Year 5 - Bones, sustainability and scanimations

The children have brushed off the cobwebs from their half term break and have enjoyed a range of exciting and challenging activities this week. They engaged well with their Take One Picture work before half term and took charge of the ideas they wanted to explore.

Whether it was writing descriptions of Rousseau's depiction of a jungle, creating plush toys or comparing their running speed to that of a tiger, there were many creative opportunities for children to lead their own learning and investigate topics of interest to them. Rousseau’s painting, ‘Surprised!’ was a source of huge inspiration. The children are looking forward to sharing their work with parents and other visitors in our Take One Picture exhibition.

In English, the children thoroughly enjoyed creating a range of written responses to Henri Rousseau’s ‘Surprised!’ artwork ranging from descriptions which incorporated ambitious vocabulary to playscripts and interview responses bringing to life both the artwork and Henri himself. As we continue exploring the adventures of Michael in Kensuke’s Kingdom, the children have also had great fun imagining, for themselves, what life would be like being stranded on the island. Inspired by this, the children have been writing their own set of instructions for how best to survive on a desert island. It’s just a shame Michael didn’t get a chance to read their work before he set off on his journey!

In Maths, each class considered a different theme within their explorations of Rousseau's painting. Many were intrigued by the tiger’s muscular hind leg and the canines that can rip apart its prey. This led to an exploration of human bones. We were very grateful to welcome Mrs Mawby into school to speak to 5TH. A large metal trunk made its way into school. There were many gasps of excitement! Who knew what surprises lurked within! The children were fascinated by the real human bones that they handled and were particularly intrigued by their weight.

Some children used triangles to give a three dimensional perspective to their tiger drawings, whilst others created a pantograph to enlarge, reduce and distort a tiger’s image. All children measured and calculated angles formed within different parts of the painting. It was wonderful to explore Mathematics beyond the set curriculum.

In D&T, Year 5 have been constructing 3D felt animals inspired by rainforests. The children in 5TH collectively decided to make colourful birds inspired by some of Henri Rousseau's other works and will display these as a cheery flock. 5FG and 5LA have manufactured a plethora of monkeys and tigers, some of which will roam free while others are ensconced in a zoo. This half term will also see the children continue to investigate sustainability and the Mexican textiles industry, using recycled materials to print Aztec-themed patterns onto fabrics.

Leading up to the half term holiday, Year 5 used French language to describe various jungle animals, as part of their ‘Take One Picture’ project work. Having written their descriptions in French around an image of their chosen animal, they are now recording video clips of the amazing animated illusion produced by their images. Be sure to look out for these amazing ‘moiré effect scanimations’ at next week’s TOP exhibition. In our forthcoming French lessons, we will be learning and practising language to talk about school subjects and then about various family members. We will also be holding our popular annual ‘Francovision’ French song contest!