Friday 14th July
What a tiring week it has been in Antarctica! For some of us, a trip to Yorkshire has left us positively buzzing with our new-found hobbies and skills. We had a fantastic time away, we hope you enjoyed our updates and photos over on the residentials tab on the site. Some of us spent some time with our year 6 teacher, completing mindfulness activities and helping the year 6’s with their end of primary school show. It’s been a great week for us all! We think some rest is well-deserved over the weekend.
In history, we have been designing mining banners for the Emma Colliery– as there is no evidence of this banner in history. Did you know that every mining pit would have its own banner to celebrate it? Mining is a community for many people, and they would use their banners to show their pride. Enjoy this selection of our great designs!
Thursday 6th July
What a busy week it has been! We started off on Monday with a visit to the ISKCON Hindu Temple in Newcastle. Kirtida welcomed us with a song and taught us about the Hindu religion. We have been learning about Hinduism in year 5, so it was great to ask questions. She showed us a Puja ceremony, which many Hindus do at home. We had so much fun dressing up and playing drums with Kirtida.
After the temple, we walked down to the beautiful Tyne Theatre for a celebration book launch. In January we worked alongside Oceania class to write a chapter a ‘Rewilding Dream’ story, and it was finally time for it to be officially released. We met the illustrator, Lucy Farfort, and co-author Dominique Palmer read us the story that we had helped to write. Lenny and Jasmine did a great job of getting up on stage and introducing our chapter. We did some drawing with Lucy, and it was fantastic to find our names printed in the book. We are now all officially published authors!
On Tuesday, it was our sports day. There was a great turnout from our loved ones, and the weather was fantastic! We all had a great morning working in teams and cheering everybody on. Well done to all of our winners from across the morning. Have a great long weekend!
Friday 30th June
Another week (and month!) comes to an end, and what a great one it has been! We have finished our instructions writing topic, and our potions were amazing. We had flying potions, nefarious potions, football pro potions and more – anything you could ever want, we had! A fantastic set of instructions to finish our year 5 writing.
In art, we took inspiration from Barbara Hepworth and have started our very own carvings. Using a bar of soap and a clay tool, we have started to shape and carve our soap in the style of Hepworth. They are already looking fab, we can’t wait to show them off when they’re finished.
We spent Thursday morning in our new year 6 classes, and we are starting to get excited for next year. Nerves have been settled and excitements shared, we can’t wait to get started!
We ended our week with a marble jar treat – it was well deserved! We voted for pjs, snacks and games and had a fantastic afternoon. The end of year 5 is in sight, and we are making the most of these last few precious weeks. Have a great weekend!
Friday 23rd June
Another week comes to a close – we can’t believe how fast this half term is racing by! This week, we have written biographies all about Jane Goodall. Did you know that she had a childhood toy chimp called Jubilee, which she carried around everywhere with her? Or, that when she moved to Africa, her mam had to come with her as people didn’t like that she was going to be alone in the jungle? She had a great life, and we wrote some fantastic biographies all about her.
We had our final geography lesson this week, and completed a roundup of everything. It was great to see how much we have learned, and how much we remember! Year 5 geography is so interesting – ask us what our favourite topic has been!
Finally, in swimming this week, the final group of us managed to achieve our 25m award. At the start of the year, some of us didn’t even like to get our faces wet in the pool – so this is a huge achievement. We are so proud of our classmates!
Have a great weekend.
Friday 16th June
We have had another great week in Antarctica. From a new English unit (instructions) to some research about Jane Goodall, we haven’t stopped!
In English, we took a trip to another part of our school – the nursery garden area. We were searching for ingredients for our potions, and we have got some amazing ideas. ‘A snow-white daisy, picked at dawn on a frosty winter’s morning’, ‘a dew-shining clover, planted by a leprechaun’ and ‘a singed black feather, fallen from a crow’s tail’ to name but a few!
On Friday, we took a visit to our local library for a game of ‘Bowling for Books’. Well done to everybody for exemplary behaviour and a great attitude – and well done to Lydia M for her strike, earning a prize of a book to take home.
Enjoy your weekend!
Friday 9th June
We have had a great first week back in Antarctica class – we can’t believe we are almost finished year five. We have worked really hard this week across all subjects, but particularly in English and Maths.
In English, we have completed our final piece of writing for our discussion topic all about ‘Should children cycle to school?’ We had to compare the positives and negatives, and conclude using our own opinion. In maths, we have completed our end of unit fractions assessment – it has been a tricky topic, but we have all done brilliantly. We are masters of fractions now, and it was great to go through the test and see how much we understood.
In science, we have been continuing to look at life cycles, with a focus this week on humans. It was great to chat about the rate of development with babies, and interesting to hear from other classmates what their first words were. What was your first word?
On Thursday, we had the long-awaited BikeAbility. In small groups, we headed to the yard to practise our basic safety skills, ready for the roads next week. Everybody who took part has passed this stage of assessment, and will be bringing their bikes again next week. It was really fun, and we can’t wait to be out on the roads next week!
Well done on a great first week, the time will fly this half term as we are so busy! Enjoy your weekend.
Thursday 25th May
Another half term comes to an end, and this one seems to have flown over! We have had a great half term in Antarctica class, and we have accomplished so much.
Well done to all of Year 5 on the brilliant athletics trials this week – we all showed incredible sportsmanship and determination to do our best.
On Tuesday, we had a visit from Sam Cree and a team of helpers. We took part in a Diary of a Disciple morning, with 3 workshops. Drama, crafts and quizzes filled our morning, and we even got a copy of a brand-new telling of Luke’s stories from within the Bible to share as a class. It was a full-filled morning, and we enjoyed every minute! Thanks to Sam and her team for coming in to spend time with us.
In exciting news, we have our first froglet! On Thursday morning, one of our beloved tadpoles took his first breath of fresh air and climbed out onto the rock. Miss McKean is taking them home for the holidays, and can’t wait to share their progress with us all when we come back to school! Enjoy the well deserved rest, Miss McKean can’t wait to see you all after half term!
Friday 19th May
We have had a great week in Antarctica, with lots to keep us busy! Some of our most exciting news…our tadpoles have begun to grow legs! We are starting to see changes in them, and we can’t wait to keep watching them grow.
On Monday, we made some giant scatter graphs to compare the gestation times of different animals. It was interesting to make the graphs on such a large scale, making sure that we could see the differences between the animals. We had to think hard about our scale, and make some tweaks along the way.
On Thursday, we used water to represent equivalent fractions. Despite a few spillages, we managed to compare and calculate a range of fractions with ease and skill.
Our class assembly was this afternoon, and it is fair to say that we amazed everybody. Along with year 4, year 6 and some siblings, our parents and loved ones came to watch us perform and celebrate our year so far. We did some brilliant singing, making lots of people feel emotional, and remembered all of our lines brilliantly. A huge well done to us all, we really did year 5 proud! Miss McKean and Mr Saddington were so impressed with our dedication to the assembly and we hope you enjoyed yourselves! Have a great weekend.
Friday 12th May
It has been another productive week for year 5, we have been non-stop!
We have been completing an oracy unit in English this week, focussed around poetry performance. We all learned a poem, some handwritten, and got up to perform them at the end of the week. They were all amazing, and we hope that you enjoy our winning entry. This is Sam, with his own poem all about deforestation.
On Wednesday, we learned the final song for our assembly and had a ‘read through’ of our script. For a first run of the assembly, we did brilliantly! Miss McKean and Mrs Lowe had goose bumps at our singing, and we can’t wait to show you all what we have been practising next week.
On Thursday afternoon we went to Safety Works in Newcastle for some workshops about keeping us safe in the summer. It was like a film set, and we got to experience situations in real life settings to prepare us for if we ever needed help. We worked with the RNLI to understand how to keep safe around water and what to do if we or someone we see gets into danger in the water and who to contact. We learned all about the starfish pose to help us float and what to do if we experience cold water shock.
We also worked with the Tyne and Wear fire service to learn about fire safety. This included BBQs, where we talked about what to do to keep safe when having a BBQ (either at home or in public). The fire service also talked to us about keeping safe on a trip to the park. We packed a bag of helpful things (suncream, a change of clothes, sunglasses and water) and headed to the ‘Metro station’. We learned about where is safe to stand and how to behave on the platform to make sure we stayed safe. After we arrived safely at the park, we spotted risks and things that might get us into danger. We were great detectives and worked out how to stay safe.
We also worked on road safety. In a street set up, we learned about different types of crossings and how to approach them. We practised crossing some roads, and talked about how to keep ourselves safe in even the busiest of roads.
With the Blue Cross, we talked about safety around dogs. The key information to remember was the ‘3 Cs’; Check, Call and Count. First, you check if the owner is okay with you stroking their dog. If they say no, you walk away! Next, you call the dog to give it the chance to say no. You can pat your leg, use a friendly tone, and see if they come to you. Finally, the best part, you can stroke the dog! You count to 3 strokes (on the shoulder is best), and then wait to see if they want anymore strokes. If they don’t, you walk away and feel happy that you got to stroke the dog!
It was a really informative trip, and even the adults learned things that they weren’t sure of – ask us what our favourite experience was and what we learned, it definitely was informative!
Have a great weekend everybody, see you on Monday!
Friday 5th May
What an exciting start to the new month! We have had a busy week, with some tricky fractions, learning assembly songs, and some fantastic pieces of writing.
On Wednesday, all of year 5 came together and we started to learn our songs for the Class Assembly with Miss McKean. We learned all about how to keep our voices healthy and get them warm for singing. Just like when we do PE and our bodies need to be warm, when we sing our voices need to be warm! After some tricky tongue twister vocal warmups, we were ready to start singing. Miss McKean was so impressed with all of us, our singing was absolutely beautiful. We can’t wait for our families to come and watch us perform in a matter of weeks.
In geography, we had a debate to present balanced arguments for and against deforestation. We made sure to listen to our partner, present an argument and provide evidence. The debates helped us practise our oracy skills, and we were very mature and sensible when we were debating.
Our tadpoles continue to rapidly grow, their spinach and fish food diet is certainly helping! Enjoy this video of our tadpoles eating, we think they’re especially cute!
A rainy day couldn’t stop us from celebrating The King’s Coronation today! We have had a brilliant day of arty activities, a ‘photobooth’ and a special Coronation lunch. After a boogie and a few party games, we had a sing of the National Anthem and ‘Our King’. Well done to the winner of our flag competition, Jack, Miss McKean loved all of the elements of London and the Coronation being included in the flag. Well done Jack, a great flag to end a great week!
We took a lot of photos in our photobooth, so it’s only right we share our joy with you at home too! Enjoy another 3-day weekend, stay safe and have fun!
Friday 28th April
Another fantastic week comes to a close! This week we have started our new fractions topic in maths, and have started learning all about Karma, Samsara and Moksha in RE. In history, we did some fantastic group work all about the technological advancements in WW1. We worked as a team to rank them and organise them into matching pairs.
Our tadpoles are growing well, eating lots and swimming around happily. We are waiting for them to start growing their legs and hoping for some big frogs! Orla (our tadpole monitor) has been doing a great job of making sure that we treat them properly, keeping them fed and in enough rain water. We can’t wait to keep sharing their growth with you!
Enjoy the 3-day weekend!
Friday 21st April
We have had a brilliant first week back in Antarctica! Well done to the members of our Dance Festival Team who performed their dance for the rest of the school on Monday. They remembered it brilliantly after 2 weeks off! The children, as always, performed with maturity and professionalism – they are amazing!
This week, we have had some special new members of our class arrive – our tadpoles! We were very excited to get them, and we have talked about how to respect and treat them as members of our class and also as developing amphibians. We can’t wait to watch them develop through their life cycle and eventually turn to frogs. They especially enjoyed their spinach breakfast this morning!
We have been finishing our ‘Factors, Multiples and Primes’ topic in maths this week, and we have worked extremely hard. It isn’t an easy topic, and we are all very proud of ourselves for our determination and perseverance. There is a link below for a game that we have been playing – the aim is to make a number chain using a factor or multiple of the previous number. Have a go at home, can you beat our highest chain of 36? If you have a go at home, send a screenshot of your highest scores on Seesaw!
https://nrich.maths.org/factorsandmultiples
In PE we have started our athletics focus – with this week being all about pacing and teamwork. We worked amazingly, finishing with a 6-minute paced jog. It was tiring but the pride we all felt afterwards was worth the few minutes of breathlessness!
We have all settled back into the school week perfectly, and we can’t wait for the exciting things coming up this term. Enjoy your weekend!