Welcome to Class 8 - Miss T Densley

Hello and welcome to the Class 8 blog! We would love for you to know everything we have been up to. In Year 5 we do lots of learning and have lots of fun at the same time.

Our topics in Autumn Term included learning about William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, the Victorians and the human body.

In the Spring term, we continued our learning about the Victorians, as well as starting new units including; Properties and changes of Materials, Anicent Greece and Myths and Legends.

In the Summer Term we have so many exciting projects to look forward to. We are going to make Greek Pots as we come to the end of the Greek unit. We are going to be writing our very own Greek inspired myth in Literacy. We will also look at a brand new topic called Going Global as well as doing lots of exciting science work all about Light. 

Please enjoy looking at all of our fabulous work and just remember - eight is great!

Learning in Literacy

This week, we have been learning all about the myth of Phaethon and Helios (the Sun God). In the myth, Helios lets his son, Phaethon, have a go at driving the chariot around the world to bring the sun up. There is a problem though! Phaethon wants to show off to all of his friends that he has been trusted with this important job so he flies too close to the earth and causes devastation. Zeus, King of the Gods, has to intervene and causes the chariot to tilt, forcing Phaethon to fall out. In the myth, Phaethon cannot be found. 

In our Literacy lesson today, we have been creating alternative endings for Phaethon. Have a look below at some of the fantastic, creative ideas that we had today. 

Miss Densley's Easter Blog

I would like to start by saying thank you to all of the parents and children of Class 8 for all the hard work that has gone into homework, lessons and tests throughout the Spring Term.

We have had lots going on this term, including a postponed Greek Day that was nearly cancelled twice because of the snow! We've had some excellent pieces of homework brought in by so many of you which is really pleasing to see. We've taken part in lots of fun science this term too where we have been learning about different materials and even made plastic milk in Science Week. We had a wonderful Easter Disco this week where we danced our hearts out!

And we are still not done, we have a day of sporty fun planned tomorrow as we raise money for Sport Relief and come dressed in our sporty clothes (photos to follow)! 

I had added all of the homework to our class page just in case it goes missing! this homework will help you to get ready for the summer term where we are going to be starting with a unit about Greek Myths and Legends. 

Since November, Mr Baines and Miss Milbourn have been coming into our classroom to train to be teachers. Over the past four weeks they have been teaching some lessons. The children have been so respectful and welcoming to both of them and as we break up for Easter tomorrow, we also spend our last day with Mr Baines and Miss Milbourn. We will be very sad to see them go as we have really enjoyed having them in our classroom. We wish them all the best for the rest of their teacher training and we hope that they will come and visit us soon! 

I hope that you all have a well deserved rest this Easter holiday. 

I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday 9th April.

Miss Densley 

Experimenting with filter paper

Today, we have been learning about mixtures and solutions. We have used filter paper to decide whether sand and water form a solution or a mixture. We did the same for salt and water. We discovered that sand and water create a mixture because the sand does not dissolve. Salt and water create a solution because the salt dissolves into the water. This is all part of our materials unit and is helping us to understand about changes of state. 

Greek Themed Day 2018

We have had such a fun filled day of all things Greek!

We all dressed up in Greek outfits to get us really in the spirit and started the day with classes 9 and 10 in the hall. We learned all about where Greece is, how ancient Greece was governed and that all this happened over 2,500 years ago!

We moved around the classrooms throughout the day; learning about Democracy with Mrs Conway; The Olympics with Mrs Brookes and ancient Greek architecture with Miss Densley. We couldn't believe just how much of what we know and do today was influenced by the ancient Greeks! 

We finished the day with our very own Greek Tucker Trial! Miss Densley picked some foods for us to try such as falafel, olives, tzatziki, hummous and dates. We were surprised at how many we liked!

Please take a look at the photos below to see just how much fun we had on our Greek Day!

Our finished Victorians display!

We have come to the end of our Victorians unit of work and we would like to invite parents to come into school and view our work on Tuesday 27th February at 3:30pm. We have really enjoyed learning about all of the social and educational changes that happened throughout Queen Victoria's reign. We are excited to get started with our new unit on Wednesday which is the Ancient Greeks! Watch this space for themed dress-up day pictures!

Here are all the children with their Victorian Homework Projects.

You should all be so proud of your hard work!

Amazing Homework Projects

WOW! The children of Class 8 have been so busy over the holidays creating all sorts of fantastic Victorian models.

Some children chose to focus on Victorian communication; creating post boxes, stamps and even the first telephone! Well done to Billy, Josh, Connor, Shaun, Dalton, Sonny, Ewan and Zach for all your hard work.

Marnie and Shay looked at how transport has changed and the influence that trains had on the Victorian Era. Shay's train fits perfectly on Marnie's railway, excellent work you two!

Ashleigh and James showed how 'the outdoors' changed throughout the Victorian Period with two excellent models of the first electric lighting in cities.

Lily researched further into the first libraries that were built and used when Queen Victoria was on the throne and used clay to make her own model.

Lucy decided that she wanted to focus on many different parts of Victorian life and created a model of a Victorian street, featuring lamp posts, a post box and the first library. Her model then lifts up to reveal a whole coal mine underneath! She even has a little train used to transport the coal through the mine. 

You have all worked so hard and I am delighted with all of your homework that you have brought in so far! Take a look at all of your creations below. Keep up the excellent work guys!

Which Material is most Waterproof?

Since coming back from the Christmas Holidays, we have been learning all about a new Science topic called Properties and changes of Materials. In this unit we will look at how materials differ from one another, how we can separate mixtures and carry out investigations to help us understand these things fully. 

We started the unit by looking at what makes a material waterproof and why some materials are more waterproof than others. Before carrying out our investigation, we had to make a hypothesis, understand the control, dependent and independent variables to make sure that it was a fair test and gather all of our equipment. 

Here we are completing our investigation this week. We then drew a results table and bar chart to help us analyse our results. most of our predictions were correct but some of the materials such as the cardboard did surprise us! We decided that plastic is the most practical material to make waterproof items from. 

Did the Victorian Workhouses benefit the poor?

This week, in Literacy and History, we have been learning all about the Victorian Workhouses. We have been trying to decide whether or not the Workhouses benefitted the poor or whether they proved to be more harm than good. Here we are, discussing and deciding which parts of the Workhouses were positive and negative. We will be continuing to write a balanced argument in Literacy to help you make up your own mind! 

Miss Densley's Christmas Blog

The final day of term has arrived and I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

We have had a great first term together, getting to know each other and learning lots of new things. Thank you, Class 8, for all your hard work over the past four months, it has been a pleasure to see you all taking Year 5 in your stride! Don't forget, there is a little bit of Christmas homework about the Victorian Workhouses where you can research and present your work in any way you like!

Have an absolutely fantastic Christmas break with your family and friends and I look forward to seeing you all back in school on the 8th January.

Miss Densley

Flexible Feet Investigation

We have carried out our investigation in class this week to find out how flexible our feet are. We worked in pairs to help measure the height and length of our feet so we can work out the Arch Height Index of when we are sitting and standing. If our results were near to 0.9 then our feet are not very flexible, if they were near to 0.1 then they are very flexible!

This investigation has helped us with our evolution, inheritance and adaption topic in science to look at how different animals within the same species have specific adaptions. We hope you enjoying looking at all of our pictures from our investigation. 

BBC Live Science Lesson

On Thursday 14th December, we joined hundreds of children around the country in a live science lesson organised be the BBC. Terrific Scientific is a scheme of work that aims to engage children in science in an exciting and practical way.

We were very excited to be joined by Abdul the Camel and Albert the Python in the studio as we watched! the whole programme was about adaption, evolution and natural selection. We learnt about the Samotherium which has evolved in to what we know as a giraffe over millions and millions of years!

We carried out different activities and got to find out whether we were right when the presenters revealed the answers.

It was very exciting when we even got our own mention on the BBC Live Lesson blog page!

Next week, in Science, we will be carrying out a feet investigation to see just how we have adapted as humans. I wonder who will have the most flexible feet in Class 8?

Check out our photos from the live lesson below.

A Christmas Carol Drama!

During Literacy today, the children were playing the parts of Scrooge and Cratchit from A Christmas Carol. They worked in pairs to act out the scene on Christmas Eve where Cratchit is working hard with only a candle to keep him warm. This drama gave the children some great ideas for writing their own conversation using inverted commas in their books.

Well done everyone! I was very impressed with your acting skills. I especially like Elliott's Scrooge face! See the photos below!

Miss Densley

The Christingle and Carol Service at St Paul's Church

On Wednesday 6th December, we joined together with classes 9 and 10 for our annual Christingle and Carol Concert. We visited St Paul's Church and were welcome by Father Brian, who led the service. All of our parents came to see us sing the carols and read some parts of the Christmas story. We all donated money towards The Children's Society and received a Christingle, complete with an orange, red ribbon, sweets and a candle to symbolise the different parts of the story. We thank everyone for attending and Father Brian for leading such a wonderful service.

Romeo and Juliet Display

Our Romeo and Juliet display is looking fabulous in the classroom. It celebrates just a small selection of work completed by the pupils in Class 8.

It features writing from Elliott and Florence; storyboards from Shaun, Emerson and Anya and masks made by Lily, Grace, Ashleigh, Josh, Owen, Sonny, Lucy, Marnie, Anya, Lanei and Rosie.

I am so proud of the whole class for the effort and enthusiasm that you have put in to this topic. Well done!