Oak Tree Class Blog
Oak Tree Class Blog
Week 6, ending 13 October 2023
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
No Friday assembly this week, so no certificates to be awarded.
But it has been another super week for the children in Oak Tree Class.
In Ukuleles, we have moved onto chords, which was fun. We began strumming along to ‘Lean on me’. I am certain it will sound brilliant soon.
Our new English unit is going to be linked to our Victorian topic, as we are looking at creating an onomatopoeic poem about working in a mill. Watch this space! And our topic lesson, based on Child Labour in the Victorian era too, will spread across two weeks – hopefully the children will come away from these lessons having a good understanding about the life of a child in this era (and may also appreciate more that they didn’t live then!)
If you know your French numbers (un, deux, trois etc), do practise those with your child. We have been learning up to 31 this half term.
Have a good long w/end….and we are STILL looking for cardboard tubes for DT….!
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 5, ending 6 October
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Callum Smith
Special Mention: Phoebe Gowland
A special well done to these pupils this week!
This week, with Boybands as our backing tracks, 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: Lilly, Phoebe, Rumi, Amber, Amelia, Zara, Isabel and Niamh. All had promising manifestoes, but ultimately, Amber won! Congratulations, Amber – 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 continued to work on addition and subtraction in maths lessons, including practising the skill of rounding numbers to help us check answers. Homework will be on consolidating the skills of adding and subtracting numbers with more than 4 digits. Thank you for all your support in helping your child to memorise the first two verses of Charge of the Light Brigade. This has been so much fun to learn! And the children did a marvellous recitation of the poem to Mrs Harris on Thursday afternoon – she was so impressed and said it had even given her goosebumps! A class merit was achieved, too.
But, for me, the best part of this week has been the final publishing of our Victorian diary entries. Every pupil has made a neat presentation in pen and the standard of their presentation AND the content of the diaries have been stunning! Many children have been given permission to use handwriting pens, which has delighted them. I have sent home copies of this piece of work so you can also praise them for their superb efforts, too. It is encouraging to see this standard of work at this point in the year. Well done everyone!
I hope you all have a fab weekend – please send in more long cardboard tubes for Design Technology this term.
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 4, ending 29 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Violet
Special Mention: Eva
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 assembly.
Following our fantastic visit to Armley Mills last week, it has been fun to delve further into Victorian life in our English lessons (Diary entry planning) and also in our Topic lesson. The children have been brilliant at imagining what life must have been like back then – their experiences on the trip have helped to add super details into their work.
Two hockey lessons have made up our PE slots and we have started our DT unit on Structures. Again, we would really appreciate you looking out for any long cardboard tubes and sending them in asap.
If your child would like to be considered to be on the school Council, they have until Monday to create a poster - I have given them paper to do this. Votes will be on Monday, so please do not forget to send their poster in with them!
I hope you have a lovely weekend – enjoy helping your child learn the first two verses of our Victorian poem, Charge of the Light Brigade.
Yours,
Adrienne Amos
Week 3, ending 22 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Niamh
Special Mention: Henry M
A special well done to these pupils!
Even the rainy weather has not been able to detract from our fabulous week in Oak Tree Class! Not only has this been the week for our first school visit in Y5, but we have also managed to excel ourselves in learning Place Value for Y5 AND worked tremendously hard to develop reading skills. I was truly 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 devised fantastic gymnastic sequences in small groups and demonstrated each sequence to the class. This was a fine time to learn about how we can give each other ‘constructive criticism’ without being mean. I must say, the children were very complimentary to one another!
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, please) at Christmas…)
I shall try to put lots of Armley Mills photos on the class gallery – fingers crossed!
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.
(Next week for homework, the children will be asked to learn off by heart the first two verses of Charge of the Light Brigade - but I have sent a copy of the poem home this weekend, to allow them two weeks to learn it. It's quite a new skill to develop in Y5, so I am hoping that two weeks will be long enough.)
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 15 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Noah
Special Mention: Violet
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 piece of narrative, where we have described images of Victorian street children, which builds nicely on from our class novel, Street Child. I have been very impressed by the vocabulary that so many of the children use – it is clear that many of them are avid readers!
In our topic session, we placed the Victorian period on a timeline. This skill of chronology is so important in primary school education. We also looked for evidence of Victorian features in pictures.
Just to remind you, we plan to go to Armley Mill next Friday 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 doing a little bit of research in preparation for our visit - it would be great if you could please enable them to find a suitable device to do some internet research before Wednesday, when it is due to be handed in. Thank you in advance.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Adrienne Amos