjoyed delving deeper into our enchanting new book Cloud Tea Monkeys by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham. We have loved tasting a range of herbal teas to hook us into our learning and to get us into the role of the Royal Tea Taster. The class were definitely keener on certain flavours than others!
Cloud Tea Monkeys- Tea Tasting!
English: Non-chronological reports based on Dr. Ernest Drake's Monsterology!
In Maths, we have been learning all about properties of number. We have looked in detail at multiples, factors, prime numbers and square numbers. Why not pop over to the following website and play some fun games to consolidate your learning: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?q=factors%20and%20multiples.Don't forget to keep playing on Times Tables Rockstars too- I wonder if you can improve your studio score over the Christmas holiday? 
Welcome back to Autumn Term 2!
Weeks 1-3
We have had a brilliant start to this half term! The children have come back ready to learn and I have been delighted to see the children committed to their home learning. The vast majority of the class have been working hard to read at home every day and play Times Tables Rockstars every night. I am feeling rather pleased with myself as I have made it onto the Top Ten of the TTRS Leaderboard- I wonder how many of you will able to beat my Studio Score of 1.6 seconds? Please encourage your child to play on Times Tables Rockstars every night as they will win a house point every time they play! Please do encourage your child to read every night as they will win a house point every time they read as well as become closer to reaching their next Give Me Ten reading milestone. We look forward to celebrating the children's successes in our weekly Celebration Assemblies!
In Literacy we have been completely engrossed in The Monsterology Handbook by Ernest Drake. We have been fascinated by the range of mythical beasts in the book including the Kraken, Merfolk, the Nue Japonicus, the Griffin and many more! The children have enjoyed pretending to be monsterologists and loved describing some new species found in the depths of the Amazon Rainforest and the murky swamps of Norway. Year 5 have been focusing on writing multi-clause sentences and have explored how to include adverbials of time, manner and place into their sentences to make them more detailed and interesting. The unique beasts from the book have definitely inspired the children as they have written some excellent non-chronological reports about their own monsters. Take a look at the final reports below!
In our maths lessons, we have been learning how to multiply and divide by 10, 100 and 1000. The children have used their place value grids well to show their understanding of how to do this. We have also been exploring multiples, factors and prime numbers.
In our History lessons, we have continued to learn about the ancient Maya and have loved creating Ancient Maya masks. We initially decided whether we wanted to create an event, death or war mask. Most of the Mayan masks were symbols of their gods and were a physical method of representing the spirit world. We learned that many of the masks were used to intimidate their enemies, like those that have faces that look like snakes and jaguars. After creating them, we enjoyed re-enacting a battle scene between two Maya clans using our wonderful masks!
Weeks 3-5
In our Computing lessons, the children have had a focus on E-safety and have been designing and creating their own maze games using the program Scratch 2. So far, the class have created their own character (sprite), backdrop and programmed commands that control the movement of their sprite. We are now working on programming consequences for specific actions such as adding obstacles into our maze games and ensuring sprites are unable to go through these. It's been great to see lots of trial and error and experimentation in these lessons!
Art lessons with Mrs Harvey have been so much fun! The children have produced some breathtaking art linked to their space unit. The class used a combination of chalks and paint to produced the stunning masterpieces below. Please enjoy browsing through the pictures!
In English, we have really enjoyed writing our own sequels to Journey. The class have wowed me with their imaginative ideas and their willingness to listen to feedback and act on it in order to improve their stories further. We have enjoyed painting illustrations from our story sequels ready to go alongside our published pieces of work for our classroom display. We have loved working with our buddies to share our stories and to peer assess them using 2 stars and 1 wish.
In Maths, we have been rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 and 100,000! We have also had a focus on negative numbers- skills include ordering them as well as adding and subtracting negative numbers. It was good fun creating a giant class numberline and playing a range of games to help us with our understanding. We also looked at negative numbers in context, focusing on money (bank balances) and under the sea.
Weeks 1-2
Wow! What a wonderful two weeks we have had in Year 5! The children have all wowed me with their enthusiasm and desire to learn. Each child has followed our Golden Expectations beautifully and it really is wonderful to have them all back in school!
In English, we have been looking at an exhilarating wordless picture book called Journey by Aaron Becker. The children have been hooked right from the offset and have produced a wide range of incredible written work from it already!
Journey- Writing Examples
In Maths, we have been recapping our learning from Year 4 by reading, writing and ordering numbers up to 100,000. We have played a range of exciting games linked to place value to reactivate our knowledge of number. The children have enjoyed using concrete materials such as Base 10 and place value counters to show their understanding of the value of each digit.
In Science, we have launched into our Earth and Space unit! The children used iPads to research the eight planets in our solar system and then presented their findings through mini presentations to the class and in the form of information posters. Take a look at the great fact files below.
In our Topic lessons, we have been finding out all about the Ancient Maya civilisation. The children have asked some intriguing questions which we will aim to answer as we learn more over the next six weeks. We started off by finding out where the Maya live and located the central American countries on our maps using atlases. We then moved on to identify some Maya cities and finally created some tourist information packs explaining who the Ancient Maya were.
Let's take a tour of the classroom and look at where you will come into school:
Welcome Back Part 1
Welcome Back Part 2
