The decorations are up, the Christmas cards are made, the classroom has seen a lot of glitter this week and we’re all feeling a warm glow…it must be nearly Christmas!

5B have been embracing the festive season in every way possible this week as we completed our Christmas cards and make our calendars and, we don’t mind saying, they are awesome! Obviously, you can’t see them until they’re taken home – that would spoil the surprise – but all the hard work has paid off and everyone has done a brilliant job!

We have also done some super science this week. This was not Christmas-related but was very exciting! We investigated the effect bicarbonate of soda had on different liquids, such as vinegar, lemon juice, boiling water and cold water. After that, we ate some sherbet and learned that the when the sherbet fizzes in our mouth it is because our saliva reacts with the bicarbonate of soda and citric acid – this causes the fizz! It was a tasty way to find out…

In food technology we made some Christmas pudding chocolate crispies with white chocolate drizzled on the top and tiny holly leaves made from icing. They were delicious. In fact, they were so delicious we may make them again so we can take one home to show our families.

We had a visit from Chris Bostock this week, too. He (along with two friends) told us a fantastic story all about a polar bear – it was a magical story with a festive feel and we all thoroughly enjoyed it!

As always, 5B have been working extremely hard this week and done lots of different things in class. However, there’s one subject where we have really shone – maths!

In maths this week, we focused on number work and there has been success after success! From recognising numerals and 1:1 correspondence, to forming numerals and addition, we have been true maths wizards, whatever our target we have gone for it – two of us even achieved our number targets, which is just brilliant!

Swimming this week was a new experience altogether as, for the first time, the pool floor was lowered so our feet couldn’t touch the bottom! We were all 

given a life-jacket to wear so we were completely safe and everybody thoroughly enjoyed themselves swimming about!

As well as maths and swimming, we have also made some delicious fruit tarts in food technology, developed our understanding of letters and sounds in phonics and expressed ourselves in art and design.

What a time 5B have been having since returning to school in September!

Due to a few technical difficulties, we haven’t been able to keep you up-to-date on a weekly basis but, suffice to say, we have been very busy throughout last half term and this one – so far!

As part of our ‘Castles’ topic we visited the Newcastle Keep and Tynemouth Priory. We learned all about knights at the Newcastle Keep and got look at, and try on, lots of real armour, which was great fun!

We have done lots of cooking this half-term as, in addition to our food technology lessons, our design and technology topic was ‘Bread.’ We baked a lovely wholemeal loaf, a cheese loaf and a cheese and onion plaited loaf. YUM!

In food technology, we’ve been cooking lots of foods that we might want to make on our own, like toast, scrambled eggs and sandwiches. Our chopping and spreading skills are becoming worthy of Masterchef!

Before half-term we got into the spirit of Halloween (albeit a little in advance!). We carved a pumpkin together and had a scary shindig in class. We ate petrifying popcorn and dreadful donuts and we drank spider’s blood and caterpillar wee…although they tasted suspiciously like blackcurrant and orange juice so we wonder if the grown-ups were telling us the truth?

We all enjoyed the fireworks and mini-bonfire on the afternoon of Bonfire Night – Mr Todd put on a brilliant display, as always.

Obviously, we have all been working hard on our literacy, maths and science, too, as well as other subjects.

We’re looking forward to keeping you posted every week about what we’ve been up to so don’t forget to look at our blog on a regular basis!