Year 5
Welcome to Year 5
We believe that working hard helps us achieve great things and that learning is something to love and enjoy every day. We celebrate curiosity and the excitement of always wanting to find out more.
Our Year 5 Team
Miss Harter (5JH) Miss Jones (5JH) Miss Abbotts (5JA) Miss McLoughlin (5JA)
Mrs Venables (works across both classes)
Information for Parents
Click here for our Yearly Overview 2025-2026
PE
PE kit consists of navy blue shorts or leggings, a sky blue polo shirt and trainers or pumps.
PE is every Wednesday for Year 5
Reading
Your child should be reading each day for at least 20 minutes. Take time to ask questions about their book as this will really help develop their reading comprehension.
Homework
Homework will be set every Friday to be completed by the following Thursday on; Maths.co.uk SPAG.com
Chatter
Keep up to date with everything that is happening via the school app or by visiting our class page on the school website.
Year 5 Chatter
Mini Medics!
What an amazing session with mini medics. We learnt all about DR ABC and first aid. The children loved it.

Years 5 and 6 Play Leaders
After receiving coaching from Coach Craig from LSSP, some of our Year 5&6 children have qualified in PALS – Leading physical activities during break times. They really enjoyed the course and can’t wait to get started!
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Our PE lesson
Our topic this term has been fitness. We have been learning about running and what our arms and legs should look like. We have put this into practise for our dodgeball game, which is our favourite!

Learning about Diwali in Y5
We have had a wonderful time learning about Diwali and more about the Hindu religion. We heard the story of Rama and Sita and why Hindus celebrate this important festival. We were even gifted some Diva lamps to decorate – which we loved!

Field work at Sefton Park



Yesterday morning, we went for a story, map activity and craft activity at the Palm house. In the afternoon, we followed our map and and completed some fieldwork around Sefton Park. We spotted many human and physical features of the park and added how we felt in each place on our map.
Racism Awareness Workshop
Year 5 enjoyed their ‘Racism Awareness’ Workshop today with Loti!

Digimaps
Today we had a look at our local park on digimaps to find its features. We then planned out a walk that we’re going to complete.

Cake Sale
Thank you so much for all your donations towards MacMillan Cancer Support. Children had a lovely time – a lot of cake was enjoyed : )
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Frog life cycle
We had a very fun science lesson yesterday recreating the frog life cycle and guessing which stage they were! LOTS of laughing in 5JH.
A student even went home and created a poster as extra homework.

Working Together
We have had a wonderful start to the school year. It is lovely to see the children working hard and helping each other. We have also used our home languages to help our friends who are new to English.
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Place value Y5
The children were brilliant at using place value counters to make a range of numbers at the start of our new topic!

Team building
We have had a wonderful start to 5JH completing different tasks as a team. Resilience was needed throughout as some were quite challenging!

Our last English lesson of Y5
A wonderful last lesson writing up our non-chronological reports on the Amazon.

Our 150 year party!
We had so much fun today eating ice creams, on a bouncy castle, playing party games and having birthday cake! What an amazing day!

The Layers of the Amazon Rainforest
Today, we learned about the four layers of the Amazon Rainforest: the emergent layer, the canopy, the understory and the forest floor. These children worked very hard and produced wonderful work. Well done!
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Leon and the Place Between
In English, we read the story Leon and the Place Between by Grahame Baker-Smith. One of our activities was to create a poster for the circus.
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Planned investigations!
Today the children planned an investigation about solubility. We had a range of investigations and talked about reversible and irreversible changes.

Sports Day
Thank you to all the parents who came to watch our wonderful sports day and for the children who were amazing! They put in a lot of effort and it was great to see so many happy faces.

1st lesson – Amazon Rainforest
Today we looked on digimaps for the first time to find out where the Amazon is and found out some key facts about it. We looked at population, climate, biomes and much more. Amazing work year 5.

Science – properties of materials
Yesterday, we investigated a range of properties for different materials and recorded this in a Carroll diagram. The children loved testing of it was magnetic or not. This will lead onto our thermal insulation investigation! 
Refugee week
Last week we had a performance based on the experiences of refugees. It was brilliant performed and we even had a Q&A session at the end. 
Special Friendships
Today, we were so happy to be reunited with a couple of our classmates who had been living in another city and were now back in Liverpool. They were welcomed with cheers, hugs and huge smiles by all their friends. Everyone showed kindness. So lovely to see!
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Happy Rainforest Day!
Today is ‘Rainforest Day’. We are taking part of a zoom by Chester Zoo where we can learn all about the different layers of the rainforest and how animals we have recently visited at Chester Zoo are adapted for the forest and where they would live in the rainforest. We have also learnt about how to help from England to make sure the rainforest is not further destroyed. 
Who will be king? History in 1066
In History this week, we looked at what happened to the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings. We learnt about what happened up to 1066 then the fight for power between 4 potential kings. We split up into Edgar Atheling, Harold Godwinson, Harald Hadrada and William Duke of Normandy. We had a very lively discussion about why they think they should be king and debated against the other teams. The children were brilliant and Edgar Atheling was our class winner (even though in the past it was originally Harold Godwinson then William Duke of Normandy).

DT – engineer visit!
We have loved making our trains last week in Year 5. We’ve built our chassis, adding electrics and tested our locomotives. We were even visited by a local engineer from Stadler Rail Company to help us with our electrics and testing.

150 year celebration picnic
Thank you to everyone wo helped make our family picnic such a success, from the generous items on our community table to the fantastic Henna work in aid of Alder Hey hospital to the very generous sharing of food with staff, the day was fabulous.
150 Year Celebration
What a lovely picnic this afternoon! A big, huge thank you to all children, parents and staff for all the work and effort everyone has put in for our 150 year celebration. Thank you everyone for coming to celebrate this afternoon.
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150 year celebration – art!
Just a snippet of our fantastic artwork from Chatsworth Street School in the past and what it looks like now. 
What do we notice about water resistance?
Today we completed an investigation about how the shape of plasticine can affect the time it takes to travel through water. We loved creating different shapes and timing it! 
150 Years!
Year 5 loved their workshop for 150 years and learning about the history of our local area. 
Celebrating Eid Al- Ahad
Thank you to our parent volunteers, hennaliverpool.com and Hennabyinaaya for helping us to celebrate Eid Al-Ahad.
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Substitution Tables For Writing
This boy created sentences about the story The Emperor’s New Clothes. A substitution table helped provide support to write different types of sentences. This story contains themes such as vanity and greed as well as humour. We’ve enjoyed reading it together.
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Our amazing Chester Zoo trip!
We absolutely loved going to Chester Zoo to learn about the animals and the trees. All of the children behaved exceptionally and loved the trip.

Chester zoo workshop
Today we had a visit from Chester Zoo. We looked at animals and plants in our school grounds. 
Martin Mere Viking day!
We absolutely loved going to Martin Mere for our immersive Viking experience. We took part in weaving, foraging, thatching and defending the village.

Rumpelstiltskin
491We have been reading the story of Rumpelstiltskin. It is an old German fairy tale that was written many years ago. These children have worked so hard with their writing. I have been very impressed.
World Earth Day 🌍
Today we learnt about renewable resources and what we’re hoping for, for the future. We made websites to promote our ideas especially since it’s our future! 
Superstar in Year 5! 🌟
This amazing piece of work was all done at home about WW2! I was so impressed with the amount of knowledge there was about so many different aspects of the war. SUPER WORK!
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WW2 Workshop
Today we had a visitor in to teach us about WW2. We trained to become special volunteer police officers and followed commands given in the war. We looked at Erie facts and even had time to role play.

Everton mathematics day!
Some children were invited to take part in some maths activities at Goodison Park stadium. They completed challenges and got to see the stadium. What a fun day! 🧮

Year 5 trip to the British Gymnastics competition at the M&S Arena, see if you can spot us on BBC newsround!
Gymnastics British Championship and Newsround!
Yesterday, we had an amazing trip to watch these athletes. The work they put into practising and training really inspired some students. Also, some children met the presenter of Newsround
and even got a picture!
Ruth Wakefield – science week
For science week, we researched Ruth Wakefield. We learnt all about the temperatures needed and the variables that she changed. We then had a lesson in cookie making with our wonderful cook Monica and decorated the cookies with her face.

Railroad safety
Today we took part in a railroad safety assembly. We replied back to the different scenarios and decided the most sensible decisions.

Science week
Last week we had a wonderful time with our biscuit investigation. Our question to investigate ‘Does the thickness of a biscuit affect it’s breaking dunk time?’

Creating craters
We have planned out our experiments in order to see how we can measure craters
and what affects the result. We had a create time changing variables and recording our average in order to make it a fair test.
Micro:bits
Year 5 continued to look at how we can program a Micro:bit. The focus today was being able to use inputs, loops and conditionals to create a reaction game. Children created a reaction game by programming a ‘Sprite’ to move left and right on the screen, when the ‘sprite’ was in the middle and they pressed the A button they scored a point, if it wasn’t in the correct spot the game restarted. We then discussed how we can use the pause button to help increase/decrease the difficulty in the game.
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The Dalmatians are safe once again!
Today we had a visit from Cruella De Vil who wanted to steal all of the Dalmatian puppies, luckily the classes were able to find all 101 of them and saved the school! What an amazing World Book Day 2025. 
How do shadows change throughout the day?
Today we tracked and measured the length of one shadow throughout the day. We noticed that our shadow was as its shorted midday and that it moved as the sun appeared to move. We explained in our books that it is the Earth spinning on its axis that creates the different times of day. 
International Mother Language day
We loved sharing our languages last week and teaching children different words. Some children even wanted to record these so that we could share our language with others. We have some excellent little teachers in class! 
Prime Minster Chamberlain’s announcement – WW2
Today we used freeze frames to think about how people might have felt during the announcement of WW2. We looked at the different reactions in our book ‘Goodnight Mr Tom’ and compared different emotions. 
International Mother Language Day
On February 21st, it was International Mother Language Day. To celebrate, we have been learning words and phrases in different languages. The children have been fantastic teachers.
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Computing Micro:bits
Year 5 were introduced to Mirco:bits. We focused on being able to use the string block to display text and coded the LEDs to display different animations. We then looked at how to download our created code to a microbit.
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Goodnight Mr Tom- our new English book
Yesterday we looked at clues for our new book ’Goodnight Mr Tom’. We wrote predictions and today we discussed evacuations from cities to the countryside and arguments for and against. We invited in Mrs Ridley to walk down our ‘conscience alley’ to hear our reasons. 
Writing in Ms Siddiqui’s Group
These children have worked so hard today on their independent writing. Well done!
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Reading – Ms Siddiqui
This boy told me that he loved reading this book because the story reflected his own life experiences. Books that represent our communities matter so much.
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Phases of the moon
We had a wonderful afternoon showing (and eating) the different phases of the moon. First the children represented this with the ball (moon) and the torch (sun) to find the phases. Then we used biscuits to recreate this. Please ask us about the different phases, can you spot the moon at home?

Benjamin Zephaniah
Year 5 have been looking at the poet Benjamin Zephaniah this week and yesterday we got the chance to read some of his poems. We all agreed that most of his poems have the message of justice and equality for all. 
Fair Trade Debate
Today we learnt about the global supply chain and the different stages our products take to get to us (the customer). We debated which part of the supply chain was the most important and how fair the pay was. Our class debate was very passionate! 
5JH Lion dance to celebrate the Lunar new year! 🐲
We had an amazing afternoon in our lion dancing workshop. Happy Lunar New Year!

Earth and space
This week in science we have been looking at night and day. We have been learning about the rotation of Earth and how this creates daylight and nighttime.

How our solar system moves!
Today we tried to recreate the direction and movement of our solar system. We discussed how this is not to scale but wanted to show what we had learnt about ‘Earth and Space’ so far. Please ask us questions about the solar system! 
Pottery making
We had a lovely afternoon starting our pottery. We followed our designs to make an object (bowl, vase, cup) and etched some designs in. We are looking forward to painting in the next couple of weeks.

Our new book… Hidden Figures
We have looked through all our clues for our upcoming book… Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. We will be discussing new vocabulary such as racism, segregation, civil rights, controversy and many more! 
A great end to this half term!
An amazing Mario Kart tournament to celebrate the holidays!
Christmas arts and crafts workshop

What a lovely afternoon! Thanks to all the parents that came and helped out with the winter crafts. They all looked amazing.
Does our arm span increase as we grow older?
We took measurements of children from reception all the way to our eldest staff member! We then created a scatter graph of our results.
Calligraphy with the Arabic alphabet
Today in our art lesson we looked at different examples of Arabic calligraphy and have had a go at our own.
Transatlantic slave trade
Today we looked at different pictures of artefacts in museums around the world and how they were used during the transatlantic slave trade. We discussed the life of an enslaved person and the hardships they faced.
Pattern seeking – science
In science today we put our ideas to the test. we either chose to either investigate if children with the longest femur could jump the highest or if the tallest children could jump the highest. We completed the post it challenge and made sure our investigation was fair.
Premier league workshop
This morning we had a Premier League workshop to tell us all about the different jobs and skills we could get that are part of football. We learnt about football journalists, authors, medics, stewards, mascots, players and coaches. We then acted out being an interviewer, interviewee and clarifier.
Celebrating differences 🌎
For our PSHE lesson we are celebrating differences. In previous weeks we have spoken about racism, bullying and rumours and now we are researching a range of countries and what their culture looks like.
NRG! Our power pledges.
Last week we had a visit from NRG to tell us all about our use of electricity and what we can do to help. We have signed a pledge to use less electricity and water to help with waste of non-renewable energy.
Extra work at home!

Some incredible examples of extra work done at home. I have loved seeing how passionate we are about negative numbers, Olaudah Equiano and Roman numeral – keep it up, we love proudly displaying your work!
International Slavery Museum trip
Yesterday we had a great time at the International Slavery Museum. We had a workshop in the ‘legacies of the transatlantic slave trade’ and then had time to explore the museum with our task sheets.

Computing Using Variables
Year 5 built on their knowledge of Variables with the focus today being on using a Score and timer variable. We created a quiz program were children had to get a Sprite to ask a question and using a conditional else statement they were able to code the correct and incorrect answers. Children then coded the ‘stage’ to begin the timer for their quiz.
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Our wonderful campfire 🪵
Today we have loved our class campfire. We enjoyed toasting the marshmallows, creating a s’more and having some hot chocolate. We even had a blast from the past with some children’s songs and rhymes. 












Year 5 Campfire
What a fabulous way to begin Children in Need day – a Year 5 campfire with hot chocolate and smores : )
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Basketball and netball
For this half term we are going to be learning about the skills needed for basketball and netball. Today we learnt overarm, underarm, chest pass and bounce pass.
Computing- Variables
Year 5 looked at how we can use variables in programming. We discussed as a class what variables are, providing examples and how computers can use them to store information. We then moved onto create a program on Scratch recapping how we can use different events and movements on characters and included a timer variable.
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Amazing homework!
Superstar 🌟sisters! Both have done work at home based on their current topics 👏. Well done guys.
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Year 5 Computing
Year 5 started a new topic using Scratch. Today we focused on conditionals and how they are used. We discussed as a class what a conditional was and how we can use ‘If’ statements to give our programs a condition to work in. Children then created a program to get a character to move using the keyboard and pick up a ball when they reached it.
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Girls Football Tournament
Some of our Year 5 & 6 girls have been out to a ‘Girls Only’ football tournament today organised by Everton in the Community. Go girls !!!!!!
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Football matches.
This week in PE we had a chance to use our skills when playing matches. We remembered to dribble, tackle and defend using skills we have learnt. Everyone made a fantastic effort!
Diwali lanterns
Today we are designing our Diwali lanterns for next week. We have learnt the story of Rama and Sita and thought about why Diwali is celebrated in Hindu religion. We are trying to focus on using Rangoli patterns.
Oil pastel artists!
Today we having been using different oil pastel techniques (sgraffito, dry blending, cross-hatching and tinting) to figure 


out which ones we want to use for our landscapes. 



An author has come to Smithdown!
Author of ‘The late crew’ Rob Ferguson came to visit our school today. Some of us were so excited to even get our books signed by a real life author! We even designed our own alien that we could use in our stories. 

Danny Butler!
Today we had a wonderful visit from Danny Butler. We joined in the activities and even got to see some of his amazing skills.

Learning “Three little birds” in our music lesson
Today we use glockenspiels and xylophones in our music lesson to play the C triad and the F triad. We played this to Bob Marley’s “Three little birds”.

An afternoon of ‘Quidditch’
Wow…. what a way to end the week !!! Some children in Years 5 & 6 got to try their hands at ‘Quidditch’ today and they absolutely loved it !!!!
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Year 5 Art Adventure: Exploring Perspectives! 🎨✨
Today in Year 5, our budding artists dived into the fascinating world of one-point perspective and atmospheric perspective! 🖌️🌌 They transformed ordinary views into extraordinary landscapes, learning how to create depth and dimension in their artwork.
With guidance our students experimented with lines and shading, making their drawings come alive. The focus on perspective not only enhances their artistic skills but also encourages critical thinking and creativity.
Join us in celebrating their hard work and skill!
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Year 5’s football skills in PE

We loved working with Everton in the community today when practising our football skills. We’ve been practising dribbling and kicking.
Competition Time! Y5/6 Dodgeball
Some of our Y5/6 went out for a Dodgeball competition this week – we didn’t win but we enjoyed ourselves!
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Black History Month ‘24
Some AMAZING entries for the Merseyside Police competition! Children have worked hard creating lovely pieces of work with great messages as well. Well done to everyone who has submitted already. Last day tomorrow (Friday 13th September).
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Cheque Presentation
A massive thank you to all parents and children who donated money to Alder Hey. The children on the school council were very lucky to be invited down to Alder Hey for a cheque presentation.
The money raised is going to help brighten the lives of children and their families, all over the country, who require the help of Alder Hey.
Year 5 Primary Engineer Award
Earlier in the year, year 5 took part in a project with Primary Engineer and built moving locomotives with an electrical circuit. Today we celebrated each child taking part, awarded awards for best group work and also two boys took home the ‘Best communicator’ award. Well done, year 5!
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5EHD Geography statistics work
This week year 5 have compared Liverpool to the city of Manaus in Brazil and plotted data and different style graphs.
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Fantastic Family Picnic
A fantastic community picnic. The sun shone.
An amazing community food table with so many lovely dishes to share.
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Y5 Y6 Boys Rugby
Here are some of our boys out for their session of rugby today, this time at St Margaret’s.
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Y5&6 Girls Rugby
How great was our rugby taster session yesterday at Calderstones !!!!!
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5EHD Martin Mere trip
Year 5 had a fantastic time learning about Anglo Saxon and Viking daily life in Martin Mere. We learned how to weave, fight in battle, make a thatched roof and forage for medicine and food in the woods
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5EHD DT
We have been working hard on our rail engineering project. Over the past couple of weeks, we have created our own locomotives, complete with a frame, wheels, axels and an electrical circuit.
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Year 5 Computing
Year 5 continued to look at how we can use variables in our programming. Children created a multiplication quiz on Scratch including variables for scores and a timer.
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Year 5 Micro:Bit
This afternoon children have looked at how we can use a Micro:bit to create a multiplication game. Children needed to create number variables and then use multiplication to be able to get the numbers to multiply and together and display on the Micro:bit.
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Santa Dash 2023 ??????♀️????♂️
This Friday, 8th December 2023, we will be having our very own Santa Dash! A chance to squeeze in an extra fitness session whilst having some festive fun ??♀️????♂️?????
Watch this space! ?
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Year 5 Micro:bit
This afternoon Year 5 have continued to explore how we can code a Micro:bit. Today we looked at how to set and change the brightness of the LED lights on the Micro:bit when a button was pressed. Children then created code for it to display a sequence of different images.
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Young Scientist Centre
5NA went to a solar system workshop at UCLAN. We did lots of investigations all about the solar system!

Year 5 Coding
This afternoon Year 5 completed a coding activity on Hour of Code. Children used blocked coding to create images and animations. Children focused on the positioning of their shapes as well as inserting different blocks to make their code more efficient. Children then had to debug their code to makesure it works.
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What was operation Pied Piper?
We have been looking at evacuation and it’s impact on children during the war – we examined some sources and discussed what they were and their intentions!

Year 5 Computing Micro:bit
Wednesday afternoon Year 5 have continued to explore Mico:bits. Children used variables, If statements and Inputs to get a Micro:bit to play Rock, Paper & Scissors.
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5EHD PE
Congratulations to this boy in 5EHD who was chosen by our Everton coach, Connor, to receive this signed picture of Jordan Pickford for outstanding efforts in PE today!
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Remembrance Day
We have created some beautiful poems after reading Flanders Fields and used watercolours/charcoal/pencils to create some poppy artwork to mark Remembrance Day.
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How and Why did WW2 Start?
We have started our WW2 topic by exploring who was involved, how it began and why. We made a double page spread to answer our enquiry!

After learning about life cycles with Years 2 & 5
After learning about life cycles, @SmithdownPrimY5 kindly invited us to watch their butterfly release this afternoon. 4 classes of pure excitement ? #smithdownsci @SmithdownPrimY2
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We then focused on how animals mature by looking at some life cycles…
We then focused on how animals mature by looking at some life cycles. Mr. Ma let the Y5 caterpillars visit KS1 and just look at their faces. We identified some at pupa stage for some science in action #smithdownsci @baronbedford @Edu_Meadows
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Our fantastic stars of the week in 5NA⭐️
Our fantastic stars of the week in 5NA – well done ? ⭐️
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We’ve been developing our teamwork skills in PE ?
We’ve been developing our teamwork skills in PE with @EITC ?
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This afternoon 5EHD have been looking at different watercolour techniques…
This afternoon 5EHD have been looking at different watercolour techniques ahead of using them as part of a mixed media piece. #smithdownart ?
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Y5 are working on teamwork this half term with @EITC Today…
Y5 are working on teamwork this half term with @EITC Today we had to order ourselves in silence ???♀️????♂️??♀️and we played stuck in the mud. @misshartdavies @Miss_Jones11 @MrsKellyx #SmithdownPE
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We are looking at life cycles in science…
We are looking at life cycles in science, so now have 40 caterpillars that we are going to watch transform into butterflies. We have given them food, and are going to monitor them turn into chrysalises. #smithdownsci @MrsKellyx @MissGuy_
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We’ve made such a lovely start to our new mixed media landscapes art topic!
We’ve made such a lovely start to our new mixed media landscapes art topic! #smithdownart
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Just a few of our amazing art work from Year 5. using layering to create an effect for Remembrance Day.














Today we have been looking at the different states in the USA and have created a website for different states. we’ve looked at physical features, human features, capital cities, climate and population. 























































In English this week, we were inspired by the character Willaim Beech’s love of art and painted some of the setting descriptions from Little Weirwold. some example examples to create imagery from our book Goodnight Mr Tom.














The best start to our week. Yesterday we loved playing in the snow, having a snow ball fight and building snowmen. 




B-tales shared the story of



























































