It has been a very busy few weeks in year 5 with World Book Day, Mars Day and British Science week alongside all of our usual lessons. 

On Mars Day, the children had the opportunity to watch a live webinar about space exploration as well as the chance to have a go at making lunar landers, which involved trying to safely land their egg astronauts using balloons, string, papers and straws. There were a few cracked eggs but also a number of successful egg landings and the children thoroughly enjoyed themselves in the process. 

Science week has the allowed the children to continue experimenting, with Year 5 focusing on the development of time. The children have been exploring their perception of time and the speed of their reactions, which involved trying to accurately estimate 10 seconds and catch a ruler before it fell to the floor. They have also been looking at how time has been measured throughout history and have made water clocks and sun dials that we will be testing when the sun comes out.  There have also been a couple of live webinars with a focus on the changes the Earth over time, one on fossils and one that looked at the changes to the landscape, which nicely aligned with our current geography topic looking at mountains and our upcoming topic on volcanoes.  

In other lessons, we have been focusing on setting and character descriptions in preparation for a longer write, which will be a narrative adventure story set in space using our class reader 'Cosmic' as inspiration. After a brief pause for assessment week, we have been looking at percentages before moving onto geometry. We have been measuring angles using protractors and will continue to focus on this for the rest of the half-term. In computing the children have been coding a simple sports games and creating an advert for a sports gadget. In PE they have continued with cricket and have also been playing scorpion handball (ask your children to explain the rules). And in PSHE the children have been looking at healthy lifestyles and positive body image. 

Overall it has been a great half-term and we hope you all have a lovely, and restful, Easter holidays.