Stanway Fiveways Primary School

We have had a very busy week finishing out work on Brilliant Brazil! We compiled knowledge about carnivals; created worlds in Kato's Hike; and formed nets of 3D shapes as the final stage in our 'shape' topic. 

We are looking forward to moving onto learning about 'Lights, Camera, Action!' finding out about teh development of film and TV. 

We have been having a fabulous time with our lino printing this half term. We began by learning about artists and the history of lino printing. Then, we created a design inspired by Brazil. Carfeully, these designs were carved onto our pieces of lino and then printed using inks and rollers. They look very effective! 

Our outdoor PE unit for this half term is circuits. We took a baseline, recording how many of each exercise we could do in two minutes, in the first lesson. Since then, we have focussed on different muscle groups within each session. This week was 'core' and we all worked really hard with planks, mountain climbers, sit ups and more! 

On Thursday we celebrated World Book Day. All of the children came in dressed as a chracter from one of their books and took part in some activities relating to the day. Every child was fortunate enough to go home with a 'new' book from our book swap. 

In computing this half term, we are learning how to design and create a simple game using coding blocks. The children progressed quickly through the challenges and were able to apply their knowledge of programming. It was also an opportunity to develop skills in debugging and fixing a coding sequence. 

This week we have been looking at views of Humanism, and created some images of things that are important to us using string, this was inspired by the Humanism logo. In geography, we have been learning about the causes of deforestation. Our computing topic is games this half term, we have looked into the hitsory of games and we have refined our coding skills while creating our own on Scratch. 

As part of our Brazil topic, we are covering samba music. We were fortunate enough to have a workshop today where we all took part in playing a traditional samba style instrument. The rhythms created were fabulous and everyone came out with a big smile on their faces! 

In the Spring term, we are learning about 'Brilliant Brazil'. We have been looking at carnival costumes, as we are going to sew our own over the half term. We began the project by creating a mood board of designs and colours that we want to include. 

In english, we are learning about wishing tales and have enjoyed storymapping and creating descriptions for rainforest animals. In gymnastics, we were refining our rolling techniques while also having lots of fun challenging ourselves on the bars and ropes. 

A fabulous first week back! 

We have all thoroughly enjoyed our hoceky unit in PE this half term. This week, we combined all of our skills in controlling, attacking, defending and scoring to create mini games. We played different teams and really refined our accuracy when passing. we also had some super tackles. 

In English, we have designed a new toy and written persuasively about our toy for a 'Dragon's Den' style pitch. We had some creative ideas, developing things that we love into new toys and products. We may have some budding entrepreneurs! 

Our Henry Moore inspired art is progressing really well; we have looked at body proportions and have begun creating our war inspired scene. Next week we are going to consider our light source and add light and shading to add depth and detail to it.

Our Roman Cup Squash team attended the first section of the competition and had a brilliant time! The next section is in a couple of weeks and they're looking forward to it already. 

We also had a very spotty Friday showing out support for Children in Need. 

This week we have been busy! We are developing our hockey skills with SCS coaches, we moved on from dribbling to passing this week trying to ensure that we are doing so with control and accuracy. In art, we are using Henry Moore's pictures that were compissioned in the war as inspiration and have been refining our skills using charcoal and chalk to show depth and shadow. 

Our current Talk for Writing unit is non-fiction and we are doing incredibly well, using the technical language and lots of other tools to inform our readers. 

In RE, we are answering the question 'How to Buddhists explain the suffering in the world?' We have discussed the cycle of life and rebirth and looked at the Eightfold Path, that if followed, is believed to end suffering. 

We had a wonderful first week back getting stuck in to our fabulous learning again. We are continuing our 'World at War' topic over this half term and on Firday, we had a super workshop that gave a real insight into life during WWII. We shared out some rations, held some weapons, learnt about life as an Air Raid Warden and administered some first aid to each other. It was greatly enjoyed by all! 

Our first half term in year 6 together has finished with a very busy and exciting week! We took our squash skills to the courts to show how much we had imporoved. The children really excelled and had a fabulous time. 

Our DT projects came to a close by evaluationg what went well (and not so well) and showing them off to each other and parents. 

We made a fabulous start to our participation with Agents of Change by 'expressing gratitude' to those around us. We discussed the importance of being grateful and that showing our gratitude can mean more to people than we realise. 

We wrote colourful labels for each other and wore them with pride through the day exhibiting the things that people are grateful for about us. 

As part of our history learning in the 'World at War', we have looked at propaganda and how it was used and then created some of our own. Our DT projects are developing well and we are beginning to nail together the structure for our cam item. In maths, we recapped our understanding of square and cube numbers and used practical resorces to represent these. 

We have had a fabulous start to the year! Our PE topics for this half term are squash and forest school and we are mastering new skills, solving problems and having lots of fun. In forest school, we have made some super dens; created some interesting meals in the mud kitchen; refined our fire lighting skills; and have generally been enjoying being outside.