Category

Year 5

Year 5 visit Weston Park Museum

By History, Visits, Year 5

Today, Year 5 visited Weston Park where we travelled back in time to the Bronze age.  We considered what it was like in Sheffield at that time.

We thought about how the people were buried.

Once we had looked at the artefacts in the collection, we travelled in space to think about the Ancient Egyptians. We considered the similarities and differences between England and Egypt.  We discussed the location of Egypt in Northern Africa and the River Nile which flows through it.

We found out more about the sarcophagus and how X-Rays and CT Scans were used to find out more about the mummified person inside.

We learned more about the mummification process and how internal organs were removed.

We started an experiment to see how salt preserves organic matter.

We discussed grave goods. (Grave goods, in archaeology and anthropology, are items buried along with a body.)

We looked carefully at the artefacts and created some of our own.

We also discussed whether grave goods should be in museums and had a debate as ethical archaeologists.

 

 

16/04/2024
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Geography in Year 5 – Global Trade

By Geography, Year 5

Trade is the buying and selling of goods and services we want and need.

When we think about trade as geographers, we consider the scale of trade and think about how trade links places and people.

Everything we want and need cannot be sourced within the national borders of the United Kingdom. We therefore import items such as food products from other countries. We import some goods into our country for sale and we export other goods which means we send goods to other countries for sale.

The physical geography of the UK prevents us from growing certain foods here.

This week in geography, we have been looking at the packaging of different food to see where it was produced.  We discussed the country of origin and the continent and presented our work on a map using an atlas to make sure we located different countries correctly.

 

20/03/2024
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Year 5 Parent Art Afternoon

By Art, Community, Year 5

Year 5 have been studying the abstract art movement and the work of Kandinsky. We have read The Noisy Paintbox which is an exuberant celebration of creativity. Barb Rosenstock and Mary GrandPré tell the fascinating story of Vasily Kandinsky, one of the very first painters of abstract art. 

This afternoon, we created our own abstract pieces and shared our creative session with our grown ups. A productive afternoon was had by all and we were so pleased with how much the adults enjoyed sharing this time with our Year 5 children.

14/03/2024
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Empathy plus Migration in Year 5

By Collective worship, Community, Equality, Mental Health, Religious Education, Year 5

This afternoon, Year 5 had a workshop session with Taiye from the Red Cross.  He explained to us about the role of the British Red Cross.  We talked about the key vocabulary of empathy, migration, refugee and asylum seeker. We learned that empathy is the ability to imagine, understand and share the feelings or perspectives of others. By developing empathy, it can help us increase our awareness and understanding of others, our willingness to support others, and create more inclusive, resilient communities.  

We listened to the account of Hamza’s journey as he was seeking asylum and wrote a feeling story and thought about how we would feel if we were in Hamza’s shoes. We also wrote a letter to someone who was new to our country.

As our final task, we considered if we were to do one thing differently about how we treat others from today, what could we do?

Many of the children had some very thoughtful ideas about what we had been working on and were a credit to St Alban’s as always.

During our end of day prayer, Esme said she had chosen The Ukraine as our place in the world to focus our thoughts because she had chosen a prayer that she believed was fitting.  I hope you agree with Esme’s choice. 

Prayer for the Afraid

Dear God,

Take care of those who live in war zones:

Afraid of noise,

afraid of silence:

 

Afraid for themselves,

afraid for others:

 

Afraid to stay,

afraid to go:

 

Afraid of living,

afraid of dying.

 

Give them peace in their hearts,

in their homes

and in their land.

 

Amen

24/01/2024
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Year 5 have Norse Visitors

By Art, History, Year 5

Today, Year 5 were lucky enough to have two Norse visitors who shared their knowledge of the Anglo Saxons and the Vikings who raided, traded and settled in Britain from AD 786.

We thought about the role of archeology and studied artefacts. We looked at them closely and tried to decide what they were made of and how they would have been used.

We tried on clothes and helmets and held swords.

Vikings often traded in people.  Enslaved humans were very important to the Vikings. They were enslaved for life and were worth about as much as a cow.

We looked at runes and used them to make a leather key ring.

18/01/2024
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Writing in Year 5 – Queen of the Falls

By English, Writing, Year 5

We found out about Annie Taylor by reading Queen of the Falls by Chris Van Allsburg. He tells the true story of Annie Taylor, a feisty 62-year-old woman, who became the first person to cross over Niagara Falls in a barrel!

Taylor’s story is one of pluck and ambition but she never achieves the fame and fortune that motivated her to undertake such a daring feat, in her lifetime.

We wrote a series of diaries about significant events in Annie Edson Taylor’s life. Did you know she pretended to be 42! 

10/01/2024
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Christmas Art in Year 5

By Art, Christmas, Year 5

Year 5 have been working on our first pencil dictionaries. We decided to extend our pattern vocabulary by looking at patterns drawn on Christmas trees, baubles and stars. We then chose our own Christmas designs to create individual Christmas cards.

02/01/2024
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Year 5 Science – Mechanisms

By Science, Year 5

Some mechanisms, including levers, pulleys and gears, allow a smaller force to have a greater effect.

A pulley is simply a collection of one or more wheels over which you loop a rope to make it easier to lift things.

The more wheels you have, and the more times you loop the rope around them, the more you can lift.

We have been making our own pulleys and recording how much force is needed to lift a load.

Some children even constructed pulley systems outside at break time.

26/11/2023
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Whole school Geography Fieldwork month!

By FS2, Geography, Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4, Year 5, Year 6

October was “Geography fieldwork month” in St.Alban’s. Fieldwork is where you go outside the classroom and find things out for yourself. Over the last month, our students have had the opportunity to explore the local area and learn in a more practical, hands-on way in geography.

Each class was given a different enquiry question that they had to try and answer using a variety of progressive fieldwork skills. Children across school completed maps, surveys, time sampling, tallys, pictograms and digital mapping linked to their enquiry question. Children then used the information that they had gathered to draw their own conclusions.

Today, each class had the opportunity to present their findings to the rest of the school. Children were very adept at explaining what they did and what they found out. Well done St.Alban’s- we are all geographers!

24/11/2023
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