Squirrels
Welcome to Squirrel's Class Page!
Teacher: Miss Tara Cross
Teaching Assistant: Mrs Sarah Joubert
Christmas Sign to Sing!
Take a look at our sign to sing video of 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas!' Due to not being
able to sing or do a Nativity this year at school, we have been practicing this song in sign language instead. We hope you like it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVwLw1izxXI
Another half term has flown by!
History Projects – Due Monday 14th December
The children have all loved learning about WWII and are always telling us about all of the information and facts they know! We wanted to give them the opportunity to showcase their knowledge and do some research of their own to be able to teach everyone else something new. They will be presenting these to the class on Monday. All details are on Google Classroom. They can upload their work on Google Classroom, bring it in on Monday, or email it to me: tcross@barnham.org
We can’t wait to see what they have found out!
Recommended reading
A few children and parents have asked for some recommended books for children to read at home. These websites are great for suggesting a range of genres where you can find something for everyone! Be sure to look at other year group's suggested reads depending on your child's interests and ability - let me know if you need any help or suggestions! Squirrels will be taking home new books for the Christmas holidays too, but hopefully these lists will give you some inspiration!
https://www.booksfortopics.com/year-5
https://www.thereaderteacher.com/year5
Forest School!
We had a brilliant afternoon on Friday at Forest School! It was great for Squirrels to get the chance to go back to the forest and enjoy an afternoon of adventures, hot chocolate and mud! We look forward to going again soon.
Christmas Classroom!
Mrs Joubert and Miss Cross have been getting creative and have made this fireplace for our classroom to make it feel warm and festive for Christmas! The children enjoyed working in small teams to put up and decorate the Christmas tree themselves!
To decorate the Christmas tree in the hall, each class has created decorations relating to their class animal. We loved creating Christmas squirrels sat on little twigs and ivy, covered in a sprinkling of snow! There will be more festivities like this to come in the final week of term so watch this space…
Squirrel Shop 10% off SALE!
For the last few weeks of term there has been a 10% off sale in the Squirrel Shop! Children earn ‘money’ for showing positive behaviour, having great answers in lessons and also for doing their class jobs. Children also earn stamps on their Squirrel Shop loyalty cards for amazing work. In the shop there are now some extra Christmas items which has been very exciting for customers! However, the shop keeper (Miss Cross), needed some help with working out how much all of the stock would cost in the 10% off sale!
In Maths we have been learning about dividing by 10, 100 and 1000 and have already learnt how to subtract, so the children in Squirrel class were amazing at dividing all of the prices by 10 and then taking this number away from the original price to find the new sale prices! The children have been working extra hard to earn more money to be able to purchase the items on their Christmas wish list for themselves, their friends and family for Christmas!
WWII Anderson Shelter Models!
We have been learning about WWII in History and materials in Science! So we brought the two topics together to create model Anderson Shelters in DT!
The first few lessons were based on thinking about how to create a strong structure. The children then designed their models, thinking carefully using their scientific knowledge, which materials would be best to use to ensure their model was strong. There were three criteria that they had to meet. The models had to be able to withstand a bomb (heavy weight) hitting it, be able to withstand strong winds (a fan) and also be waterproof. These were important criteria to think about when they were designing their models.
Look how brilliantly they turned out! We were blown away with how amazing they looked!
In our next Science lesson, we tested the shelters by putting a weight on them, blowing a fan at them and pouring 100ml of water over them! Nearly all of the shelters passed the tests!
P.E.
As of January, PE will be on just Mondays again, so please can all children come to school dressed in their PE kits on Monday. As it's very cold now, please ensure they are wearing lots of layers still as PE will be outside where possible.
Homework: due Monday 23rd November
This week we are trialling using Google Classroom to set homework tasks. The class have practiced using this this week at school and now know their logins and how to complete the tasks set. There is a maths quiz and a SPaG quiz to complete. As always, there are spellings to practice on Spelling Shed and children should be using TT Rockstars to practice their times tables. Lots of children still have the reading books they took home for half term. If they have finished reading them, could they please be brought back to school on FRIDAY so they can be given a new book to read at home. Children who have already returned books will be given new ones on Friday.
Next week, we will be creating Anderson Shelter models! We have been designing them and using our scientific knowledge of materials to think about what materials will be best to use to create them. The children will take home a copy of their design and list on Friday for you to see. If possible, it would be great if you could save any materials they may need such as cardboard, tins and plastic from your recycling this week! They will then need to bring their materials in on WEDNESDAY 25th please. We can't wait to get creative!
Homework: for half term
Homework is being set weekly now with spellings to practice on Spelling Shed and times tables to practice on Times Table Rockstars. Homework for half term is set for Friday 23rd - Friday 30th. Reading books have been sent home for the children to read over the holidays. When we come back we will have a discussion about what we have been reading and will be writing book reviews too.
After half term, homework will be set every Monday and will be due the following Monday, giving the children a week to complete it. Some smaller projects will be sent out occasionally too to enhance the children's learning about History and Science. I will ensure to update on Google Classroom and on the website when these will be set. Any problems with logins or with completing the homework, please let me know!
First half term in Year 5 is complete!
What an amazing first half term we have had in Squirrel Class! Some incredible learning has taken place and each and every child has created work that they should be proud of. Below are some updates on what exciting things we have been up to this half term!
World War II
This term, our topic is WWII. We have learnt about the start of WWII and whether Hitler was to blame for the breakout of war. We have learnt about evacuees which has linked with the story we are focusing on in English - Letters from the Lighthouse. We have done some creative WWII themed art as well!
English
Our WWII themed focus text is: Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll. The class have really enjoyed learning about Olive and Cliff being evacuated from London to Devon and going on an adventure with them to the countryside. We have written diary entries from the perspective of Olive and how she was feeling the day she found out she had to be evacuated. We read a postcard Olive had sent home to her Mum where she had told some white lies about her experience so far in Devon to ensure her Mum didn't worry about her. We re-wrote the postcard by finding evidence in the text that revealed how Olive was really feeling.
Last week we stepped away from our focus text to look at an animation video titled 'The Piano'. The piano is about a man who has flashbacks of his life whilst playing his piano. The children had to create emotive and figurative language as if they were this man having these flashbacks. They used similes and personification to convey their emotions and feelings. The work the children produced was incredible! They really enjoyed writing their own stories based on the animation, so today the children had the opportunity to read their stories out to the rest of the class, or even act them out in small groups. It was a brilliant showcase of their hard work over the past couple of weeks! The children have now typed up their stories and have taken copies home to share - we hope you enjoy reading their work.
Art
We have been really enjoying using WWII as our focus for Art this half term. We looked at using pop-art style art using card to create bomb explosions with silhouettes in the foreground. We also really enjoyed drawing self portraits of ourselves as soldiers in the war wearing a helmet!
This week we have ended the half term by learning how to use precision and detail to do intricate drawings of leaves. We then used these drawings to create Autumnal leaf prints.
Maths
We have covered lots of learning in Maths this half term. We have looked at place value using numbers up to 1 million. We have re-capped the formal column method of both addition and subtraction. It was great to see the class had remembered this well from last year! Finally, we have finished the term with statistics, focusing how to read and interpret graphs, tables and timetables. Next term we will be starting off with multiplication and division. Any practice on TT Rockstars will be great for this topic! We will continue to do Table Mountain every day in maths to help the children with their times tables too.
Science
In Science this term our topic has been: Properties and Changes of Materials. This has been a fun and interesting topic because we have been able to do lots of experiments and investigations. It has been amazing seeing the children using scientific vocabulary and showing what they already know about materials from prior learning. We still have one more exciting experiment to go which we will do the first week back!
Amazing Moments
We were very lucky to be given the opportunity to visit the Farm for a morning! We had a brilliant time learning about the farm, doing some orienteering, going on a long walk, using our team working skills to carry logs to build a fire. We finished off a great morning with some toasted marshmallows! See the Farming Schools tab for some more photos of our morning.
We have had 3 Citizens of the Week this half term! They have been:
Elizabeth
Harry
Reggie
Well done for being such positive role models to everyone at Barnham and for working hard on showing the values of our school.
These children have also followed our mentality of having a 'growth mindset' whereby we strive to achieve and do-nut give up...
Next half term we will be having Celebration Assemblies in our bubbles where we will be awarding Citizen of the Week every week. We will also be looking out for those who deserve to have handwriting pens, as well as certificates for their efforts on Spelling Shed and TT Rockstars!
Keep up the great work Squirrels and enjoy your half term break :)
Miss Cross & Mrs Joubert
Welcome to Squirrel Class!
Class Teacher: Miss Tara Cross
Teaching Assistant: Mrs Sarah Joubert
Welcome to Squirrel Class, Year 5! We are so excited to have you all back at Barnham ready for an amazing year ahead! Our first few days have been great and I have really enjoyed starting to get to know you all.
During our first few weeks we will be setting up homework, so you will get all of your logins soon.
Our PE lessons will be on Mondays. Please make sure you come into school wearing your PE kit on Mondays so you can wear it all day.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to come and speak to me.
Keep an eye on our class page to see all of our class updates!
Best wishes,
Miss Cross