Friday 9th December

Welcome back to Year 5F’s blog for this week.

Maths – The children began the week adding and subtracting numbers with different numbers of digits (for example adding a 2-digit number to a 3-digit number). As the week moved on, they moved on to division of 3 and 4 digit numbers with the ‘chunking’ method, using partial tables to help. The children really enjoyed using partial tables as it made dividing larger numbers so much easier. For example, I they had to divide 248 by 8 they would begin by completing the partial table for the 8s…

      x8

The children then use these known x table facts to repeatedly subtract ‘chunks’ (or multiples) of 8 from 248.

248-160=88        subtracted 20x8

88-80=8              subtracted 10x8

8-8=0                  subtracted 1x8

So…20+10+1=31. Therefore, 248 divided by 8=31

Take a look at this website which helps to explain how the ‘chunking’ method works…

English – The children have continued to look at dragons. This week they have looked at poetry. They annotated poems looking for poetic features such as alliteration, repetition, similes, metaphors and personification. Then they looked at a poem entitled ‘Portrait of a Dragon’ by Moira Andrew.

Take a look at the poem for yourself…

 Portrait of a Dragon

If I were an artist

I'd paint the portrait

    of a dragon.

To do a proper job

I'd borrow colours

          from the world.

For his back I'd

need a mountain range,

    all misty-blue.

For spikes I'd use

dark fir trees pointing

          to the sky.

For overlapping scales

I'd squeeze dye from

    bright anemones.

I'd gild his claws

like shining swords

          with starlight.

His tail would be

a river, silver

    in the sun.

For his head, the

secret green of forests

          and deep seas.

And his eyes would

glow like embers in

a tinker's fire.

But I'd keep the best

till last.  For his

          hot breath

I'd use all reds and

yellows - crocus, saffron,

    peony, poppy,

geranium, cyclamen, rose -

and fierce orange flames

from a marigold.

We’re sure you’ll agree it is a fantastic poem. The children went on to write their own dragon poems using Portrait of a Dragon as their inspiration.

Topic – The children have been learning about one of England’s famous kings from the past…King Alfred the Great. He was born in Wessex in 849 AD. He was one of six sons and was crowned king (after all his elder brothers sadly passed away) at the age of 22. He was quite a frail man and died in 899 AD and was succeeded by his son Edward the Elder. During Alfred’s reign he was able to buy a treaty with the Vikings which restored peace to the land. The Vikings settled in the East of England (in what became known as Danelaw) whereas the Anglo-Saxons remained in the west, in the lands of Wessex and Mercia.  

Science – The children have continued to look at life-cycles. This week they have investigated the link between the size of a mammal and the length of its gestation when pregnant. They found out that a mouse is only pregnant for 3 weeks whereas an elephant is pregnant for an AMAZING 92 weeks! So, the smaller the mammal the shorter the gestation or the bigger the mammal the longer the period of gestation.

Here is our PUPIL OF THE WEEK. They won their certificate for simply being the happiest person in Year 5F. She makes everybody cheerful with her infectious smile. To add to her beautiful smile, she went on to win the UPPER PHASE PUPIL OF THE WEEK and gets to take the trophy home with her for the week. A big well done from the Year 5 teachers and children.

This week the children have been producing some artwork to put up in the Year 5 bay.  They have used some Cubism art as their inspiration. They went on to think about hot colours and cold colours and used them for their final piece. They used a variety of medium including coloured pencils, felt-tips and oil pastels. Take a look at that them busy at work...

All that remains to say is have a great weekend.