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!

P4C

 Source: YouTube, Edward Monkton

This week, our P4C session was definitely our best discussion yet. We watched a fantastic video; 'The Pig of Happiness' as our stimulus and had a very grown up discussion. We talked about what happiness is and whether you would miss it if you had never had it. We wondered whether, in a world without happiness, you could feel sadness. Different children explained their ideas using images of scales, or comparisons to light and dark. Without having seen the light, would you know if it was dark? Without ever being happy, could you be sad? Do you need to have experienced the opposite to be able to understand it? Some children have even started to make links between previous P4C sessions, drawing on ideas from past discussions we have had. Wow!

Here are the questions we came up with this week:

1. Can everyone have happiness in their lives?
2. What would the world be like without happiness?
3. Can happiness mentally disturb you? (This group explained that they were wondering whether too much happiness can be bad for you.)
4. How and why does happiness spread?

The question we voted to discuss was: 'What would the world be like without happiness?'

At the end of our discussion this week, everyone in the class offered an interesting and insightful final thought. Well done everyone!

Animoto Invention Adverts

Source: dominicwilcox

This week, St. Clare's Class has become an inventors' workshop! We found out about the inventing process, then mind-mapped some problems that we could solve before designing our own inventions. Everyone created a detailed diagram of their invention and annotated it with  information and materials. Next, we each wrote a 'patent application' for our designs.

Yesterday, we used Animoto to create these fantastic adverts for our inventions. Click on each link to see each advert.

By Max

Joseph: https://animoto.com/play/nGDm07EhtzctLFFpOww1bQ 

Ryan: https://animoto.com/play/VG2jJSlev2HSceMKAmeOWA

Ferdia: https://animoto.com/play/zAn9j34rWLIi8lNedNtrIQ

Jane: https://animoto.com/play/h212btGpdRd310ajoFyM9g

Ethan: https://animoto.com/play/1skUexHeLS6IIPAC1d4PKw

Saulo: https://animoto.com/play/smh3Q2AGKGta2tYrZtedpg

Daniel: https://animoto.com/play/Uw4Dc5lB70bUzH3Czz1rmA

Thirsa: https://animoto.com/play/6gESofJj8Hw4ozrrs6FG7w

Evan: https://animoto.com/play/Z6ysDE350vpAnrCemlJxLw

Beatrice: https://animoto.com/play/W9lya4HzSgfnfc9Vtg856g

Yasmin: https://animoto.com/play/EhbjhJddWgQgcw6How10cQ

Sofia: https://animoto.com/play/bNEXZyyZBkhXq1JhOjOFoA

Millie: https://animoto.com/play/x8kPCQH257Q16uX83DdfwQ

Callum: https://animoto.com/play/c9fOhL2ArmmEwVXcTMdZbQ

Aisling: https://animoto.com/play/erkJAA0mc9tHs8GpkzWyPw

Jayden: https://animoto.com/play/0H0Xp4TgOUgznrrlqn2ebw

Klara: https://animoto.com/play/2cttnkDLO45V1tcWHskn1g

Samuel: https://animoto.com/play/n3YEoun3b66D3Mmx6kkt3Q

Gabriel: https://animoto.com/play/0WeL0ngcZJTofhh3DMv4Tw

Cecille: https://animoto.com/play/xZGQ3BVirpu7b88r1qgTPw

Benny: https://animoto.com/play/xSTljphZlRVLVhxxYH8fSA

Kit: https://animoto.com/play/3Qwg6BDDldFfLTBqxigaWg

Aurora: https://animoto.com/play/lmeITMkAUhrbh9QqijoKig

This afternoon, we'll be making the prototype models for our inventions! Photos to come soon!

Earthquake!

This week, we have been learning about the earthquakes that often strike in Japan. We found out why earthquakes occur and what people can do to prepare for them.

This video helped us to understand plate tectonics:

We learned about the 'Drop! Cover! Hold!' routine that children are taught in schools in earthquake-prone areas and found out about the best ways to be prepared for an earthquake.

Using our new knowledge, we designed these helpful information posters:

Finally, we learned about how buildings can be constructed to be as safe as possible in an earthquake.

We used spaghetti and marshmallows to create our own buildings, then tested them to see how they withstood an 'earthquake'! Some were much more successful than others!

A Very Special Visitor!

 On Friday, we were very lucky to have a special visitor in St. Clare's Class. Kyoko came to visit us from the Japan Foundation and we had a wonderful morning together!

Kyoko is from Japan and teaches Japanese to children and adults in London. We were very fortunate that she could come and help us to learn some Japanese too!

We began the morning by learning how to greet one another in Japanese and how to introduce ourselves. We learned how to say 'hello', 'good morning', 'thank you', 'my name is...', 'I am 9/10 years old' and 'it's nice to meet you'. Kyoko also taught us the importance of bowing and how to bow appropriately. Before the end of this session, we were able to have a short conversation with a partner and sing a song to the tune of 'Row Row Row Your Boat' with all of the new phrases we had learned.

Excitingly, Kyoko told us that a very special Japanese festival is coming up soon, on 7th July. She told us the story of Tanabata (see the video below):

It's a beautiful story and it was very interesting to hear how Tanabata is celebrated in Japan. Kyoko told us that on this day, people write their wishes on colourful strips of paper called 'tanzaku'.

 Source: thejapanguy

 Source: nihonsun

She kindly brought some along for us, so that we could write some wishes of our own! We wrote our wishes in English, but Kyoko helped us to write some of the key words in Japanese too. Once we had written and decorated our wishes on the tanzaku, we had a moment of quiet reflection as we placed them onto the branches of our special 'tree'.

After play, we learned how to say and write numbers in Japanese, using the kanji characters. We loved reciting the numbers and learning the actions to go with them! Once we had a good understanding of the numbers, Kyoko thought we were ready to learn how to write dates. We were fascinated to learn how the months are written in kanji and we were all trying to say our birthday dates at lunchtime and in the afternoon!

We learned more greetings too and Kyoko helped us to say 'My favourite thing is...' and worked with each of us, one at a time, to tell us how to say our favourite things! We learned how to say 'skateboarding', 'art', 'science', 'football' and all sorts of other hobbies in Japanese!

What a wonderful opportunity- arigato gozaimasu, Kyoko!

One World!

We have been so busy in St. Clare's in the last few weeks! It has been a very fun time- with lots of special activities. With our 'One World' theme at school, we have had many celebratory events- we enjoyed our 'Walk for Africa' in Dulwich Park, which has raised £2555 in sponsorship money so far for the children's home in Zambia that we support each year. If you haven't brought in your sponsorship money yet, please do so as soon as possible!

We also had a fabulous dance workshop. We learned some yoga and some Indian dance- along with lots of exciting stories! We sang most of the music ourselves, so learned some new words and sounds too.

Last Friday was a very exciting day for us- we saw our French penpals again! The children and teachers from St. Vaast arrived at 9:15am and once they had settled in, we all had a very British breakfast in the hall, with scones (with cream and jam!), fruit and juice.

After breakfast, we headed out to show our penpals our local area. We walked to Dulwich Park, through the park and then through the gardens of Dulwich Picture Gallery. Our penpals were excited to see the red London telephone box and were interested to hear how the design of its roof came about!

Source: dulwichonview

We visited the courtyard at Christ's Chapel of God's Gift and saw the war memorial and statue of Edward Alleyn.

Then we walked through Dulwich Village and showed them the post office, restaurants and bakery.

On returning to school we played some games in the playground, including a hotly-contested football match! The children from St. Vaast were very excited by our Action Station and Trim Trail.

After some playtime, we had a lovely British lunch of fish and chips. We helped our penpals to ask the kitchen staff for their lunch in English and say 'please' and 'thank you'. They did brilliantly!

After lunch, the weather had turned very British... it was pouring with rain! Our penpals joined us in our classrooms for wet play and enjoyed drawing pictures and playing board games with their English friends.

Next, we all went to the Small Hall, where our penpals presented us with some beautiful gifts that they had made us. At 2:30, we joined the whole school for a special 'One World' assembly. Every class performed or showed something they had made from the country they have been studying. We performed our Japanese Yosakoi dance and St. John's sang a beautiful Indian song.

To end the assembly, Year 5 from St. Anthony's and their penpals from St. Vaast all stood up together to sing a popular current French song which is raising money for UNICEF- 'On ecrit sur les murs'. It was a moving and wonderful performance and a lovely way to end our day together.

We will post some pictures from our day together next week.

Also, we would like to invite you all, with your parents, carers and families to a special presentation of photographs from our trip to France on Thursday 7th July at 8:30am in the hall.

For homework this week, you are writing your final letter to your French penpal. Remember to decorate it and make it look wonderful- this is your last chance to write to them this year, as they are near to their summer holidays now!

Bridges of the Thames

 Source: cpbs

This week, we used Thinglink to display what we had learned about some of the bridges over the Thames in Central London. We embedded text, images, video and website links into each image. Check out some excellent examples:

By Jack N. and Harry

By D and Christopher

By Maria, Jada and Stephanie