MrJennings

In English this week we have continued our story writing and reflected on the progress of our work. We have specifically been seeking to develop our proofreading skills, We have done this through a short series of exercises and by trying to develop effective proofreading habits to help accuracy.

After some more activities to deepen our understanding of percentages and fractions, we moved to thinking about multiplication. We began, this week, revising and practising our mental skills calculating answers to sums like 8000 ÷ 400 and 600 x ? = 420000. We then moved on to learning the processes involved in computing answers to questions requiring long multiplication.

On Wednesday, we had a special afternoon to conclude our geography topic on the Lake District. We set up our classroom for a "Lake District National Park Authority Planning Committee" meeting. Some of the class took the role of hoteliers seeking planning permission to build a Water Sports Centre extension to their hotel next to one of the lakes. Others took the role of local residents, sheep farmers who used land close to the hotel and the lake, local shopkeepers or representatives of Activity Holidays (organisers of holidays for 18 - 30 year olds) or Saga Holidays (organisers of holidays for the over 50s). After hearing the plans of the hoteliers, who tried to claim that their proposals would be good for the area, each of the other groups made their comments. The hoteliers tried to answer objections raised by the different groups (especially those of the farmers) and were willing to make a number of compromises. Then each of the groups was able to raise a further round of questions and listen to the responses before a final vote was taken on the amended proposals. The outcome of this vote was that the Water Sports Centre was approved - this was contrary to an indicative vote taken at the start of the meeting before presentations and negotiations had taken place.

In addition to these activities, everyone make good further progress with their weaving, we had our Spanish and PE sessions and learned some more songs for our Christmas production.

Our maths learning this year has continued our focus on fractions and decimals, also extending our understanding to percentages. We worked on fractions and decimals, including hundredths and thousandths before moving on to calculating with fractions. We started with unit factions (like finding 1/5 of 120) before calculating with non-unit fractions (so, finding 3/5 of 120) and then finding 60% of 120.

In English, we completed a comprehension activity on Monday. We wrote some more of our Mr. Men stories before typing them up, so far, on the computer. To develop our proofreading skills, we took a passage from Mac's Short Adventure which had been printed without punctuation and made as many corrections as we could before checking this together as a class. Today, we thought about the use of connectives.

Investigating parachutes was our main science activity this week. We made different-sized cones to act as parachutes (making sure that we used the same material and weight of material for each) and dropped them each from the same height. We compared the results we found when measuring the time it took each one to fall and drew conclusions about how this was affected by the size of the parachute. We created graphs to present the results and started writing up the experiment.

In addition, in Design & Technology we threaded up our weaving frames and began weaving, we had our weekly session of Spanish and enjoyed a "taster session" of archery.

We have continued our English work on writing well-structured stories. We have written openings for our stories and then moved on to writing an episode of "build-up". We are trying to ensure that, in addition to using good language, we build up the readers ideas about the character's personality and their ideas about the setting.

In maths, our main work has been concerned with learning how to identify equivalent fractions, relating fractions (tenths and hundredths mainly) to their decimal equivalents and an introduction to percentages.

Finishing our weaving frames was the focus of our technology work this week. We glued the pieces of wood together using the cardboard triangle reinforcements after sawing shallow notches in the two short lengths. (These notches are intended to help space the warp threads.) In science, we wrote reports of the two experiments we did last week about friction and also created graphs to present the data.

We finished the week with singing, which began our preparations for our Year 5 & 6 Christmas production.

In our first week back after half term we have had something of a science focus to our timetable. In addition to carrying out two short experiments on friction (using force meters) for our main science topic on forces, we had a Science Day in school on Thursday. Our theme for the day in 5J was a CSI scenario. Each group of scientists had to observe and test five white powders that had been found at the home of six people suspected of a crime. The tests involved describing the powders in terms of texture and appearance, observing its reaction in water, measuring the pH of the solution and observing the reaction of the powder in water. The results were compared with the reactions of a white powder left at the scene of the crime. Our teams of scientists also ran chromatography tests on the ink from black pens found at suspects' homes. Again the results were compared with the results from ink used to write a note that was found left at the crime scene. Having identified the powder and the type of pen used, the children were able to cross-reference these with the substances and pens found at the different suspects' homes to identify the individual most likely to have committed the crime. Some groups also had a go a recording their own finger prints.

We have also had two sessions to start off our design and technology topic. The main outcome of this will be the creation of a woven panel to be used to make a Christmas or greeting card. This week we measured, cut and sanded the wood for the weaving frames and also started to plan the picture.

In English this week, we have been analysing the plots of short stories and trying to understand how the author has constructed the story in terms of creating an opening, building up the character and setting, working towards a climax followed by a resolution and ending. Our maths has concentrated on the properties of 3D shapes and maths problems.