Ashevak Year 5-6

Welcome to Ashevak Class!

We have had a wonderful few days settling into our new class and getting to know each other.

Please read the Meet the teacher PowerPoint to find out important information.

Parents Meet the Teacher 2022-23 - Ashevak.pdf

Coronation celebration

Science

We have learnt about pollination and fertilisation in plants. We dissected a tulip to see if we could identify the male and female parts of the plant.

Our class assembly 31/03/2023

For our class assembly, we shared to the school our favourite parts from this term. These were based on the books 'One Thousand and One Arabian Nights' and 'Dark Sky Park.' Ashevak worked incredibly hard to prepare and perform this assembly and all of the ideas and scripts were their own. They did a fantastic job!

Corey's Rock (Spring 2)

This spring term, we have been learning about Humanism and the values they follow to lead a good life, without believing in God. In one lesson, we chose moral dilemmas and acted them out with 2 endings that were morally right or wrong.

In English, our core text was ‘Corey’s rock’ by Sita Brahmachari which is a sensitive story about bereavement, grief and new beginnings. This is set in the contemporary setting of the Orkney Islands and links to a cultural myth of Selkies, which are Seal People, from around the coasts of Ireland and Scotland. Through this book we explored characters’ emotions through the illustrations and the text. We researched the Orkney Islands and created engaging persuasive travel brochures/leaflets. We were whisked away into the main character’s vivid dreams and wrote a setting description based on the senses. Finally, we stepped into the character’s thoughts and feeling by writing a postcard and diary entry.

Science week

To celebrate ‘British Science Week’, we became engineers by undertaking a bridge building investigation with our partner class so that we could have some mixed year group collaborative learning. This activity was designed to get the children thinking about the connections between weights, forces and measures. Using paper and a small amount of tape to make a bridge, the children were allowed to cut, roll, or fold the paper to make a stronger structure. We then tested them and reflected on why some bridges were more successful than others. We had a wonderful time being Scientists!

World book day

Upper KS2 explored the book ‘Journey’ which has no words and only pictures. Using our inference skills from the clues in the pictures, we discussed the events that were happening in the story and meanings behind it. The main character was lonely and perhaps quite miserable as the colours were dark. No one would play with her, as they were too busy. However, she realised she could make her own fun and imagine her own world that she wanted to be in, by drawing a door with a red crayon. Within this world, she explored forests, castles and rivers and eventually met a friend who also had a crayon to create his own world. After detailed conversations, we came up with our own version, taking the character to a place of our choice.

Dark Sky Park (Spring)

We read and analysed some poetry in 'Dark Sky Park' during the spring term. These wonderful poems were all about nature and we particularly found the Tardigrade sagas interesting, as we learnt all about these hardy, fascinating creatures. We also enjoyed reading a poem about the snow leopard, which inspired us to write a script that included a poem for a TV advert to donate to the WWF.

One thousand and one Arabian nights (Spring 1)

1001 Arabian Nights is filled with serialised stories, as Shahrazad keeps King Shahryar entertained and hooked with her skillful story telling, always leaving a story on a cliffhanger. In the tale of the Anklet, we noticed similarities between this story and Cinderella. In another tale, we met Sinbad the sailor and read the tales of his adventures. One adventure led his crew to an uninhabited island. Once they started to settle, they soon realised it was not an island at all. In fact, it was a whale that did not want to be disturbed and Sinbad needed to escape. We depicted part of this story using pastels and ensured to use details from the story to make our artwork accurate. Following on from this, Sinbad was taken by a Roc (giant mythical bird) to the Valley of Diamonds. We wrote to one of Sinbad’s friends (back in Baghdad) to tell them all that has happened since leaving the city. Before doing this, we used hot seating to get into character and think about questions that friends back home might want answers to. After reading more tales, we chose a tale to story map, summarising the key points and keeping finer details to the pictures. We read the story of Ali Baba and the forty bandits, freeze-framing the cliffhanger in between chapters. Then, we wrote a persuasive letter to convince others who the cleverest character was and why. Using what we have learned throughout reading the book and identifying the recurring themes, we wrote our own tale. We either wrote a tale from scratch or modified a traditional one.