Year 5 - Which way to find the treasure?

Year 5 have thoroughly enjoyed following an Ordnance Survey map around Great Missenden this week in search of hidden treasure! As we walked along following the map we discussed how places of interest and landmarks are identified using symbols on maps and how the contour lines on the maps changed - especially as we walked uphill. You’ll be pleased to know Year 5 eventually found the treasure at the top of a very steep hill. Thank you to all of the parents who came with us; we hope your legs have recovered!

In Year 5, children have already started to think about the Take One Picture project. They reflected upon the story behind the painting of ‘A shipwreck in stormy seas’ by Claude-Joseph Vernet in 1772. They noticed this important date on a suitcase washed up on the rocks. They talked about their emotions, the anger of the waves and the rage depicted by the lightning. They have familiarised themselves with the painting by drawing an outline of the rocks using a single pencil line all the way round. We look forward to the boundless creativity, innovation and imagination that the painting will doubtless inspire in the coming weeks.

In Maths, the classes have started work on fractions, which will continue for the next few weeks. It is important that the children are given a variety of opportunities to lay solid foundations for future learning and to ‘linger longer’, ensuring that basic concepts have been fully mastered. By exploring the fractional parts represented by different shapes and colours in visual images/ artwork, they have come to appreciate that fractions make up equal parts of a whole. They have created their own fractional number lines and some children have explored adding fractions: ½, ¼, ⅛, 1/16, 1/32 etc. They have generalised to consider adding up to 1/ 512 and beyond! We look forward to sharing this work with parents on Thursday 17 February.

Modern Foriegn Language lessons were a lot of fun as some of the Looney Tunes characters (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester and Tweetie Pie) have been introducing themselves. Our Year 5 pupils were able to translate some personal information for each character (age, birthday date, where they live, family members, sports they like) from English into French. Apparently, Daffy Duck is 10 years old, lives on a lake in Italy and likes rugby and karate!