On Thursday 23rd November, Year 5 had their amazing reading cafe! We read a poem together and then created some fantastic artwork as a response to the question, ‘What might happen next?’ We had an amazing time working together with our friends and visiting adults to put our ideas on paper and you can see from the pictures how much fun it all was!

Here is the poem we shared:

The Washing Machine That Went To The Moon

The washing machine gazed up through the laundry-room skylight.
A year had passed since the engineer’s visit – tonight was the night.

‘There’s more technology in one of these,’ he’d said, with a tap on its casing,
‘Than in the rocket that went to the moon.’ Which set its mind racing.

It would take one giant leap for domestic appliance.
Like the man said, it was only rocket science.

‘You’ve got a bearing loose,’ the vacuum cleaner wheezed,
And all the small cleaning appliances joined in and teased.

‘You’re going nowhere,’ the steam mop hissed – there was almost a riot.
Then the old dryer slammed its door and the laundry room fell quiet.

‘When I was fresh out the box,’ it creaked, ‘I made a voyage me-self,
Crossed oceans to get ‘ere, braved waves as ‘igh as that shelf.’

There were murmurs of doubt, but the dryer was old school,
Had a tattoo to prove it. On its casing was: Whirlpool.

Sure, the dryer was ancient and full of hot air,
But grateful, the washing machine began to prepare.

Baffling buttons and dials covered its outside,
Their function a mystery, even with the owner’s guide.

Surely some combo would send it to space,
But even it couldn’t figure out its own user interface.

Then came the breakthrough, the solution unorthodox,
The fuel for the mission, a mixed hoard of odd socks.

And at last launch day came, time for the show,
It ran through pre-flight checks, go or no go.

Initiate prewash sequence, detach primary cold-water hose,
Begin countdown, remove final load of clean clothes.

Ten, nine…

Soon it would set levelling foot on lunar ground,
A better place than this to spin around.

Eight, seven…

And proudly plant a flag in the traditional manner,
The ‘Formerly White Shirt on a Field of Stray Red Knicker’ banner.

Six, five…

The washing machine gazed up, its drum whirring louder,
The moon in the skylight, round and white as a scoop of laundry powder.

Four, three…

This was a chance none would say it had squandered,
Soon it would report: ‘Houston, the Eagle has laundered.’

Two…

The door lock engaged, the drive motor spun
And the countdown reached…

One.

This term we have been looking at the artist, Hundertwasser. We began our journey earlier in term creating ‘subtractive art’ where the children created images by colouring in a piece of paper entirely with pencil and then using a rubber to draw.  The next part was learning a little about Hundertwasser and the art he created.  Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an Austrian artist born in 1928. He returned to war-torn Vienna after WW2 ended seeing destroyed buildings and streets full of potholes and bomb craters, filled with rainwater. However, new life had started to spring, including small animals, plants and grass. This inspired him and he was always interested in preserving nature. Hundertwasser was an architect as well as an artist. His work is known for its bright colours and quirky designs. He didn’t like straight lines and this can be seen in his work, and in the work of the children. 

They took a piece of art by Hundertwasser and used a viewfinder to focus on a specific part.  Then, they enlarged that part in their books before colouring it as brightly and boldly as they could.  To emphasise those bright colours and wobbly lines, the children then placed a clear plastic sheet over their art and drew over the lines with a permanent black marker.  Our next step is to use different mediums such as paint to create bolder colours!

We hope you enjoy looking at some of our examples!

On the week beginning October 30th, each child had an opportunity to visit our Forest School with Jules Jackdaw.  Despite the weather, the children enjoyed a variety of activities including whittling, role play, making potions using natural ingredients, identifying plants and den building.  They are very excited about returning to the forest later in the year!

As part of this half term’s Art unit (Drawing & Painting), we have been experimenting with subtractive drawing.  This is where a dark surface is created (we used soft graphite pencils), and then you ‘draw’ using rubbers – effectively subtracting colour from the page.  We prepared our surfaces in our sketchbooks and then went outside to the field to draw what we could see.  It was really fun drawing in such a different way, although we did end up a bit messy!

Today we had our second lesson in Tag Rugby!  We learned how to wear our tags properly to start with and began with a game called Rats and Rabbits.  We stood back to back and when our coach shouted ‘Rats!’ or ‘Rabbits!’ we had to run in a certain direction with our partner chasing us, trying to take our tags!  Then, we practised passing the ball in pairs before having a house competition!  We are learning so much about Tag Rugby and really enjoying it!

This afternoon we did an experiment testing different insulators!  Each small group had a plastic pot filled with warm water (about 40 degrees Celsius).  We then wrapped our pots in various insulators, including bubble wrap, scarves, hats, socks, tin foil and blankets!  Every 5 minutes, for half an hour, we took the water’s temperature and noted it in our Science books.  In future lessons, we will be discussing those results (whether there were any patterns or any erroneous ones) and talking about how we could make the test fairer.  

This term we are going to be spending some time looking at Orienteering!  Orienteering requires great communication and collaboration skills so today in PE we worked together to achieve certain tasks.  First of all, in small groups we had to arrange ourselves in age order, then height order but without talking!  Then, we tried to balance a hoop on our fingers and carefully lower it to the ground as fast as we could – this was really hard!  Finally, we tried to walk as a group, holding hoops with our knees!  Some groups managed to walk the whole length of the hall!