Welcome to Year 5/6 Wonderful Willows and Splendid Spruces!

Year 5/6

Wonderful Willows and Splendid Spruces 2020

Staff

Miss Cooke teaches Wonderful Willows.

Mrs Twist teaches Splendid Spruces with Miss Luda.

Classroom

Welcome to Wonderful Willows and Splendid Spruces. Our classrooms are set up to help you become an independent learner. In each room you will find working walls and resources which will help you with your learning. Both rooms have exciting new book corners, waiting for you to discover.

Classroom

School Council

Every class has one school councillor to help share their classes’ views and make changes across the school.

Wonderful Willows’ School Councillor

Sebastian

Splendid Spruces’ Class Councillor

Bailey

Class Dojo Masters

Every class has at least one dojo master. The dojo masters help show visitors around school and explain what they are/have been doing in class.

Wonderful Willows’ Dojo Master

Corey and Miroslav

Splendid Spruces’ Dojo Masters:

David S and Olivia

Our Curriculum

Click on the tabs below to find out more information about each topic. Throughout the year, we will also add pictures of memorable experiences and hooks!

Autumn 1

The children will learn about World War II including developing their geographical knowledge of countries involved in the war. They will also learn about their leaders and whether they were a part of the axis or allies. In addition, children will learn about daily life in the war including rationing, air raids, evacuation and propaganda.

In Science, the children will be learning all about the different forces and how they act on objects.

Topic Booklet

Home Learning Grid

Quality Text

For this half term, we will be writing a portal story. We will use the Lion, the witch and the wardrobe by CS. Lewis and Elf Road by Pie Corbett as inspiration.

The children will also use ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ to write a diary as the character, Lenny.

Hook

For our hook, the children explored different portals that can transport you into a new and magical land, such as the wardrobe into Narnia and Alice falling down the rabbit hole. Then the children designed their own portals to take them to a fantasy land.

Experiences

We are looking forward to visiting Beaumanor Hall for a World War II Experience Day! We will be finding out about rationing, decoding secret messages and learning what it was like to live through an air raid.

Autumn 2

We will be learning all about the Victorian era including the industrial revolution. In addition, we will be exploring the art work of William Morris in order to produce our own prints. The children will also be learning about a local landmark of ‘Cromford Mill’ and how it played a part in the industrial revolution.

Topic Booklet

Home Learning Grid

Quality Text

Using Oliver Twist and Street Child as inspiration, we will be writing our own Rags to Riches story. We will be particularly focusing on dialogue: how to punctuate it correctly and when it is appropriate to use it. We will also look at how it represents character traits and actions.

For our non-fiction unit we will be writing a newspaper report about the strange happenings in London and Oliver Twist going missing.

Hook

This half term we will introduce dialogue by exploring famous characters. We will be matching quotes with characters from significant children’s literature.

Experiences

Spring 1

As part of Frozen Kingdom, the children will be learning about how animals adapt to their environment, particularly in colder climates. They will also learn to locate and explain the difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic.

Topic Booklet

Home Learning Grid

Quality Text

Using Shackleton’s Journey as inspiration, we will write our own biography on Dr. Barnardo.

We will particularly focus on writing multi-clause sentences and will identify/include simple, perfect and progressive/continuous tenses.

Hook

Experiences

Spring 2

Throughout this topic, the children will be learning all about the circulatory system and the role of the heart within the body. Children will also learn how to find and count their pulse and explain what this tells you about the heart.

In Design and Technology, they will look at the nutritional values of foods in order to eat a balanced diet.

Topic Booklet

Home Learning Grid

Quality Text

As part of our Talk for Writing sequence, we will be focussing on ‘Openings and Endings’ of stories. We will be using The Cobbler of Krakow and Beowulf as our model texts. We will be writing our own “Defeat the Monster” story.

For our non-fiction unit we will be writing an explanation text of why our beast/monster is dangers. We will then use our knowledge of our topic (Bloodheart) to write an explanation text of how the circulatory system works. We will use the book “Keeping Fit” to support us in ideas of how to structure and layout our text.

Hook

For our hook, we designed our own monsters and wrote a description about them. We had monsters that lived in space, under the sea, in a cave, in a forest and who lived in the sky!

Experiences

As part of ‘Bloodheart’ we will get the opportunity to apply our learning about how the heart works and the different parts of the heart by getting to dissect a heart ourselves!