Cotwall End Primary School
Year 5
Children In Need
A small group of children from Year 5 took it upon themselves to manage a charitable activity in order to support Children In Need. They consulted parents, drafted letters to Mrs Williams, resourced their venture and took orders from their friends. They worked hard in and out of school to create "Loopy Loombands!" for their peers to buy. The children have raised a good amount of money over the month of November and should be so proud of themselves. A huge thank you to our caring parents.
Greek Geography Parent Workshop
We enjoy working with our parents and letting them in on all the fun we are having through our History and Geography topic of Greece so we asked them all to come and take part in a parent workshop. We have been exploring Greece and why it is such a great tourist destination. Our thorough research showed that Greece had lots to offer the community of the world from fabulous historical sites to rich, tantalising foods. We were so excited to work with our adults to write some fantastic, persuasive brochures convincing people to holiday in one of the Greek islands or mainland Greece. We included positive phrases, figurative language, rhetorical questions and even some advertisements. Thank you to our Cotwall Family we are so lucky to be able to work together.
ART
Year 5 have been learning all about Pop Art movement inspired by the likes of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichenstein . We’ve had the opportunity to look at different artists who inspired and contributed to this movement. We then designed and created our own sculpture inspired by Claes Oldenburg. \part of this process involved what message we wanted out art work to convey to the public. We took the following into consideration:
· Where we would place our sculptures for the maximum effect?
· What we would make our scaled down models from and why?
· What message we wanted our piece to give to those in the within the community, or how did we wish them to feel when they experienced and explored our sculptures?
· How had our designs been influenced by Claes’s style?
Children were encouraged to make a scaled down version using different materials of their choice e.g. from junk modelling, playdough, baking materials and actual objects, removing their function just like Claes Oldenburg did.
English
In Year 5 we like to act! We have rehearsed and performed to act out a famous Greek myth in small groups. We worked hard for two weeks making props, masks and rehearsing as well as writing play scripts. We performed our plays to our peers and as part of the evaluation process took part in a short question and answer session. We were able to give other groups verbal feedback and were able to ask questions. We also received praise from our friends for all of our hard work and efforts. Great peer and self assessments! We developed Cotwall End school values of Wisdom, Happiness, Bravery and Self Belief
Computing
Wow do we love coding or what? Year 5 are quite good at coding, we use good partner work to mentor other pupils and to help support them as they write a code or algorithm. We have to think about what we want to change or keep the same, it’s like exploring variables in science. You have variables in your algorithm. Sometimes you have to test your algorithm out a few times because you haven’t input the correct instruction. In the debugging part of our lessons, we have to fix an algorithm that is wrong. We like assigning a code to an object because you can speed it up or slow it down by changing the values. You can even control the properties within a code for example you can set the coordinates that you want an object to land. We know when you have accomplished something because we move onto the next part of the Espresso lesson. So far we have explored the Speed, Direction and Movement topic and are looking forward to the next unit.
We love jewellery!
This year we've had the opportunity to design and master our own pieces of jewellery inspired by the Anglo-Saxons using stones, clay, gems, ribbons and much more! We explored researched and designed our pieces based upon traditional, ancient artefacts that have been uncovered centuries ago. We looked at how jewellery could be assembled and got straight to work. This delicate process needed gentle hands to craft, shape and mould clay carefully. We had to take weight and size into consideration as well as which resources we had available to us. Placing intricate details and colour into our final product, we managed to make an item of jewellery that any Saxon earl would be proud of. Wouldn't you buy our spectacular pieces?
London to Las Vegas!
As part of our London to Las Vegas topic, we researched, designed and created our very own burgers. We first researched the origins of 'the burger' researching the history of Mc Donalds. After this, we explored the nutritional value of the burgers we buy and eat today. Part of our design process was selecting and choosing ingredients that a customer would buy, this was based upon taste and appearance. We then designed and cooked our own burgers, pricing them accordingly. Some of our burgers could even be purchased as part of a meal deal! actually eating our burgers was amazing! Advertising our burgers to an audience was one of the best bits as we got to show off our amazing Pop Art skills. have a look at our appetising burgers. Don't they look tasty?
Design Technology
In Design Technology, Year 5 have enjoyed putting their design techniques to the test. They have created their own Greek-inspired moving toys using card, paper and wood. Pupils designed and tested prototypes before using different mediums to create their final piece. Artistic skills were incorporated into the backgrounds to add excitement add appeal to potential buyers. Children were able to measure, mark, cut and saw different wooden materials before joining them to create moving mechanisms. They then checked to see if they would work and evaluated their final products. Don't they look fabulous?
Science Superstars
We have been investigating soluble and insoluble solids. We conducted our very own experiments. We added sugar, coffee, gravy granules, glitter and flour to 175ml of cold water. We measured each solid and liquid out exactly using the measuring instruments. This makes it a fair test. We observed what happened carefully. At first, we watched to see what would happen if we didn’t stir the mixture. Then we stirred each solution using four rotations and were careful not to make any changes. We found out that some solids are soluble and some aren’t. Some of the solids dissolved partially and we think that over time they will dissolve completely. We made careful observations and recorded our results on a chart.
