Once again, Year 5 enjoyed an excellent day at Nell Bank Outdoor Education Centre in Ilkley.
Hopefully, this slideshow will give you a taste of some of the activities we enjoyed during our visit.
Otley All Saints CE Primary School Blog
Our ideas, thoughts, experiments, challenges, opinions and more…Browsing Posts in Year 5
Do you know what phenology means?
Thanks to ‘The Great Plant Hunt’ team, Year 5 now know that it is the study of seasonal timings of the life cycle events of plants and animals.
Together with primary children from across the UK, we are participating in a mass observation of flowering times of ten species of common wild flowers.
The Great Plant Hunt have provided us with some brilliant resources like this plant indentikit.
A Year 5 ‘Plant Hunter’ at work!
With one of our class members stranded in Africa, and the news media transfixed by travel chaos, last week seemed to be the ideal time for Year 5 to take a closer look at the source of all the problems. Which led us to Iceland – a land of ice and fire!
First, we found out the whereaboutsof the volcano in Iceland!
Then we thought about what it might feel like if you lived and worked close to the eruption.
However, the ‘icing on the cake’ was the timely return of Magnus, which provided us with the opportunity to conduct a real interview and write our own news reports. Magnus gave a superb account of his long trek back to the UK by train and coach. A massive well done to his intrepid and resourceful parents!
Finally, here is a picture of our resulting classroom display!
Almscliffe team explored life at the ocean’s edge during our  ’Creative Day’ about oceans. We found out about the amazing adaptations plants and animals have, that allow them to survive both in and out of the water. Then we devised a range of poems, played some games and created our very own sea shore habitat.
 Here we are, proudly displaying the team’s home grown rockpool.
Which earlier in the day looked like this ……
The children came up with some brilliant ideas for constructing plants and animals from scraps of material, rafia and paper.
 A special thanks to Year 5 members of Almscliffe, who constructed the rockpool ahead of the day from a range of junk materials.
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Ably assisted by Mrs Rose!
As the weather has been a little milder for the last few days, Year 5 ventured outside to see if we could spot any signs of Spring around the school.
We found …….
……Â quite a few clumps of snowdrops ……
…… some catkins ……
…… daffodil bulbs ………….
……. and a rapidly departing frog!
What have you seen?
In Year 5 we have been exploring reflecting shapes and patterns across two lines of symmetry. This is trickier than it appears!Â
Thanks to Nic Shipp from Artforms, budding composers in Year 5 are learning how ICT can help them combine musical elements.
Through using ‘Groovy City’, we can now sort out bass lines, melodies, chords and arpeggios then put them alongside rhythms.
Next week , the children are going to be creating music all by themselves.
As you can see, everyone is giving this project the thumbs up!
As Year 5 have just discovered, prolonged freezing weather seems to be just the ticket for successful bird watching!
This week, from the warmth of our class ‘hide’, we have observed a surprising variety of birds visiting the feeders near the classroom. In just one hour of continuous observations some children recorded the following ‘most number of each species seen together at the same time’: 1 coal tit, 2 dunnocks, 2 great tits, 3 green finches, 3 woodpigeons, 2 blackbirds, 3 blue tits, 3 chaffinches, 7 house sparrows, 2 robins, 1 song thrush, 6 starlings, 3 bull finches, 4 reed buntings and 2 red kites.
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A big thank you to one of our parents, Mr Hind, for his help with the bird watch!
Our records have now been posted on the RSPB’s Big School’s Birdwatch website.
Follow the link:
http://www.greatplanthunt.org/
Otley All Saints currently feature in the photo of the week.
An unobtrusive box arrived in my classroom this morning with an amazing surprise hidden inside. Otley All Saints School is the regional winner in ‘The Great Plant Hunt’, which was organized by Kew Gardens and the Wellcome Trust in recognition of the Darwin 200 celebrations.
Some of the team with our prizes!
Many thanks to everyone at the ’Great Plant Hunt’ for providing us with excellent resources. We thoroughly enjoyed being ‘Darwin’s Investigators’ and following in the footsteps of such a great scientist.
 Follow this link to find out more!