Year 5 – 15/03/24 | Science Week

This week, we’ve been fully immersed in British Science Week, exploring the theme of Time with great enthusiasm!

We started off on Monday by pondering the question, ‘What if there were no clocks?’ This sparked an intriguing discussion. Following that, we delved into the mechanics of pendulums, investigating how factors like string length and pendulum mass influence their swing.

Tuesday saw us investigating reaction times. We compared our own reaction times and explored whether there was a difference between dominant and weak hand reactions. Surprisingly, the results were not unanimously conclusive!

Midweek, we were fortunate to have a workshop with Mr. Kelly, a science teacher from Nicholas Breakspear School. He enlightened us about fossils and how they offer glimpses into the past. The session concluded with a fun task, turning us into palaeontologists as we uncovered and pieced together fossils.

On Thursday, we were treated to a demonstration by scientist Dr. Alan Greig from University College London. He shared insights into his work using microscopes, particularly utilising light and fluorescence to study biology. Witnessing UV light transform tonic water and turmeric extract was fascinating. Dr. Alan also showcased how his microscopes refract white light to create rainbows. The children’s brilliant questions left him impressed.

Wrapping up the week on Thursday and Friday, we tackled the Big Question set by Mrs. Carey: Does taller mean faster? Making predictions and ensuring a fair test, we ventured outside to investigate the correlation between leg length and sprinting speed. Our findings, presented in a scatter graph, led us to conclude that leg length does not determine running speed.

Well done, Year 5, for your enthusiastic engagement with this week’s science activities!

Home learning for this week:

Science Take a Science Selfie! Can you complete a science experiment at home and take a selfie of you and your family? Below are some websites with some ideas. Please send in a photo of you carrying out the experiment to admin@popepaul.herts.sch.uk

Kitchen Science

Science Fun at Home

Spelling LAST WEEK’S SPELLINGS CARRIED FORWARD TO NEXT WEEK

Log on to Spelling Shed using your EdShed login, and play a variety of games to practise this week’s spelling rule: Words with silent first letters

·         knight

·         knowledge

·         knife

·         knuckle

·         wrestler

·         writer

·         pterodactyl

·         wreath

·         wreckage

·         mnemonic

KS2 Way of the Cross Service Please learn your lines that you were given on Tuesday (script here as well) and practise the songs, which will need to be learnt off by heart by the service (Tuesday 26th March).

KS2 Way of the Cross – lyrics to learn

Please use the lyrics and links below to learn the songs for the KS2 Way of the Cross service.

Lyric sheet can be found here.

My Soul is Sad

My soul is sad. My heart is breaking tonight.
Could you not watch and comfort me until light?
Am I alone, surrounded only by night?
Could you not watch one hour with me?

Could you not keep awake for one hour with me?
Is it so hard that you should do this for me?
I die for you that you might always be free.
Could you not watch one hour with me?

And so I weep, and there is no one to hear.
I am in pain; will no one witness my tears?
I am your God, and as my Passion draws near,
Could you not watch one hour with me?

Stay With Me

Stay with me
Remain here with me
Watch and pray
Watch and pray

Walk Alone

Take your cross now Jesus man.
Walk the road to Calvary alone.
Your innocence a mockery Nazarene for what crime do you atone?
Walk alone.

Battered bruised and bloodied now, stumbling on the long and dusty road.
Stripped of all your dignity.
This final journey holds a fate well known.
Walk alone.

Death’s dark journey calls your name.
Crown of thorns, crown of shame.
Faces filled with hate and blame.
The good you’ve done forgotten now.

Take your cross now Jesus man. Walk the road to Calvary alone.
Walk alone.
Walk alone.
Walk alone.

Born For This

Born for this. You were born for this.
Born to walk this road and bear that rugged cross.
But it’s breaking my heart to see you like this.
My son, my precious child.
The agony, Oh, the agony.
I see you suff’ring and there’s nothing I can do.
But I’ll walk by your side till we come to the end.
My son my precious child.

I see the anguish in your eyes.
I’ve prayed this cup will pass you by, but I know that it has to be so. Though I don’t understand the reason.
So much pain so much confusion,
but you were born for this,
you were born for this.
My son, my precious child.

Fallen Again

Fallen again. Kneeling in shame.
Frightened, rejected unbearable pain.
Suff’ring in silence such patience unknown, not moving.
Can he go on?
Fallen again. Face to the ground. Soldiers abusing, heckling crowd.
Slowly he rises feet heavy unsure.
Strength fading still he goes on.

All Hail, King of the Jews

O great king O royal one, your cross awaits. Is there anything your majesty desires?
Is your cross too heavy sire?
May I shine your crown?
Let us relieve you of your splendid royal attire!
All hail king of the Jews!
All hail King of the Jews!

Come now king and rest awhile you’ve walked so far!
We bet you’re very glad the journey’s almost done.
We like your regal garments so we’re sharing them around.
Casting lots to see what can be won.
All hail king of the Jews!
All hail king of the Jews!

Murderers and brigands,
We thought we’d seen it all.
Every kind of criminal there can be.
But this one they call Jesus is the strangest of the lot!
A self proclaimed Messiah is he!
All hail King of the Jews!
All hail king of the Jews!
All hail king of the Jews!

Father, Forgive Them

Father forgive them for what they have done. They know not the scale of their crime.
Guilt in their eyes and my blood on their hands.
Forgive them dear father forgive.

Father why have you forsaken your son.
Alone I am left here to die.
My flesh and my spirit both wounded the same. Forgive them dear father forgive.
Eli Eli lama sabachtani. Repeat

Precious Saviour

Precious Saviour laid to rest.
Shattered hopes, such emptiness.
Lifeless Lord. It is over now.

Night has come, the darkest hour.
Our hope has gone.
Here in this stone-cold grave the one we thought would save us, where is solace to be found?
It is over now.
It is over now.

You Are The Way

You are the way
to our Father above!
Jesus send Your Spirit,
help our hearts to love.
You are alive!
You’re our friend and our guide.
We can always trust in you as you’re here
by our side!

At the cross,
forgiveness we pray
for moments when we’ve fallen astray.

Through the cross,
the darkness has passed.
The Lamb of God is light that will last!

We will take up our cross,
it’s a gain, not a loss.
We’ll reach out, love the poor and the lost!

Year 5 – 08/03/24

Well done for your brilliant World Books Day costumes; I was so impressed with the effort you had gone to!

In the afternoon, Year 5 shared some of their recent Watertower writing with Year 2, who read what they’d been recently writing – it was lovely to see so many budding authors proud to share their work!

We were lucky enough to have Mrs Pinto – Chloe’s mum and soon-to-be-published author – coming into the classroom this afternoon to read the beginning of her novel Who Watches the Watchmen? The children thoroughly enjoyed hearing the story and had lots of questions for her about the writing process. Thank you Mrs Pinto!

Maths Mathletics assignments:

·        Converting improper fractions to mixed numbers

·        Converting mixed numbers to improper fractions

Reading 5 tests on Readtheory or 20 minutes of reading per day
SPaG Edshed.com quizzes:

·        Select the appropriate adverbial for a sentence

·        Rearrange sentences so that the adverbial is at the front

Spelling Log on to Spelling Shed using your EdShed login, and play a variety of games to practise this week’s spelling rule: Words with silent first letters

·        knight

·        knowledge

·        knife

·        knuckle

·        wrestler

·        writer

·        pterodactyl

·        wreath

·        wreckage

·        mnemonic

Enjoy your weekend and Happy Mother’s Day!

Miss Donatantonio

Year 5 – 01/03/24

Spiritual Growth: To honour the significance of Lent and drawing closer to God, the children participated in the sacrament of Reconciliation. They engaged in a Reconciliation service alongside Years 4 and 6, followed by individual confessions with either Fr Shaun or Fr Robert.

Catholic Social Teaching (CST): Throughout Lent at Pope Paul, we will be emphasising different CST principles weekly, employing art as a medium for exploration. This week, we contemplated the concept of “Care of Creation,” discussing and reflecting upon this painting:

It was interesting to hear the children’s thoughts and ideas, linking it to their knowledge of Laudato Si’ and the creation story.

PE: We commenced two new topics: Yoga on Wednesday and Dance, concentrating on the Haka, on Thursday. In our dance session, the children collaborated to devise movements symbolising aspects of war and tribal culture, crafting group motifs.

Maths: Our exploration of fractions began, with this week’s focus on identifying equivalent fractions.

English: Our attention turned to Bubba’s character in The Watertower, examining the dilemmas he confronts through the lens of an internal monologue, and learning how to advance action in narrative writing within the reporting clauses of direct speech.

Emily, Frankie and Finn led us in a Lectio Divina this week, allowing us to find meaning in the story of Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple. Well done you three.

Home learning for this week:

Mathletics: Finding equivalent proper fractions (Quest)

Recognising equivalent fractions (Quest)

Spag.com: Direct speech punctuation (C)

Spellings: Words with suffixes where the base word ends in ‘-fer’

difference
preference
inference
preferred
conferring
referring
transference
referee
transferring
reference

Have a good weekend everyone!

Miss Donatantonio

Year 5 – 16/02/24

Wishing you all a lovely half term! Here are some photos of us celebrating Mardi Gras with pancakes on Thursday, and tasting some of the components of the Passover Seder meal yesterday!

Passover food:

Year 5 – 09/02/24

It’s the end of another week, so here’s a snapshot of what we’ve been up to in Year 5:

🔬 Science: We dove into a fun investigation on water resistance, exploring how differently-shaped stones behave when dropped into water. It’s been interesting to see how streamlining affects their sinking speed!

📚 English: Continuing our journey through “The Watchtower,” we’ve been honing our suspense-building skills in writing to keep readers on the edge of their seats.

➗ Maths: We’ve been tackling division word problems and focusing particularly on interpreting remainders.

⛪ RE: We’ve gone from exploring the significance of the Temple in Jerusalem for Passover, to delving into the modern-day Passover Seder meal and its traditions.

🤸‍♂️ PE: Wednesday gymnastics involved learning how to leapfrog a partner, and Thursday fitness training focused is on exercises that enhance speed, agility, and coordination.

🙏 TenTen: We had an important discussion on body image, exploring the pressures young people face from various sources, and recognised that by we can build resilience against this by focusing on the things we are thankful for in our lives.

💻 Computing: In light of Safer Internet Day, the children had a valuable discussion on the factors influencing young people’s online and offline behaviours.

🎵 Music: As we started a new unit, our journey into the world of Nasheed songs began, exploring their connection with the Islamic faith. We enjoyed listening to the catchy tune, “Madina tun Nabi.”

Your home learning for this week is:

Maths Mathletics assignments:

·         Word Problems: Multiply and Divide

·         Dividing with Remainders (Quest)

Reading 5 tests on Readtheory or 20 minutes of reading per day
SPaG Spag.com assignment:

·         Apostrophes & plurals (A)

Spelling Log on to Spelling Shed using your EdShed login, and play a variety of games to practise this week’s spelling rule: Words that are adverbs of time

·         afterwards

·         finally

·         immediately

·         recently

·         earlier

·         yesterday

·         eventually

·         tomorrow

·         previously

·         whilst

Next week, the children will be planting tulip bulbs. Please could each children bring in a small pot to plant theirs in. Thank you. 🌷

Have a nice weekend and see you on Monday 🙂

Miss Donatantonio

Dice Game Challenge Afternoon!

Click here to see what the Key Stage 2 classes were busy doing yesterday afternoon!

Why don’t you click on Dice Games and try some of the dice games yourself?

Maths Dice Games Thursday 1st February, 2024

Dice Games –

  1.  Click here for Dice Games A
  2.  Click here for Dice Games B                  Drop Zone (p 29)  Differences (p9)   Step Adding ( p 18)  *

Equipment Needed:

a partner

Dice (up to 6 dice)

paper or squared paper

Pencil

 

Have Fun!!

Mrs McNamara, Ms Varga and Miss Donatantonio

Year 5 – 26/01/23

It’s the end of another week! Here’s what we got up to in Year 5:

🔬 Science: We experimented with parachutes of different sizes to investigate how surface area affects air resistance.

📚 English: We practiced varying our sentence openers and crafted an eerie description of The Watchtower. Exploring the past perfect tense added depth to our writing, and it was interesting to look at the effect it had.

➕ Maths: We tackled long multiplication, including solving word problems involving 4-digit by 2-digit numbers.

📖 RE: We dove further into the story of Passover in Exodus, discussing its significance, purpose, and the beliefs the Israelites would have derived from it.

🏋️‍♂️ PE: In gymnastics, we perfected our rolls in gymnastics on Wednesday and engaged in circuit training on Thursday to enhance our fitness levels. Sweat and determination were our companions!

💻 Computing: We explored smart systems through the lens of smart lockers, as part of our topic on computer systems.

👦 TenTen: We spilt into two groups (boys and girls) to learn about the changes that boys experience during puberty, and allowed the children to ask questions that they had, anonymously if they wished.

🎵 Music: Our exploration of Gospel music continued, focusing on the importance of good articulation when singing, and listening to how the musical genre has evolved through the years. We all enjoyed tapping our feet and feeling the soul that was present in all the music that we discussed.

Home learning for this week:

Maths Mathletics assignments:

·         Multiplying a 4-digit by a 2-digit number

·         Solving problems with multiplication

Reading 5 tests on Readtheory or 20 minutes of reading per day
SPaG Spag.com assignment:

·         Verbs in perfect form

Spelling Log on to Spelling Shed using your EdShed login, and play a variety of games to practise this week’s spelling rule: Challenge words (words from the Year 5 & 6 Statutory Spelling List)

·         accommodate

·         opportunity

·         available

·         secretary

·         controversy

·         sincerely

·         dictionary

·         suggest

·         marvellous

·         twelfth

 

26th -28th January

The big Garden Birdwatch is the world’s largest garden wildlife survey. Every year, hundreds of thousands of nature lovers like you take part, helping to build a picture of how garden birds are faring. We would like Pope Paul to take part. Please follow the instructions on the leaflets attached.

Count the birds you see in your garden, from your balcony or in your local park for one hour. Use the tally chart attached and submit your results on www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch 

Please send a copy of your results to school.

Year 5 – 12/01/24

Happy New Year and welcome back!

It has been lovely to see the children again this week after the Christmas break and to hear some of their stories from the holidays!

In RE, we have been thinking about the meaning of the Feast of the Epiphany, and then began our new topic for this half term, which is about Exodus and Passover. In Maths, we were multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000, whilst in History, the children began a new topic with Mrs Heymoz (who will be teaching the children on Tuesday afternoons this half term) on Ancient Greece.

In D&T, we began our learning about mechanical systems, for which the premise is that the WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) want to get people interested in caring for the endangered/vulnerable animals which live on our planet but do not believe it is ethically correct to put live animals on display. Instead, a way to show the animals could be to use working, moving models. Thus the design brief that we have been given is to create a collection of appealing moving mechanical animal models that will captivate people’s interest. In order to research what to aim for in our models, we watched clips of different endangered animals and focused on what they look like, how they move and what their natural habitats are.

PE this half term will continue to be on Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesdays will be gymnastics and Thursdays will be health-related fitness. Here are some snaps from Thursday’s circuit training session!

Maths Mathletics assignments:

·         Multiplying by 10, 100, and 1000

·         Dividing by 10, 100, 1000

Reading 5 tests on Readtheory or 20 minutes of reading per day
Spelling Log on to Spelling Shed using your EdShed login, and play a variety of games to practise this week’s spelling rule: Words ending in ‘-able’ and ‘-ible’

·         dependable

·         reliable

·         comfortable

·         possible

·         understandable

·         horrible

·         reasonable

·         terrible

·         enjoyable

·         incredible

This term we also start our new units in RHE using our Life to the Full Programme.  The letter for parents is attached here.

Have a great weekend!

Miss Donatantonio