Kestrel

Welcome to Kestrel class

Kestrel Class - w/b 25th November 2019

It's hard to believe we are only 4 weeks away from Christmas! The children of Kestrel class have been working really hard and have lots of exciting things coming up in the next few weeks.

Firefighters visit:

This term, we were lucky enough to be visited by some firefighters from the Crowthorne Fire Brigade. They spoke to us about fire safety and then we were able to have a look around the fire engine! Some children were even able to try on a firefighters outfit. They looked very warm and incredibly heavy!

Maths:

We have now finished our addition and subtraction unit and we have started looking at multiplication and division. We have been finding multiples, factors, common factors and prime factors, and next week we will move onto multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000.

On Fridays we are now learning about perimeter and area. We are using our addition and subtraction knowledge to help us find the lengths of missing sides for very complex shapes!

English:

So far this term, we have written some lovely poems based on Walter de la Mare's 'The Magnifying Glass'. Also, we have written some stories from a different culture using the stories ‘The girl who loved horses’ and ‘Buffalo Nation’ to inspire us.

This week we are moving onto persuasive writing. We have been writing letters to the X Factor judges to persuade them to vote for Max and Harvey. Next, we will be persuading Edgar the excitable dragon to come out of his house in time for Christmas!

Guided Reading:

We have now finished reading 'My Friend Walter', and moved onto 'The Firework Maker's Daughter' by Philip Pullman.We have been developing our inference skills, using the pictures in the story to find clues about what might be happening.

Music:
We are now heading into our final weeks of brass and the children are beginning to play 3, 4 and 5 note songs! They have worked really hard to read music and play the different pitches. We are particularly excited about playing Jingle bells in our next lesson!

Science:
This term, we are learning about forces. We have already enjoyed lots of exciting experiments! We explored the effects of gravity by dropping different objects into flour and we built parachutes to help us understand air resistance. In the next few weeks, we will focus on friction, water resistance, gears and pulleys.

Topic:

This term, our topic is a History unit about 'The Stuarts'. We have been evaluating the reliability of a range of sources whilst finding out about the Gunpowder plot and English Civil War. In the next few weeks, we will be focusing on The Great Plague and The Great Fire of London.

Computing:

This half term, we are using what we learnt about e-safety to conduct safe online searches in various curriculum subjects, such as History and Art.

PE:

This half term we are having a go at gymnastics! We are developing skills in balancing, travelling, rolling and jumping. Then, we'll incorporate all of these skills into a gymnastic sequence.

Art:

We are linking our Art project with our learning about the Stuarts. Firstly, we have explored and respond to some portraits of famous figures from the Stuart era. Next, we will develop skills in drawing portraits by creating a portrait of one of our classmates in the style of these famous pieces.

In PSHE, our unit of learning is called 'Celebrating Difference'. In RE we are continuing to learn about Christianity and in Spanish we are learning how to describe using colours and how to use grammatical structures to create descriptive sentences.

Please visit our class page regularly to keep informed and find out what is happening in Year 5. I will also continue to post photographs, examples of work and reminders about diary dates etc.

If you have any queries, questions, concerns or celebrations, please don't hesitate to come and speak to me at drop off or pick up times.

Useful reminders:

PE lessons are every Monday. Please ensure your child has a complete PE kit for this lesson and during the whole week
We will be walking to The Meadows to sing Christmas Carols on the afternoon on Tuesday 10^th December. If you are able to help us walk to The Meadows, please let me know or inform the office.
Our Christmas concert will be held on Friday 13^th December at 9.30 and 2.30
Spellings should be practised at home every week.
Please ensure all children bring a water bottle into school so they can stay hydrated. Please also make sure your child wears a coat to school as the weather will be getting chilly over the coming weeks.