Monday 24th September 2007

Welcome to a short, but extremely exciting year 5/6 blog this week!

Our Year 6 will be spending this week having loads of fun in Conway. They will arrive home on Friday absolutely exhausted, but bursting to tell you about all their activities. Staff accompanying year 6 will be Mr Barker, Miss Wright, Mr McGreal, Mrs Walker and Mrs Hemmings. Mrs Millington will be staying in school with the year 5’s.
Mrs Morgan isn’t well at the moment, so will not be going to Conway. We are all thinking of her, and wish her a speedy recovery!

Why should Year 6 have all the fun at Conway?
While they are away, Year 5 are having a PIRATE week.
During the week we will be finding out everything there is to know about Pirates, and while doing so, reviewing our learning in Literacy, Maths and Science. We thought that a ‘rich task’ such as this, would be the ideal opportunity to kick-start our new ‘creative curriculum’.
Listed here are just a few of the activities we will complete during the week.

Making sloops and Galleons.

Learning about Famous Pirates. Who should be the Captain?

Researching Famous Pirate flags, and making some of our own.

Creative writing, where we imagine what it would feel like to be a slave on a pirate ship.

What happened to pirates if they were captured?

Making our own Treasure Maps, and having fun working out the co-ordinates of buried treasure.

Learning about the different parts of a ship.

Making Treasure chests, and our very own ‘clay’ pirate coins.

Studying a fictitious inventory of a pirate’s chest.

Discussing how ships can be powered by the wind, and sailing ships of different sizes to see how quickly they move.

Reordering events in a Pirate timeline.

At some point during the week we would like to show the children the film ‘Hook’. We thought that this would be a perfect treat for our Pirate week, particularly as our creative topic is ‘Lights, camera and action.

On Friday morning all children will be presenting something they have found out about Pirates for their homework.
All children will bring home a copy of what they need to do for homework on Monday; however just in case a letter never makes it home, here is the task….

Year 5 Pirates Homework

Your homework this week is to get involved in some pirate research. This needs to be completed for this FRIDAY.
We will be exploring the world of a Pirate all this week in school, so you will get to learn lots of interesting Pirate facts.
At home I would like you to research a ‘Pirate’ area you find particularly interesting. For example, a possible area to research could be, Where in the World did Pirate’s sail?

Other possible research ideas could be focussing on…
How to speak like a Pirate.
Pirates of the Caribbean brief history, pirate laws, biographies.
Sunken Pirate Ships See what has been discovered on sunken pirate ships.
Famous Pirates.
The Women Pirates Mary Read & Anne Bonney.
Pirates! Facts and Legends history, biographies.
Treasure Island – The famous novel.
General Information about Pirates.
There are lots of other areas you could investigate, and we may even study some of them in school this week.

Once you have decided what you would like to research, you need to decide how to present it. You could decide to make a poster of facts or…
A powerpoint presentation
A song or a poem
A piece of writing. Story/Newspaper Report.
A drawing/diagram.

There are loads of other ideas for how to present your research, and any way you choose is fine by me.

Please make your presentation simple!
There will be no more than a couple of minutes for each person on Friday morning to present their research to the rest of year 5.
We do not need extra long essays or 10 page power points. Parents, I realise you are really busy, and a week is not a long time to complete this task, so a few key facts are fine!

Work needs to be in school for Friday morning at the latest in time for the presentations.
If you would like to work with other children and present together, this is fine.

Any questions, do not hesitate to come and see me.

I cannot wait to watch your fantastic presentations and hopefully learn some new facts!
Ahoy me hearties
Mrs Millington

Please note that there will be no Year 5 spelling test this week.

Here are a few links to some suitable pirate websites, that will support your child’s learning in school, and to help them research for homework.

http://www.piratehaven.org/~beej/pirates/ - Go to PORTS O’ CALL for good links & great pirate images!
http://www.inkyfingers.com/pyrates/ - pirates’ providence
http://www.inkyfingers.com/pyrates/ - some New England pirate biographies
http://www.piratemuseum.com/edwhoswh.htm - Who’s Who Aboard a Pirate Ship
http://www.inkyfingers.com/pyrates/ - History of Piracy
http://www.piratemuseum.com/edwhoswh.htm - Go to links on pirates, etc.
http://legends.dm.net/pirates/grainne.html - Grace O’Malley
http://legends.dm.net/pirates/blackbeard.html - Another great Blackbeard site!
http://www.redflag.co.uk/thomtew.htm - Thomas Tew
http://www.piratesinfo.com/ - pirate biographies
http://www.rochedalss.qld.edu.au/pirates/ - pirate site by kids!

Just in case the children haven’t had enough fun for the week, they will be watching and taking part in the ‘Circusology’ workshop on Friday afternoon. This workshop teaches children about circus skills, and also gives them a chance to get involved in circus life. Circusology will have some circus tricks/merchandise to sell, so your child may ask you for a couple of pounds on the morning of the show. (I know, more money!!!)

Our little Pirates will hopefully have an extremely fun, productive and swashbuckling week.

Until next week…..

The Year 5/6 Team.