Half way through the Spring term!
And...officially half way through Year 5!
Year 5 have had great fun this half term, learning huge amounts, particularly in regard to The Amazon Rainforest. We have begun our exciting new topic and already learned so much about the importance of the world's rainforests, with a specific focus on tropical ones. Geography has driven this topic as we have learned about the four layers of a rainforest and the specific characteristics that make each layer just as important as the next in order to maintain the delicate balance of the rainforest's ecosystems. This topic took us on our school trip to The Living Rainforest which the children absolutely loved and relished in learning about all the wild and wonderful creatures they came across while there. As we continue to learn more about this fascinating part of the world, we are beginning to realise that deforestation is a lot more complicated than we first thought!
This topic has crossed into a number of the subjects we are learning, starting with our guided reading book 'The Explorer' by Katherine Rundell which we cannot put down! The children have loved guessing what might happen next and also learning about how to survive if we were ever to be placed in the middle of the Amazon!! In writing, we have had a go at creating our own narrative piece about a plane crash over the rainforest and how our characters might begin to notice something is wrong through the use of four of the five senses - hear, smell, touch and see.
Through conducting our own research, we have just completed an in depth study into The Amazon Rainforest as well as a rainforest of our choice in order to create a detailed non-chronological report.
In DT, the children have been creating their own stitched rainforest animals. Willow Class is now crawling with sloths, spiders, frogs, elephants and snakes!!
Finally, in art we have looked into the Rio Carnival in Brazil and enjoyed studying all the beautiful colours and outfits that come with it. We discussed the colour wheel and dove into the importance of the three primary colours required as a base to make all other colours. We have designed and papier mache'ed our own Rio Carnival masks ready for decorating after the half term!
Year 5 have had a brilliant Spring half term and we cannot wait to continue with this topic after their much-deserved break.
I hope you all have a wonderful week, allowing yourselves time to reset before we all return.
Miss Barber