Opal Class
Welcome to Opal Class!
I am Miss Routledge and I will be your child's Year 5 class teacher.
Monday 13th November
Today we took part in a Blue Jay Wellness session, embracing a journey of mindfulness and physical well-being. The session included a series of relaxation techniques and yoga. As this week is Anti-Bullying Week, our session was linked to this. An important topic of discussion was the fine line between banter and bullying. We explored how seemingly playful jokes can sometimes be perceived as bullying. The children actively participated, sharing insightful ideas and demonstrating a deepening awareness of the impact of their words and actions on others. Thank you to Blue Jay Wellness for providing this great experience.
Tuesday 7th November
In our science lesson today, we dived into the electrifying world of circuits. Our young scientists started by constructing simple circuits to bring light bulbs to life. They tested different combinations of bulbs and batteries, noticing how each setup affected the light's intensity. Embracing a hands-on approach, the children then turned detectives, troubleshooting and fixing circuits that weren't working. The day's challenge extended to differentiating between parallel and series circuits, and the children eagerly built examples of each.
Friday 13th October
Today in English, we delved into our new book, 'Robot Girl', sparking an engaging debate on whether robots should have the same rights as humans. The class presented compelling arguments for both sides, demonstrating their deep thinking and understanding. After a lively discussion, we held a class vote, and the majority felt that robots should not have human rights.
Thursday 12th October
Today, we had the pleasure of welcoming author Sarah Millington to discuss her new book, 'Demelza Rice is Not Very Nice'. The book touches on the important topic of online bullying. Sarah spoke passionately about the book's core theme and guided us through some thought-provoking activities. Our students bravely shared their own experiences, making it a truly enlightening and memorable session. We're grateful to Sarah for shedding light on this crucial issue and inspiring meaningful conversations among our students. We can't wait to read her new novel!
Monday 18th September
Today in our P.E. lesson, we had a blast continuing our tag rugby unit! We dove right in, getting to know the basic rules of this fun, non-contact version of rugby. We continued skills learnt last week and practised passing the ball correctly to our teammates. We also had a little game practising collecting each others tags. Everyone enjoyed learning through our friendly competition. We can't wait to play again next week.
Thursday 14th September
Today in English we learnt about a lady named Mary Jackson. We know from the story we read, and the video we watched, that she was a determined woman who stood up for herself. She wanted to be an engineer but needed to attend a white college in order to get the qualifications. She appealed to a judge to let her attend this college.
In our lesson we got into pairs and we acted out this scene. One of us played the judge and the other Mary. Those of us that were Mary really thought about our arguments and how we could present them in a formal way. We used lots of persuasive techniques, just as Mary did.
At the end of the lesson, we each presented our role play to the rest of the class and gave each other feedback
Tuesday 12th September
In science we have been looking at data of average heights of infants. We noticed on the data that the average male was 2cm taller than an average female baby after a year. We decided to investigate whether this trend carries on into childhood.
To investigate this, we measured the 2 average sized boys and girls in each class at our school (ranging from nursery up to year 6.) We then added the totals in each year group and divided the number by two (the number of boys/girls we measured in each year group) to calculate the average sized boy and girl in each year. We then plotted our data on a block diagram.
We concluded that height increases as you get older and on average males are taller than females.
Thursday 7th September
We had a blast stepping back in time in our history lesson today! We chatted about the time of the Anglo-Saxons and figured out where they fit on a big timeline of history. We got to talk about what BC/AD and BCE/CE mean and even arranged different events in the order they happened. We also had a great discussion about very important dates and events, and how some of them happened at the same time. Plus, we wondered about the very first and the very last recorded events and civilizations in history. It was a day full of discoveries!
Tuesday 5th September
What a fun first day back we had! Today, we all became members of NASA/NACA. Right at the start, we received our own special badges and jumped straight into our first secret mission. We looked at lots of different pictures and talked about what we saw in them. Miss asked us to think about the people in the pictures and if we knew who they were. We came up with a list of questions that we're really excited to find the answers to during this topic!
