Holly Hill Primary and Nursery School
Spring 2
Spring 2 Year 5 and 6 Knowledge Organiser
Below you will find a copy of our knowledge organiser for this half term. It includes all our key facts and vocabulary for our topics.
Weekly Updates
Enjoy your Easter break! Remember to go on Times Tables Rockstars so Kestrel can be the best class!
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The children had some fantastic entries for the Easter egg/bonnet competition! We had 3 winners in our class!
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The children have really enjoyed using TinkerCAD to design their own shelters using the skills they learnt when completing their name badges. Most children opted for an arch shaped shelter (using their knowledge that structures that contain arches can support more weight).
We also had the opportunity to watch the 3D printer in action producing our name badges!
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We continued our history lessons on WW2 by exploring rationing and the 'dig for victory' campaign. The children then designed their own campaign posters.
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We also decided to have a bit of fun to celebrate Science week (better late than never). To tie in with our theme of electricity, we investigated static electricity (a build up of charge that attracts neutral objects). The children loved using balloons to make tissue paper ghosts fly!
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Our last week of Spring term was very busy. In science we continued to look at circuits and the symbols that represent the components and then we became scientific investigators to determine what would happen if we used different combinations of components. The children are now able to explain why their prediction that using more lightbulbs in their circuit would make it brighter was inaccurate as the electricity power had to be shared between the bulbs so in fact they were dimmer!
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In maths this week, we started our topic on perimeter and area by going outside and walking around the perimeter of the playground and then spreading ourselves out within the centre to represent the area of the shape. The children loved doing this and it should help them remember what the perimeter and area are.
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In Science this week we have started our new topic of electricity. We reviewed our prior knowledge from Year 4 and practised constructing a circuit using bulbs and switches. The children had to work together in groups to determine why their circuits were not working and find the solutions to fix them. We then explored the symbols that scientists use to represent the components in an electric circuit.
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This week in D&T the children continued learning skills using TinkerCAD, including adding placeholders to create hollow shapes, which they will be applying in their design of a shelter. They then drafted a design for their shelter that they will be producing on the computer next week.
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In English over the past few lessons we have been using figurative language to create a dramatic World War 2 Blitz setting description. This has included developing our skills using personification, similes and metaphors. The children came up with some fantastic descriptions and worked hard to build them into a full setting description.
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In History the children were lucky to be able to view and examine some genuine World War 2 artefacts, provided by Nottingham Museum. These included ration booklets, a gas mask, a warden's blackout lamp, helmet and first aid bag. The artefact that lead to the most discussion however was a gas mask designed for a baby. Only a couple of the children correctly identified this artefacts use, demonstrating good interpretive skills when faced with an unknown object.
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On Friday 17th March the children worked really hard to create a bunch of paper flowers for someone special on Mother's day. This was quite challenging and they all did a great job and I hope the recipients of the flowers enjoyed them. Happy Mother's day!
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On Monday and Tuesday last week we focused on compiling all of our knowledge about the circulatory system into a double page spread. The children thought about their layout and design to include pictures and text that would cover all of the information in relevant sections of their report. I was very impressed with their final pieces.
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Hope everyone is having a great Snow Day.
Here are some activities the children could do today (all activities are optional so choose whichever you would like to - I'd love to see some photos!):
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We have just started reading our new text in English.
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In Jigsaw we have been looking at smoking and the health problems associated with smoking (they were shocked by some of the statistics: 5 million people dying from smoking related illnesses every year and 900,000 dying from illnesses associated with second-hand smoking!) and thought about how the media can influence people to smoke. The children discussed how they would avoid the pressure to smoke even if their friends are smokers in the future.
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In D&T this week the children started to practise using TinkerCAD to create 3D designs. They really enjoyed this and we are looking forward to designing our name badge and shelters!
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This week the children enjoyed writing a reverse poem about a controversial topic of their choice. I was very impressed with their poems!
Here are a couple examples (I will add more next week).
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The children had a fun afternoon on World Book Day designing a new cover for the Holly Hill reading diary for 2023-2024. One winner will be chosen from the school and their design will be reproduced on the diaries for next year. We had some great entries so fingers crossed!
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We have also created a poem based on another poem by Paul Cookson, 'I want to be bad!'. The children chose their own villain to pretend to be like and then thought of all the bad things they could do to make someone mad. We worked on our rhyming patterns (ABCB) and rhyming words. (Poems will be added shortly).
In English we have created a personification poem, providing human feelings and actions to the non-human objects found in a courtyard in Baghdad. (Poems will be added shortly).
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We practised our times tables in a slightly different way this week. The children worked together in groups to create times tables poems to help them remember their 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9 times tables.
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On Tuesday we created our T-shirts for World Book Day using designs the children created themselves based on Paul Cookson's recipe for a poem. Each child drew an imaginary creature and then wrote their own poem for their creature on the back of their T-shirts.
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In D&T this week we have been doing some experimental research to determine what structures will provide the greatest strength for our shelter. We explored factors including shape, supports and reinforcements by considering the design of bridges. The children discovered that a cylinder could support a large amount of weight (using books as it was world book week!). Equally adding an arch shape to a bridge allowed significantly more weight to be applied to the top without it collapsing as the weight load was spread out through the arch to the ground. We will be using this knowledge, along with our findings that triangulation can reinforce corners and corrugation can strengthen materials, to apply to our design of our shelter to gain maximum strength and sturdiness.
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In PE this week the children have been practising their Tag Rugby skills, learning that throws can only be made backwards.
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We also started our History lesson on World War 2 by looking at the different countries that formed the Axis and the Allies.
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On Wednesday we started our new topic, World War 2. The children are very keen to share their knowledge already and excited to learn more and apply their knowledge. They started their Design and Technology lessons with their brief to design a new shelter that would provide protection to victims of war or natural disaster (e.g. earthquake). They started by researching some of the original designs from World War 2 including the Anderson shelters. We described what criteria a shelter would need to be effective for our required purpose and explored what features the Anderson shelters had that satisfied those criteria. We will be looking at a couple of other designs next week before learning some design skills that will enable us to design our own shelter in 3D on a computer.
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In Science this week we had some fantastic discussions about drugs and their effect on our heart.
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On Tuesday we were very luck to be visited by poet Paul Cookson. He was absolutely amazing, really engaged the children, and got them excited about poetry! He taught them a recipe for creating a simple poem about an imaginary creature:
- Think of a number between 1 and 10 - put this at the start of your line.
- Think of a body part - put this at the end of your line.
- Think of a colour.
- Think of a description (adjective).
- Put the colour and adjective between the number and body part.
- Think of 4 words that end in -ing to describe what that body part is doing (think about how your creature would act - are they scary or cute?) - put these on the next line.
- Repeat for other numbers and body parts - create around another 4 pairs of lines.
The children made a start at some poems and we will continue our theme of poetry for World Book Week next week! (Remember your T-shirt for Tuesday as we will be decorating them with our poems!)
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The children have a had a fantastic first week back after the half term. We spent the first couple of days completing our topics from last half term. They have created some great posters to summarise the main achievements made by the scholars during the Golden Age of Islam.
