Emmaville Primary School

Antarctica Year 5

Welcome to the Antarctica Year 5 Class Page.  Here, you can find out about everything that we've been doing this term.
Thursday 28th March
Another term comes to a close, and we cannot believe how fast it has flown over. This term certainly hasn't been easy, but it has been so rewarding as we watch ourselves succeed and accomplish things that we didn't think would be possible.
On Wednesday, we were lucky enough to have our local MP and now Shadow Minister Liz Twist in to see us and answer our questions about her job and her life in parliament. We asked her some really tricky questions about what she plans to do to make sure that the North East is talked about in the House of Commons, and ensure that we (as the next generation!) have the best chances possible. She really enjoyed our questions, and it was great to have our voices heard in our British Values and Protected Characteristics Enrichment Week. We are so lucky at Emmaville to have such great opportunities.
Unfortunately, this term does end with us saying goodbye to one of our friends. The lovely Delilah is leaving Emmaville to start at a new school, and we are really going to miss her. We hope that you have had a wonderful time with us here, and that you start your new school with a positive attitude and a great eagerness to do well. We are going to miss you Delilah, don't be a stranger!
Have a lovely fortnight off, it is very well deserved. We can't wait to hear what you have been getting up to - send Miss McKean anything you'd like to share on Seesaw! 
Easter Egg Decoration - Top Three
Friday 22nd March
This half term seems to be flying over! In art, we have been looking at Chinese Guohua painting. One of the key principles of this art style is making sure to take your time and make your paintings reflect the life energy. We have learned so much about this style, and find it extremely calming to create this artwork. Stay tuned to see our final paintings!
In PE, we have been thinking about fitness and this week we completed a circuit of activities. From throwing, stacking, running and jumping to hopping, balancing and bouncing a tennis ball, we certainly were kept busy! 

Friday 8th March

We have had a very busy week in Antarctica class! On Tuesday, we were lucky enough to be invited to Thorp for Book Tasting session in their library. We were able to explore different genres of books that we would never have thought to pick up! Thanks to the library team at Thorp for a great morning.

On Tuesday afternoon, a group of year 5 children represented the school in a mini hockey tournament. The children showed fantastic teamwork skills and a determination to do their best. We could not be prouder of them for their effort and attitude.

Thursday was, of course, World Book Day! We had some fantastic costumes in our class, with Oliver J even coming in as a dictionary – very creative. After a nationwide quiz on Zoom, we began preparations to host our very own Book Tasting Café. We chose 6 genres (non-fiction, poetry, graphic novels, picture books, sports books and animal books) and went to the library to find as many as we could. After lunch, we happily invited the year 3 classes to come and share some books with us. We had a fantastic afternoon, and we really enjoyed being able to share with the younger classes. A busy, but lovely, week!

Friday 1st March
Our first week back has flown over! We have come back from a great week off with fantastic attitudes and an eagerness to get back into the swing of things.
 
In English, we have been looking into the story of the miraculous Philippe Petit, the man who walked between the towers. Today, we have stepped into the shoes of an arresting officer, and written a police report to detail the event. Did you know, the gap between the towers was 130 feet, and Mr Petit lay down on the rope that he was walking across? We can't imagine how terrifying that would have been!
 
In science, we got our magnifying glasses and tweezers at the ready to take apart and investigate some flowers, and sketched the structures that we could see. It was amazing to see the inside of the beautiful flowers, and it was fascinating to see these structures in real life, not just on a diagram! We can't wait to see what else we will learn about in our new topic this half term.
 
A special mention goes out to Georgia, who was part of the team that represented Emmaville at the Gateshead swimming gala on Wednesday. Georgia showed great teamwork skills and had a fantastic attitude, a huge well done to you!
 
Have a great weekend! 

Friday 16th February

Another half term has raced by, and we can’t believe how much we have done!

This week, we finished our woodwork in DT. We have used our new skills to create WW1 armoured anti-aircraft vehicles, and we are sure you’d agree that they look fantastic!

As part of our PSHE curriculum, we have been partnered with a school in Whitley Bay for the year, Woodlawn School. Not only have we created some bunting to send to them all about us, we also had the pleasure of chatting to them via video call on Tuesday afternoon. We played some games and asked some questions, and we cannot wait to see what we get up to this year!

In PE, we have been looking at rock and roll dancing. Enjoy this selection of dances, and have a fantastic week off!

Friday 9th February
This week saw all of our hard work towards the poetry competition finally pay off! All of us stood up in front of our class to perform a poem that we had chosen that we loved. Miss McKean was so impressed by how many poems she hadn't heard, we were all really creative with our choices and made sure to pick poems we truly loved. All of us deserve a huge well done for performing. It takes a lot of bravery and courage to stand in front of your friends and perform poetry - Miss McKean wishes we all could have won!
 
 
Our finalists, Sophie M, Owen and Georgia particularly wowed Miss McKean with their lovely performances. Congratulations Georgia for being Antarctica's winner of the 2024 competition - your performance was amazing and made so many of us think about people we love and cherish! Enjoy these videos of our finalists performing their poems and have a great weekend! 

Friday 2nd February

This week we have been focussing on poetry, in preparation for our performances for the schoolwide poetry competition. We have looked at a handful of poets, from Valerie Bloom to Matt Goodfellow and Brian Moses. We are starting to notice their own unique style in their work – and it has been amazing to watch some of our classmates get up and perform their versions to us! Noah even treated us all to an all-singing rendition of ‘Walking with my Iguana’, that had us all laughing and clapping at his courage and skill!

In science, we had a look at how a lever can help us. Using only a ruler, a 1kg weight, some blue-tac and a Newton meter, we were able to investigate how the distance from the fulcrum changes the effort force that is needed to lift a mass.

Friday 26th January

What a great week! On Monday, as part of our World Religion Day celebrations, we had a visit from Brother Khadim from the Newcastle Central Mosque to chat to us about his life as a Muslim and all about Islam. It was a great assembly, and we learned lots of really interesting facts from him. We are really grateful for his visit, we hope we get to see him again!

In PE this half term, we have been looking at “Dance by Chance”. This is where the moves, the dynamics and the space used is all randomly generated. We felt so free when we were dancing, and we all got up and performed for our class. It has been a lot of fun to get to dance and not worry about how we look doing it!

In DT, we have finished making our wooden picture frames. We think that they look amazing – and we are sure you will agree! We have used woodwork skills to make these frames, something that most of us had never done before. These skills will be used later this half term to create something else too – we can’t wait!

Friday 19th January
What a musical week it has been in our class! As part of our music lessons, we have been learning about the pentatonic scale, which is usually seen in Chinese music. The only notes that we could use were C, D, G, E and A; which made it a little trickier! This week, we practised some different phrases of music using only those 5 notes. We can't wait to compose our own music next week!
On Wednesday we were lucky enough to have a music workshop that helped us journey around the world through song. We danced to music from different countries, and some of us even got to join in with some instruments! We had so much fun, it was a special way to spend the morning!

Friday 12th January

What a great first week back it has been in Antarctica! We have been so busy, and made a great start to the New Year.

On Monday, we started our new DT topic with some woodwork. We used our new skills to measure and saw some wood, sanding it down to create a magnetic note holder. We are all very happy with our final product – they look amazing and are great quality.

Wednesday saw us taking the longest journey we will ever take – all the way to space! With the help of some virtual reality headsets, we took off from Earth to explore our solar system like never before. We had such a great experience, it certainly isn’t something we will ever forget.

In maths, we have started our new topic all about area. Today, we got out our handy tape measures to work out the area of the rectangles we could find in our classroom. From bookmarks and work books, to the door and the window panes – we were able to use our skill to accurately measure and calculate the area.

A great first week back, we are looking forward to the rest of this exciting half-term!