A Fabulous Final Week!

Thank you, St. Clare's, for giving me such a wonderful last week before I leave for maternity leave! We worked hard this week and we were so happy to welcome the fantastic Mrs Bennett into our St. Clare's team. I know you're going to make her very welcome.

We've been continuing with our Kings and Knights topic this week. Mrs Bennett worked with you to create these spectacular crowns. We were so impressed by how different they all were!

You made some super fact files about Edward the Confessor. You'll be learning lots more about him and his interesting life in the next few weeks, including a fabulous trip to Westminster Abbey. It's one of my favourite trips in Year 5- you're going to love it! I can't wait to hear all about it.

We read Part III of 'The Lady of Shalott' this week, in which we met the dashing Sir Lancelot. We worked together to write this fantastic description of the knight:

Here are just a few examples of some of the excellent writing from St. Clare's this week (click on the pictures to make them larger and easier to read):

On Wednesday, we showed Mrs Bennett how fantastic you are at poetry. Inspired by the moment that the Lady of Shalott looks out of the window and triggers her curse, we wrote this very dramatic poem. Can you spot some similes? Metaphors? Alliteration? Onomatopoeia? Can you find all the references to the poem we were inspired by, The Lady of Shalott?

The Curse

Dark clouds cloaked the sky like velvet,

Lightning tore through the coal,

She heard thunder crash upon the tower,

The air was filled with a deafening sound,

Rain lashed upon her trembling soul.

Crash! The mirror shattered into a million pieces,

Splinters flew like shooting stars,

A hurricane of glass and the web flew out of the casement.

A foreboding feeling enveloped her,

A scream of despair.

By St. Clare’s Class

Wednesday 11th January 2017

We also enjoyed our last P4C lesson together this week. Our stimulus was this beautiful short animation:

The questions we came up with were:
1. Can old things be as good as new? Why?
2. Should all people be treated the same? Why?
3. Can you still have happiness, even when you are unfortunate? Why?
4. How can we make life better?
5. What would the world be like if rubbish took over?

We voted to discuss question 3; Can you still have happiness, even when you are unfortunate? Why?
Our discussion included homelessness, the value of money, fairness, happiness and even communism! I shall miss our Philosophy discussions!

Kings and Knights

We have made a fantastic start to our new topic; 'Kings and Knights'. We are already two parts in to the epic 'The Lady of Shalott' and have all been speculating about the curse that might be upon her. We rose to the challenge of writing the opening of the poem as prose. Can you remember the difference between poetry and prose? This week, we're looking forward to reading more and finding out what happens next!

To try to empathise with the Lady of Shalott, we each attempted our own mirror artwork and found it very tempting to look round at what was behind us! It was very frustrating and gave us a little insight into what her life must have been like. We wrote diary entries as the Lady and imagined how she must feel and what she might dream of.

We also had a go at weaving this week; the favourite pastime of the Lady. It was tricky at first, but we created some marvellous pieces with a little practice!

On Friday, we had a formal debate on the topic, 'The Lady of Shalott should leave the tower.'
Arguing 'for' were Delta Team (made up of Tiger and Panther houses) and 'against' were L.J. Masterminds (Lion and Jaguar houses). It was a tense and well-argued debate, with many interesting points and rebuttals. The opening statements set the debate off on an interesting path and we were soon in full flow. Following some very persuasive closing statements, the judges deliberated. It was a close call, but as a result of using better evidence from the poem, the winning team were the Delta Team. Well done! After our debate, we wrote letters of advice to the Lady of Shalott, full of the powerful arguments we had shared in the debate. Coming up soon we will be reading more of the poem and starting to learn about Edward the Confessor, Arthurian legends and much more...!

Amazing Artwork!

On Friday afternoon, for our last big art project together, we created a massive masterpiece!

After coming up with lots of nouns, we picked three that were unrelated. The three nouns we chose were: 'fireworks', 'battle' and 'flowers'.

We worked together, as a whole class, to draw an image that combined all three of these things. We had to fill the whole piece of paper:

Next, we were given colourful paints, but we weren't allowed to mix them and if we wanted to use a new colour, we had to swap with someone else. This was tricky at first, but we soon got the hang  of it!

Finally, we added the highlights and shadows with black and white paint, which again, we could not mix:

Here is our finished piece:

Can you think of a suitably marvellous title for our masterpiece?

Another Super Week!

We have had another great week in St. Clare's Class!

On Wednesday, we visited the LifeBus. We had an interesting lesson and learned lots more about our bodies and the importance and dangers associated with how we treat them. We learned about drugs, smoking and alcohol and how they can be harmful to us. To end the session, we spent some time considering how to make the right choices and how to say 'No,' when we need to. It was a fascinating session and we came away with a greater knowledge about how to stay safe and well.

On Thursday, we had a fantastic trip to the Dulwich Picture Gallery. We worked with Jo, a professional artist, in the workshop to design and make our own World War One medals.

Firstly, we designed the symmetrical ribbons, using wax pastels and inks. We used this resist technique to make the ribbons look old and worn.

Next, we designed and made the tiles to print our medals.

Then, we applied the metallic printing ink.

We used the printing press to create our final images.

On Friday, after our marvellous performance in our assembly, we neared the end of our class novel; The Silver Donkey, and wrote some fantastic pieces to show how we think the book will end.

We also enjoyed analysing a poem about conscription and discussing the emotions involved for those left behind in the Great War.

In the afternoon, after another excellent P4C session, we spent some time writing Christmas letters and cards to our Post Pals. They have been posted off this weekend, so we hope that they will arrive soon to put smiles on the faces of some children who will be in hospital, or very unwell, over Christmas.

Next week, we have a very busy festive week!

Monday: Your last swimming session- don't forget your kit!
Tuesday: All of Upper School will be going to St. Thomas More for the Advent mass.
Wednesday: Christmas lunch!
Thursday: We will be watching the Key Stage 1 Nativity Play and we'll write our list to go up for the class Christmas party (food and drink!)
Friday: In the afternoon, we will be heading to church again for the Christmas Carol Concert.

The following week:
Monday: Our class Christmas Party!
Tuesday: CARE awards assembly, possibly Toy Day and the last day of term! School will close at 2pm.

P4C

Source: The Imperial War Museum

This week's P4C sparked another wonderful discussion. Our stimulus this week was a painting; The Menin Road, by Paul Nash. After playing some games, we looked closely at the painting before coming up with some questions to discuss.

The questions that each group put forward were:

1. Can people still have happiness in their lives during wartime?
2. What did war do to mankind?
3. Was the war as dreadful as it seems?
4. Should women have been allowed to fight in World War One?


We voted for question 4: 'Should women have been allowed to fight in World War One?' It was a fantastic discussion and led to many ideas being raised about gender, strength and equality. Well done, everyone!

Our Friendship Sculptures

Here are some lovely examples of our completed Friendship Week sculptures. We each used newspaper and modrock to create little models of ourselves in various poses. Once they had dried, we wrote kind messages of friendship on the models of the friends in our class. Now we each have a model covered in lovely words about ourselves- to remind us of how marvellous our friends think we are!