Year 5/6 have been learning about how we describe clothes in Spanish, with not only colour and size adjectives but also using qualitative adjectives too. The children have become so confident describing people and their clothes that we decided to have a mini-fashion show. During the show, the children described the clothes the models were wearing, adding some of their own opinions about them.

What is truly impressive is that the children all created and wrote their own part of the fashion show in Spanish, independently beforehand.  Moreover most of them were comfortable reading these parts out in front of a camera. What superb Spanish accents everyone!

As part of World Book day, Year 5/6 took on the challenge of working in teams to complete a specially designed non-fiction quiz. The quiz was organised to ensure the children had to think carefully about how a library references its books. They also had to focus on key words in each question to work out where they would find the answer. The children worked together superbly and used their solid understanding of how to approach a non-fiction book (using contents, glossary and index) to identify the page/s needed. It was a really close competition with teams finishing just seconds after each other!

The parents in Key Stage Two were in for a fantastic treat this Thursday, the 14^th of February.   Children from Years 4, 5 and 6 took part in a gymnastics presentation that was truly breath-taking!

The children had spent the last eight weeks working hard to create and perfect an individual gymnastic routine based on balance. They had to include at least ten balances, at different levels,  including simple, complex and yoga style moves. Their focus was primarily on how they could use their body to hold, balance and most importantly control their movements in these positions.

It was a big step-up from last year’s routines as the children all had to perform their routines individually this year. Moreover they had to include at least two challenges. These could be anything from forward rolls, high dives, cartwheels, handstands, headstands to backward and forward walkovers. The children had to select the challenges they felt most able to carry out independently in a routine.

On the day the children were absolutely amazing. They performed their routines showing off a huge range of skills and ability levels. They all performed to music and did so with grace, poise and a superb effort to control and really hold those balances!

Thursday 14^th Feb, 9:15 – 10:15am @ Graceway Sports Centre

All children in Key Stage 2 will be participating in our Spring Term PE Showcase next week.

Gymnastics showcase: This term, our gymnastics unit has focussed on balance and all presentations will exhibit an array of skills linked to this theme.  Children in Years 4, 5 & 6 will be presenting their routine individually this year!

Handball showcase mini-tournament: We are pleased to introduce this new sport to our PE curriculum this year. Children in Years 3 & 4 have been refining the skills required to play handball, from positioning and passing to travelling with the ball and shooting. Children have been divided into 4 teams for the mini-tournament.  Each team will participate in 3 games, following a round-robin league format.

The showcase will also be an opportunity to learn more about our second new sport that has been introduced to our PE curriculum this year – squash.

We look forward to seeing as many parents and supporters at the event as possible!

We are learning all about Space in Year 5/6 and we decided to take on a bit of a challenge! The children were set the task of designing a lunar satellite model to understand how NASA actually collect data on exploratory missions, using these satellites.

The models had to be designed to very specific requirements to ensure they would be able to launch and also withstand crashes. They had to weigh no more than 100 grams in total with 10 grams of sensors, probes and cameras included. The children worked superbly well in their teams ‘Shooting Stars’, ‘Starstruck’ and ‘Star Wars Is Jealous!’

They spent time considering the best choices of material in terms of strength and weight and debated for a long time on how to best secure their satellite so that in a one metre drop test it would survive!  They also exchanged information amongst teams to confirm everyone was following the same rules, keeping the investigation a fair test.  We created some fabulous models!

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Year 5/6 got super festive in the last week of term and cooked up a storm… a snowstorm!

The children spent a careful two days creating their melting snowmen masterpieces. They started by making cookie dough which then had to be refrigerated overnight. Once chilled the children set about moulding their snow puddles and cutting some festive cookie shapes. Finally they were able to ice them and add the melting marshmallows before adding an array of chocolate chips and other decorations to create a crowd of Melting Snowmen.

I’m sure that you won’t be surprised to hear that they didn’t stay melting for long!

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Year 5/6 have been working hard since September learning all about the impact Martin Luther King had on how we live our lives today. We have studied his life and the sacrifices he made and how he carried this all out peacefully.

As we have been studying how people in the past affect the way our lives are shaped today, we decided to take on a challenge. The children were given the task of choosing someone in the past who they felt had made an important difference. They then had to use their imagination to present in a vivid and persuasive way their findings on their chosen person to the rest of the class.

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Year 5/6 had the great pleasure of spending some time with Kindergarten one Thursday afternoon and what an afternoon! Each Year 5/6 pupil ‘buddied’ up with a Kindergarten child and they then moved around a round-robin of activities. The children went from solving jigsaws to reading together to creating beautiful butterflies! It was a great learning experience for both age-groups.  Year 5/6 are always eager to spend some time with the younger children, they are a caring and thoughtful group and they don’t often see the Kindergarten with break and lunch timetables differing. This was a fantastic opportunity for the Year 5/6 children to not only practise patience and listening skills, but also to hone their teaching skills and perhaps most importantly make new friends! It was so interesting to see the interaction between each partnership and how positively the younger children responded to their older peers. It also took the Year5/6 back to their days in Kindergarten and lots of fond memories for all. We went away with big smiles and a keen interest from all the Year5/6 to return… and soon!

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Our first science topic this term is Healthy Lifestyles and Year 5/6 have been investigating just how we find out what different  foods and drinks do to our teeth.  We didn’t want to do the experiments with our actual teeth, so we used eggs as their shells are similar to the the materials found in the enamel of our teeth.   We decided to look at the effects of acids on our teeth.  Acids are made by plaque bacteria, which cause tooth decay and cavities.  Some foods are acidic too, like vinegar and soda.  We immersed an egg  in vinegar and… after leaving it for just a little bit, we could already see some results!  Our ‘vinegar’ egg was on the point of turning transparent and it felt more than a little soft!  Scary results indeed!

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Year 4, 5 and 6 students had an opportunity to participate in an owl pellet dissection lesson using laboratory sterilized barn owl pellets. Owl pellets are neat little packages of mostly fur and bones that are regurgitated by an owl after it has finished digesting everything else. The students worked together to discover what the barn owls had been eating by dissecting their pellets. By carefully sorting and organizing the bones they found, students were able to reconstruct a skeleton of a rodent, in this case a vole. Thank you Miss Bonnie for providing such an interesting lesson.

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Photos of our Year 5′s recent kayaking trip to Little Water Cay.
Many thanks to Big Blue Unlimited.

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Yes, you have read the title correctly; Year Five at Provo Primary have built their own salt water cars. This term we are studying sources of renewable energy, as our fossil fuels one day will be gone. Did you know that magnesium +salt water + air = electricity?

Each child was given a salt water fuel- cell car kit to assemble and then they added salt water to watch their cars race. After about 10 minutes the cars begin to slow down and all they needed to do was add more salt water and the would start up again.

What a great classroom project to learn about a potentially new way to fuel cars and they could even test different ratios of salt to see which mixture yields the greatest efficiency.
Who knew the solution to our energy needs was a simple as a trip to the beach.

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In Spanish lessons in years 5 and 6, we’ve been learning about how to order food in a restaurant.  Using Spanish menus we created ourselves, we practised and performed a role play, in which we played waiters and customers at eating establishments that serve all our favourite dishes! We had lots of fun creating each scene, and some of us even added a bit of our creativity and imagination to the scenes! Take a look at our videos and see if you can understand our conversations.  Click on ‘read more…’ to see the Year 5 Video. [Read more...]

This week, children in Key Stage 2 were excited to present their PE learning in our end of term showcase event. Older children participated in a Gymnastics Show while children in Years 3 and 4 participated in a 4-on-4 Basketball Tournament. This was the second of two such showcase events this term and we were very pleased that is was again well supported and praised by parents.  We’d like to say a big thank you to Adina and all the staff at Graceway Sports Centre for the use of their amazing facilities, which have enabled the children to learn and improve so much this term!

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The children in Years 3-6 have been excited to try their hand at another fantastic sport this half term! We were delighted to offer a course of Rugby ‘taster’ sessions when we received the offer of coaching from the Turks and Caicos Islands Rugby Football Union!

These sessions have focused on the key skills of passing, movement and game-play. Some children, who already participate in the TCIRFU’s clubs, were keen to show off their skills in the sport, while others were excited by the challenge of something new!

We will watch this space and look forward to seeing our students developing a good understanding of another exciting team sport.

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Have you ever fancied yourself as a spy? In order to be a proper spy you will need to know how to read and write secret messages.  In this experiment, Year 5 learned how to create them.

In the process they learned that iodine can check for the presence of starch and Vitamin C. In a bowl we mixed one tablespoon of cornstarch and a tablespoon of water.  Using this mixture, we took a toothpick and wrote a secret message on a piece of paper.   We waited for our message to dry to see the results.   It was barely visible on the paper.   Then we dipped our paper into an iodine mixture to reveal the secret message.  “Happy Birthday” appeared in dark purple.  It was no longer a secret and a nice surprise for the birthday boy in our class. This proved our theory that iodine reacts with the starch creating a dark purple message.  The white paper also turned a lighter purple, due to the small amount of starch it already contains.

In order to make the message disappear again, we would just add lemon juice.  When lemon juice is painted over top of the writing, the Vitamin C in the juice reacts with the iodine to make a new colourless compound and the writing disappears.

Year 5 have completed their first course in how to become a Spy.   Who says Science has to be boring?

Inspired by lots of newly bought fiction books and our computer system needing updating, a chance to make a change and take ownership of the how the library is organised was seized by KS2 children this week.  Discussion, debate, research and lots of sorting occurred as the children worked together to re-organise all the fiction books from the library shelves into their respective genres, during World Book Day Celebrations last week.

“It felt good to work together to organise the library”…”I like how the different genre stickers will help me find the sort of books I’m interested in”…”I think our new library looks bright and colourful”.

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