Ysgol Cefnllys
Learning today to shape tomorrow
Dysgu Heddiw Er Mwyn Llunio Yfory
Hello and Welcome to
Dosbarth Collen!
Summer Term 1 - 2022
Red Ridge
We had the best time on our trip to Red Ridge!
We went kayaking, caving, climbing, swinging and zip lining!
We all tried every activity and gave it our very best. Not only did we challenge ourselves, but we also encouraged and supported each other whenever we needed it.
Amazing teamwork Dosbarth Collen!
Please enjoy looking through the many photos and videos we tried to take throughout the day, while enjoying ourselves!
Here are two books that we are reading as a class relating to our topic, The Victorians.
My name is Mrs Prince and I am very excited to be teaching Year 5 this year!
I will be teaching from Tuesday - Friday each week and our class are also lucky enough to be joined by Mrs Mcphee on a Monday, Mrs Hards and Mrs Burgoyne.
Reminders
P.E - Mondays - Please come in your P.E kit that day.
Autumn Term 1
After listening to suggestions from the class on our move up day, our first topic is
THE GREAT OUTDOORS!
The children have come up with some fantastic ideas to cover during this topic and we will try and incorporate as many as we can. Alongside this a lot of our literacy work will be based on our class story THE BOY WHO GREW DRAGONS!
We also have a trip planned to the lake where we will learn all about Bush Craft with a qualified instructor as well as many other outdoor activities planned within our school grounds. Let's hope the weather is kind to us!
This planning is a working document. These are all the ideas and areas we would like to cover as a class, but inevitably other ideas will be thought of as we work our way through the topic, so we will add to the areas of learning as we progress through the term.
Outdoor Numeracy
We took our Maths lesson into our new outdoor area. We used as many natural resources as we could find to show different representations of the same number, also helping us to revise and improve our knowledge of place value using larger numbers.
Animal Habitats Research
Before we could go into our outdoor area to build suitable home for our animals, we had to research the sorts of habitats they lived in as well as finding out about their diet and any dangers they might face in the natural world.
Building Our Animal Homes
After our research was complete we went into our outdoor area to build suitable homes for our animals. There was a lot of discussion, problem solving and teamwork during this session. We had to also consider the best places for our animal homes depending on where other people had decided to build. A few groups decided to move in order for their animals to be safer.
Willow Dragons
Based on our class story, The Boy Who Grew Dragons, we designed our own dragons. We had to use as much detailed and descriptive vocabulary as we could in order for the reader to be able to picture the dragon in their head, just from our writing. We then worked with a partner to edit and improve our writing. When our writing was complete we began making our own dragons from willow. It was not easy! But with determination and perseverance we managed to create an outline of what we wanted our dragons to look like. Later that week we started to add some colour ad decoration to our dragons depending on our descriptive writing.
While we were in our outdoor area we also checked on our animal homes as their had been some rain and wind since the last time we had checked on them. We were please to find most of them had really stood the weather test!
Leaf Identification
One of the suggestions for our Science and Technology AOLE was to identify the different trees/plants we have within our school grounds. So off we went to our outdoor area! The Success Criteria was to collect at least 10 different leaves. There were many more different leaves than we thought. When we came back in we then had to use the best way we could think of to identify the leaves we found. We found many different research tools online to help us identify key parts of our leaves. Some of us took it one step further and even started researching more into the plants/trees the leaves had come from and found out further facts about each of the plants and trees. An excellent afternoons work and mostly independent!
Our Bushcraft Afternoon
We had an amazing afternoon learning about bushcraft! With superb teaching from Matt we learnt about fire - the elements needed to make it, the different ways we can start a fire, how to keep a fire burning and how to start a fire safely! We learnt the best sticks for starting a fire should be thin and dry, we had our own group challenges to go and collect enough to keep our fire burning. We also learnt how to use flint and steal to start a fire, it was not easy! But with perseverance and encouragement we managed it and as a reward we got to toast marshmallows on our fires! We also learnt about different types of shelters that could be built and that the three W's were very important - Warm, Waterproof and Windproof. Finally we learnt about the art of comouflage - to see but not to be seen!
New Equipment!
We have thoroughly enjoyed trying out the new outdoor equipment and along with the running track now use it as part of our 10 Minute Move!
Window Art
We were given the title, Through My Window to create a piece of art work. We decided to do some observational drawings of what view we could see through our chosen window.
Pasta Punctuation
No books today! We decided to write on the tables! Why? Well first we were able to copy part of a text based on our class story, The Boy Who Grew Dragons. Then we were able to put the punctuation in that we thought was missing using the different pasta shapes. We then took a photo of our first draft and edited it using partners. Because we could move the pasta around and rub words out easily if we needed too it made it much easier for us to see where we needed to change anything.
Yellow Day
We had a Yellow Day to raise awareness and funds for mental health in young people. As part of our day we dressed in yellow, but also did some literacy work to remind us that we are all good enough. The Best Part of Me book inspired us to write our own poems/text about the best part of us and it really helped us to think about what we like about ourselves and why.
Debating
As one of our final tasks linked to our class story, we had a debate entitled, Should Dragons Be Kept As Pets? We looked at the structure of a debate and practiced the vocabulary that can be used while debating. In our groups we came up with arguments for and against and after we had made notes were able to strongly debate against another group.
Balanced Arguments
To round off our topic we had a look at the features of a balanced argument. Our title was, Should More Of Our Learning Be Outdoors?
We researched facts and opinions for both sides and put our thoughts together into our writing.
Dragon Eyes
Another activity based on our class book for this half term. We researched different patterns and effects around the eye of a dragon and then worked out how we could recreate these using clay. We used many different techniques and tools and the end results were amazing!!
Autumn Term 2
This term half term our topic will be A Child's War. It was one of the most popular ideas picked my the class when we were planning our topics for the year and with Remembrance Day in November, we thought it would be an ideal time to find out more about both WW1 and WW2.
Our Local War Memorial
To begin our visit we had a walk down to our local War Memorial, where we were lucky enough to meet with a local expert who answered our many questions about the War and how it all related to our locality. We found out some interesting facts about the different names that were on the War Memorial and the statue itself along with many more facts about wars in general.