French Olympics

On Wednesday, a team of 12 Y5 children, along with teams from 4 other local primary schools, travelled to Bushey Meads to compete in the French Mini-Olympics. The children - Isabella, Zoe, Madison, Hamsy, Vamsi, Mel, Haya, Hilary, Ted, Connor, Pola and Kitty - spent the day participating in a variety of sports-based French activities, topped off with a very welcome ice cream (ordered in French of course!) The children demonstrated excellent team work and enthusiasm by the bucketload, and tried very hard to use their French. The secondary school teachers commented on their initiative and leadership skills, too; the children really did the school proud. Their efforts were rightly rewarded with silver medals, which the children treasure greatly. Bravo!

Visit from Katherine Rundell

We were extremely lucky to be visited recently by the author Katherine Rundell, who led a writing workshop for a group of Y5 children. You may remember that Y5 and Y6 took part in judging the Blue Peter Children's Book Award, which was won by Katherine with her book 'Rooftoppers'. Katherine was so impressed with our children's questions during a Skype Q&A that she asked to come and write with them! After a brief talk about being a writer and the inspiration for her books, Katherine led the children in creating a new character and plot for a story, and the group then wrote some description of their character and an effective first line. Hopefully the seeds have been sown for some stellar writing! We will all benefit greatly from the tips we received, such as taking your fourth idea for a description and ensuring your characters have three clear characteristics. Before we went home, the group had the honour of being the first children in the world to hear the first page of Katherine's new book! There was just time for a few autographs before the children went home, smiling and hopefully inspired.

Y5 visit to Guardian News and Media

Last week, all three Year 5 classes were lucky enough to visit the Guardian News and Media Education Centre in London, for a workshop based on the Victorians, our theme for this half term. The children spent the day in the Guardian newspaper office building, creating Victorian newspaper front pages following the real newspaper production process. A variety of resources such as books and real Victorian archive material were used to research news stories ranging from the marriage of Queen Victoria to the Great Stink in London, and the children worked in pairs to write their stories, before subediting their copy and adding headlines and pictures. The workshop was highly successful and all children were able to take home copies of their completed front pages. Education Centre staff were highly impressed and full of praise for the children’s behaviour, application to the task and standard of writing – which they said was better than that of many of the older children they work with! Our budding journalists were a real credit to the school and the day was a great introduction to our new theme.

Metaphors for us!

To help develop our use of figurative language, 5R came up with metaphors for ourselves. We then assembled these into a poem, which is below. What would your metaphor for yourself be?

 

I am the sun shining upon your heads

I am the aeroplane flying in the sky

I am bones fractured in many places

I am the waters swishing and swirling

I am the jumping bean jumping in your mouth

I am the fury of a thunderbolt crackling around the trees

I am the twinkling stars guiding you to your destiny

I am the tip of the fire scorching through the silhouetted trees

I am the tip of the iceberg freezing to death

I am the wave crashing into the sea

I am the heart of the sun burning

I am the volcano erupting into the air

I am the storm striking Earth

I am the current whooshing and swooshing you away

I am the whizzing pixels from inside the console

I am the multi-coloured rainbow flying in the sky

I am the bird flapping its wings

I am the cricket ball rolling to the wicket

I am the daisies that make a chain

I am the moon jumping on you

I am the sun with my hair waving behind me

 

 

A Box of Impossibilities

In Year 5, we like to write poems to keep our creative juices flowing! Often, these are based on models of poems we have read. This structure of this one, by Isabella (5R) is adapted from that of Kit Wright's 'The Magic Box'. What would go in your box of impossibilities?

In my box of impossibilities you will find:

A golden planet that never disappears,

A sentence that never ends,

And a waterfall that flows up.

 

 

In my box of impossibilities you will find:

A multi-coloured flower that reaches the sun

A rainbow you can walk on

And a house that is upside down.

 

 

In my box of impossibilities you will find:

A tiger with spots,

A lion with tusks,

And a hippo that is as small as a rice grain.

 

Grotty Greeks

Year 5's theme this half term is "Grotty Greeks", and in Literacy we have been writing poems, descriptions and myths based on this topic. Here is Alfie's (5R) description of the setting of a story.

Glamorous Mount Olympus gazed over the ferocious land of beasts and horrors as the clouds crowned it in its beauty. The fluffy and frothy peak crumbled to the jagged rocks below, as rough as sandpaper. Serrated rocks stuck out of the black base of Olympus, peering over the sharp teeth of a beast prowling over the land. Mischievous gods ate succulent fruit and slurped delicious wine as towering Zeus hurled immediate lightning bolts at the innocent giants to symbolise his immense power. Before too long, the colossal mountain dozed peacefully, until the sparkling dawn when the sun rose over the land.

"I'm Earth"

By Demi (5F)

The vicious exhaust fuels moan

And groans endlessly like prisoners.

I can hear the roaring and powerful

Engine trying to stay strong, but the

Malicious fuels are beating it!

 

Streaks of extraordinary flames

Follow sneakily across the cloudless, innocent sky.

The weak sky is shrieking

Continually like a broken record.

The fuels are cackling wickedly.

The fuels are the enemy to

The environment.

The healthy bicycle feels

Like it’s the best and the most precious.

It feels like it’s the environment’s

Best friend and nothing terrible

Is going to happen to it.

I can smell the putrid, insidious and toxic

Fuels slithering up my nauseous nose.

I smell a horrendous odour creeping up my

weak nose.

 

I can hear the plastic cackling carelessly.

Downcast trees look down in despair

Like they’re useless.

 

I can hear them whispering

Mean things to themselves

They are full of woe.

I can see the thoughtless

People chucking and

Throwing grim, gruesome garbage.

I can see the colossal ocean

Choking and suffocating

Because of all this rubbish!

I can see the doleful, melancholic and glum trees.

 

I can hear the rumbling roar trying

To escape from the oceans mouldy mouth.

I can hear the dirt shrieking repeatedly.

 

I can hear the ocean squalling again and again.

Simultaneously, the pedestrians

Keep on littering on the filthy floor.

Will they ever learn?