This week’s bible story
Jesus is friends with Zacchaeus: Luke 19: 1-10
Have you ever heard the story of Burglar Bill – Bill goes out every night. Getting into houses through open windows and taking things. Until one night, Bill found a baby, and that changed his whole life …
There is a Bible story about a man who stole from other people. He took extra money when he gave them their tax bills and became very rich on all the money that he stole. Zaccheus was a little man and that small people can’t see in crowds. Read the story of Zacchaeus to find out what happened to him.
Reflection:
Jesus loved everyone when he lived on the earth. It didn’t matter how bad people were, Jesus was always there for those who needed him. This is true for us too – no one is so bad that God doesn’t love them. And the more time we spend with God – praying, thinking about him, finding out about him, the more we want to be like Jesus; kind, helpful and good. Just like Zacchaeus, Burglar Bill changed his ways and tried to be more like Jesus by loving those around him.
Prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you that Jesus loved Zacchaeus even when he wasn’t making the right choices. Help us to love all of those around us.
Amen
Bird Beaks
This week’s Science lesson saw us learning about natural selection and adaptation. Charles Darwin came up with the idea of natural selection and the Theory of Evolution whilst travelling the world on the HMS Beagle.
He noticed how different birds beaks were adapted to suit the food that was available in a habitat. He also deduced that over time species with traits that helped them survive would be the ones who were naturally selected.
What does this mean for us? Well, we used different tools e.g tweezers, tongs etc to simulate birds beaks and found out what kind of food each could eat.
Reading
Be sure to chat to your child about how they’re getting on in their reading lessons – these are every day and help to unpack challenging texts by deciphering the meaning of words, the structure of an author’s writing and often link to our topic or can sometimes be poems.
Here’s this week’s – we explored and defined some new words: adaptation, environments, ancestors and traction.
Area
Year 5 have been learning about area and what it is – check out this animation to help!
This week’s bible story
The Lost Coin: Luke 15.1-9
Read the story in Luke 15.1-9.
Or suppose a woman who has ten silver coins loses one of them – what does she do? She lights a lamp, sweeps her house, and looks carefully everywhere until she finds it. When she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbours together, and says to them, ‘I am so happy I found the coin I lost. Let us celebrate!’
It doesn’t seem much of a story, does it? A woman loses a coin, she searches high and low, then she finds it and is so pleased that she throws a party for her friends – it’s hardly Harry Potter, is it?
The coin must have been valuable for the woman to search for it so hard and long and to be so pleased when she found it.
This is a parable – a simple tale that is meant to give listeners something to think about. Even this very simple story can have a big meaning.
Reflection:
If I lose something that doesn’t matter to me –
an old leaflet, a broken pencil, a toy I don’t play with any more,
if I lose something that doesn’t matter to me,
it doesn’t bother me much at all.
If I lose something that does matter to me –
some money, my lunch, my favourite toy,
if I lose something that does matter to me,
I search and search and don’t stop until I find it,
or until I know it’s really lost.
Jesus said that God looks for me like that:
searching high and low
never letting go
making sure I know
that I’m so
very, very special.
Prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you that you love us so much you would search for us just like the woman searched for the lost coin. Help us to show our friends how much they mean to us.
Amen
This week’s bible story
Moses: Exodus 20.1-17
Moses is one of the great biblical heroes and is revered by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. There are many stories about this great and inspirational leader, but one of the things that we most associate with Moses is the Ten Commandments. The ten commandments are ten instructions about the way people should live if they are to be happy and live together in peace.
Read the story of Moses and the ten commandments.
Moses tried to keep the people’s spirits high and led them on through the desert until they came to the Oasis of Sinai. Here, there was water and food and they could set up their tents for a while. It was on Mount Sinai that God gave Moses a list of rules about the best way to live.
Reflection:
The first three commandments are about loving God, but the others are about loving other people. The world would not be a good place if everyone just did whatever they felt like doing all the time. If there were no rules, people could do bad or unkind things and get away with it. Rules are important so that we learn about what is right and wrong, good and bad, helpful and unhelpful. Rules are there for a reason: to help us stay safe.
In the New Testament part of the Bible, Jesus spoke about a new commandment that has two parts. He stated that people should love God and love others. How could we do that today?
Prayer
Dear God,
Help us to see that rules are there to keep us safe and happy.
Help us to love other people and to act in a way that shows care for them.
Help us to follow the best ways.
Be near to us when we find it difficult.
Guide us to live together in peace and harmony.
Amen.
Rugby taster session
Want to get involved in rugby? A local rugby team are recruiting girls and boys in Year 5. Go along to the taster session if you’re interested!
Let’s reflect…
Each class has a reflection spot. This is an area for your child to spend time thinking, reflecting or having some time to themselves. Children are invited to complete challenges linking to our Christian value or they can write a prayer.
Today, some Year 5s ventured into the area for some calm time and to show that they were thinking of others.
This is a great way for your child to connect with their emotional side and to take time to think and reflect. Why not have a chat about this area at home? How does your child use our reflection spots?
This week’s bible story
The Lost Sheep: Luke 15.3-7
Have you ever received a card with the words ‘Love from . . .’ written in it.
What do you think the words mean. ‘What does “love” mean?’
The dictionary defines it as ‘a strong feeling of affection’.
Think about things that they love. Who are the people whom they love? Who loves you? How does it feel to be loved?
There are times when everyone feels alone or unloved. Maybe we have done something wrong and are in trouble, or maybe we just feel down in the dumps and it makes us feel like no one cares about us very much.
Christians believe that no matter what happens to us, God always loves us. There are many stories in the Bible about God loving people. One of them is the story of the lost sheep. In this story, the shepherd loses a sheep, but cares for it so much that he looks and looks until the sheep is found again.
Read the story from Luke 15.3-7. The story makes the point that no matter how many of us there are in our school, our family or the world, each one of us matters to God. Remembering this can help us never to feel alone and always to feel special.
Reflection:
Let’s think about the people who care for us and show us love.
Pause to allow time for thought.
Let’s think about the people whom we love. How can we show love to them?
Pause to allow time for thought.
Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you for the people who love and care for me.
Please help me to show them that I am grateful and a happier person because of it.
Being loved makes me feel safe and happy. I feel warm inside and special.
Help me to love others so that they may feel that way, too.
Help those people who feel lonely and sad.
May they remember that they are loved by you and are never alone because you are always there.
Thank you for loving me.
Amen.
Learning about speech marks
We’ve been practising how to use inverted commas (speech marks) in our writing.
Today, we added speech marks into an extract of our class novel: Holes (they’d mysteriously disappeared..!). This was great practice and helped us to understand that the punctuation belongs inside the ‘mini elevens’ and that each time there is a new speaker, a new line must be started.
Check out this animation – it really helped make us to feel more confident we were putting the inverted commas in the right place.