Oak Tree Class Blog
Oak Tree Class Blog
Week 5, ending 3 October
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Elijah
Special Mention: Evie
A special well done to these pupils this week!
This week, we have held our elections for Oak Tree’s class representative for the school council. I was so impressed that all of these children bravely put themselves forward: Erica, Luna and Louise. All had promising manifestoes, but ultimately, Ericawon! Congratulations, Erica– we look forward to your new role!
Ukulele lessons have been progressing very well in Year 5. The Harry Potter theme is now recognisable (!) and we also had a lot of fun picking our way through an AC/DC riff!
We have completed all work on Place Value in maths lessons this week, but certain aspects of it were very tricky, so we may have to re-visit this over the year. (Any help you can give your child in recognising the value of digits and rounding larger numbers to 10, 100 and 1000 would be very worthwhile at this point.)
We have begun to work our way through addition and subtraction too. Homework will be on consolidating the skills of rounding…
I hope you all have a fab weekend – please send in more long cardboard tubes for Design Technology this term.
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
PS Could you please remind your children that a break time snack needs to be a healthy part of their lunchbox! A piece of fruit is ideal. Thank you.
Week 4, ending 26 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Sophie R
Special Mention: Aarav
A really well done to these pupils this week!
Classical music has been the soundtrack for Oak Tree Class’s mornings. Vivaldi’s Season of Spring seemed to be the most well liked – the children said they recognised it from assemblies.
Not only has this been the week for our first school visit in Y5, it has also been fun to delve further into Victorian life in our English lessons (Victorian diary entry planning) and in our topic lesson (history). The children have been brilliant at imagining what life must have been like back then – their experiences on the trip will really help them to add details into their work next week. I shall try to put lots of Armley Mills photos on the class gallery – fingers crossed! The behaviour of our Year 5s was excellent on Thursday – I was very proud of them all.
Hockey lessons continue in PE for Oak Tree Class (Mondays and Thursdays) and just to let you know, our DT unit on Structures starts next week. We would really appreciate you looking out for any long cardboard tubes and sending them in asap.
I hope you have a lovely weekend – homework this week is spellings, maths and grammar.
Yours,
Adrienne Amos
Week 3, ending 19 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Princess
Special Mention: Harry
A special well done to these pupils!
Even the changeable weather has not been able to detract from our fabulous week in Oak Tree Class! We have also managed to excel ourselves in learning Place Value for Y5 AND worked tremendously hard to develop reading skills. I was impressed by the children’s progress in skimming and scanning during Wednesday’s lesson – these important skills will help each child become more proficient in locating valuable information in the future.
In PE, we continue to learn more about the skills involved in hockey. This week, we have practised accurately passing to a team member, then aiming to shoot into the goal.
In Y5, we spend quite a lot of time at the start learning how to write neatly and legibly with a pen. Transferring neat handwriting skills from pencil to pen can be very tricky for lots of children, but gradually every child will have the chance to write with pen in all English and Humanities lessons in Year 5. (It is sometimes a good idea to ask Santa to bring a nice, blue handwriting pen (not biro!) at Christmas…)
Homework this week is reviewing and demonstrating understanding of partitioning large numbers. This is a core skill in Y5 Place Value. There are also the usual weekly spellings. Please do not spend longer than 30-40 minutes on homework - I always explain the tasks to the children before sending them home, but if it is taking longer (or is a huge stress!) just write onto the sheet where you reached after this allotted time.
Next week, the children will be going on their educational visit to Armley Mills on Thursday. You have received all the information by letter, but do shout if you need further info.
Main points:
usual school day timings
packed lunch needed (disposable wrappings only please. No lunch boxes)
Victorian style costume (just like their Oliver! production in Y3)
Once again, our DT project this term relies on a whole host of long cardboard tubes (like kitchen roll and wrapping paper tubes). It would be great if you could scour the house for any of these and send them into school over the next two weeks.
Have a nice weekend,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 2, ending 12 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Luna BG
Special Mention: Layton
Well done to these pupils!
This week has been a really settled and happy week. It has been remarkable how mature the children have been since moving up to Y5 – this bodes well for a successful year. Well done, Oak Tree Class!
In Maths, we have been developing our knowledge and skills in Place Value, learning how to recognise numbers up to 1,000,000. In English, we have been writing a short piece of narrative, from the point of view of a character in our class novel, Street Child. We have been focusing on key writing skills from Y4, including using conjunctions; this has given me a great baseline to build upon during the next school year.
In our topic session, we placed the Victorian period on a timeline. This skill of chronology is so important in primary school education.
Just to remind you, we plan to go to Armley Mill on 25 September and we hope that you will encourage your child to dress as a Victorian to help with the atmosphere! The children will require a packed lunch too. (This does not have to be Victorian styled, though!)
As well as the weekly spellings to find and learn, for homework this week, the children will be reminding themselves about Roman Numerals. Wednesday, when it is due to be handed in. Thank you in advance.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
PS Plea again for kitchen roll/wrapping paper tubes again. We currently have 6.....
Autumn Week 1, ending 5 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Millie G
Special Mention: Flossy
A super well done to these children, especially!
Welcome to Year 5! It has been a very enjoyable week in Oak Tree Class and it was lovely to meet so many of you at the door! I look forward to getting to know your child (and more of you!) over the coming academic year.
As well as a variety of ‘Getting to know you’ activities, we have spent some time recapping the writing and grammar skills learned in y4 and also revisited place value, addition and subtraction, as reminders for our work in the coming weeks. Also, we have started discussing our Autumn Term topic, Victorian Britain, which I know the children are really excited about. (If you happen to have anything in your attics/lofts/storage boxes which might help to boost the children’s experience of the Victorians, then I would love to hear about it! You can email me at oak@ruffordparkprimary.org.uk)
Just a little reminder that our school visit to Armley Mills will be on Thursday, 25 September.
Our PE days, as it already states on the website, are Mondays and Thursdays and in Y5, we continue to send homework out on Fridays and expect its return the following Wednesday.
Each week, in Oak Tree Class, the children will hear a different genre of music as they enter the classroom in the mornings. This week it has been the turn of SKA. They have loved tapping their feet along to Madness and the Mighty, Mighty Boss Tones among others this week! I hope the children will talk about these themes over the year.
The children have settled superbly this week, I feel – this is a delightful group to be working with! But should you have any issues, please do not hesitate to contact me – either by email or by stopping by at the end of the day. (Mornings are always very busy, so this possibly isn’t the best chance to chat.)
I hope you have a lovely weekend!
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
PS We are needing to collect a whole bunch of tubes for oyr DT project this term. Could you please save any long tubes (kitchen roll, wrapping paper etc) and send them into school wit your child! (Please note: NOT toilet roll tubes)