Author: Mr Catherall

This week in Year 5 and 6, we’ve been learning all about the Romans. This is part of our big topic: Time Travel. We’ve been busy learning lots but we’ve particularly enjoyed making our own miniature chariots. Now we’ve made them, we’re going to write a set of instructions in our writing lessons to help other people make them, too.

First, we did some research about what Roman chariots are.

Then, we sketched some ideas.

When we felt confident, we designed our miniature versions.

Then came the most exciting part – building!

Later in the week, we’ll add our axles and wheels and then review them against the design criteria we decided on.

As part of our weekly Living & Learning session, we focused on our final R of the 8Rs for learning: remembering. 

To help us improve our memory skills, we were shown 12 items. After we had been shown all 12, we had to write down as many as we could. It was really tricky but some of us managed to remember all 12.

Once we’d revealed the answers, we discussed our methods for remembering the items. Some of us turned them into a song, others turned them into a silly story, a few of us just tried saying them over and over again (though we agreed this was probably the least effective method). Then, we discussed the Loci system for remembering information.

We spent time creating our route (that was familiar to us) and had another go at a similar memory test. It was interesting that most of improved our scores by 2 or 3 items.

Short-term memory is super important for us as learners and, luckily, it is something we can improve. Help at home by completing similar activities with your child – maybe on a rainy day!

This week, Year 5 have been focusing on poetry during our reading sessions. We have been using the poem ‘Refugee‘ by Brian Bilston as our stimulus.

The poem is super interesting as you can read it forwards and backwards – this is called a palindrome poem.

First, we read it forwards and recorded our feelings. We were outraged by what we had read:

“We should let people into our country if theirs isn’t safe!” Emme 

“I don’t like it because it’s offensive!” Molly

“It is offensive. It is rude. And, that’s not how people should be!” Spencer

“The poet obviously hasn’t read the poem No Problem by Benjamin Zephaniah [a poem we have also learnt about this year]!” Kieran

Then, we read it backwards and noticed that our views on the poem had completely changed.

In the next lesson, we compared this video of the poem against this video of the poem being performed. We picked out what we liked and created our own version.

Ask your child how reading the poem forwards and backwards was different.

Last week, in our weekly Living & Learning session, we played a game that incorporated lots of the 8Rs for learning. We also noticed that playing the game was a form of entertainment – the theme for our current big topic (Time Travel).

The game was simple but effective. All you had to do was find pairs of the ‘Rs’. However, they were covered and we could only reveal two at a time. If a pair was not revealed the ‘Rs’ were re-covered.

After playing twice (the second time round we beat our previous score by 4 minutes!) we discussed which of the 8Rs we had practised:

• Resilience – we had to keep going.
• Remembering – we had to remember where on the grid the Rs were.
• Reflecting – we reflected on our tactics after our first game and adapted them to improve our performance in our second attempt.
• Risk-taking – we had to take a safe-risk by putting our hands up and having a go.
• Ready – we had to be ready to put our hand up if we knew where one the ‘Rs’ was.
• Resourceful – we worked as a team and used each other effectively (humans can be a resource, too).
• Responsive – we had to respond to the ‘R’ that was revealed by the person before us.

Help at home by discussing how your child uses the 8Rs for learning away from school. Also, ask them to identify which ‘R’ is missing from the list above.

Today, Y5 and 6 enjoyed our weekly love of reading session. Some of us brought a book in from home and loved immersing ourselves in it. Others read a book from school or the First News newspaper. Whatever we were reading, we made sure to discuss it with the people around us and some of us even recommended a book to a friend.

In our reading groups, we had a ‘book club’ with our teachers where we discussed the book we’re all currently reading. We were given a target page that we need to read to before Friday next week – has your child told you what their page is?

Reading is really important to children’s development as a learner – some research even suggests that improvements in reading leads to improvements in other areas of the curriculum such as maths.

You can help at home by encouraging your child to read more often. If you’re struggling to think of books that would be good to read, check out this list of 100 books to read in Year 5 and 6. Also, try talking about reading to foster a love of reading. Here is a few ideas that might get the conversation started…

• Are you enjoying the book you’re reading at the moment? Why?
• Would you recommend your current book to someone else?
• Why did you choose to read what you are reading at the moment?
• What’s the best/worst./funniest/saddest book you’ve ever read?
• Summarise what you’ve read in 20, 10, 5 or 1 word.
• Would you like to be friends with the main character in your book?
• Stop, start, stay – What types of things will you stoop reading, start reading and stay reading?
• Where’s the craziest place you’d like to read  a book?

Finally, our library session takes place every Wednesday. Please ensure your child has their library book in school on this day.