On Tuesday 19^th March, 5B headed off to Saltwell Park in Gateshead and we had an absolutely lovely morning there!

On the way into the park, lots of ducks came to say hello to us. We think they were a little disappointed when they realised we didn’t have food for them as they didn’t stay long, but watching some of them fly off was fantastic!

Whilst walking to the playground we, rather unexpectedly, met a celebrity – none other than Thomas the Tank Engine! Thomas was working hard taking people on trips around the park and we think we may have to return so we can take a trip on Thomas, too!

Once we arrived at the playground, the adventure really began. We were using our climbing and jumping skills to climb up, and get down from, climbing frames of all types. Lots of us braved the high climbing frame (don’t worry, the grown-ups were making sure we were safe!) so we could go down the long tube-slide. Of course, once we’d gone up the big climbing frame once, it was easy-peasy and we wanted to do it again…and again…and again! There were swings to play on, too, and another lower slide so everyone was very happy.

We all sat together around a picnic table to eat our snack and, while we were eating, we saw a grey squirrel scurrying about – he was very cute and very fast!

All in all, we had an absolutely wonderful morning!

5B have really got the funk since coming back after half term and it’s all thanks to Paul from Dance City who has been coming in on a Monday to teach urban dance.

We’ve been learning to strike poses with an attitude, hold balances, walk in rhythm and even do spins on the floor! We’re looking pretty fly, as you can see from the photos.

In literacy, our work has been based around the traditional tale ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.’ We’ve acted the story out in a drama activity (which we did brilliantly) some of us have written sentences, some of us have done fine motor work by connecting coloured beans and some of us have enjoyed a sensory version of the story.

In science, we have continued our work on investigating sound. This week, we made string telephones. Some us thought they wouldn’t work and were very surprised to find they did! We all had great fun outside using the telephones and even tried adding a third phone – it still worked! The investigation proved that sound can travel through solids. We also learned that sound can travel through air by using sound tubes in class – our arms were worn out as were spinning them super-fast to get a loud sound.

In addition to all of this, we still found time to go swimming, decorate biscuits for Red Nose Day and continue our topic work ‘Where Does Food Come From?’

It’s been an exciting week in 5b!

On Tuesday, we donned hairnets and aprons and became bakers as part of our Warburtons workshop. The workshop was great! We learned a little about the history of Warburtons and a lot about healthy eating. As well as that, we learned about how Warburton’s make their bread and it’s not by a line of bakers kneading the dough – it’s all done with computers and giant machinery!

As part of the workshop, we all chose healthy fillings to make a healthy sandwich. There’s no question that all our sandwiches were healthy, but some of the combinations were a little odd… banana, ham and salad, anyone?

Very generously, Warburtons gave each of us a loaf of milk roll to take home!

Of course, that’s not the only cooking we’ve done this week. We also made pancakes and ate them with jam or a little sugar and lemon. YUM!

In science, we have been investigating sound. We wanted to find out if sounds are made when objects or materials vibrate. To do this, we were twanging rulers off desks, feeling our throats whilst humming and also twanging elastic bands. We realised that, when twanging the rulers and elastic bands, you could change the sound by pulling the elastic band tighter and letting less of the ruler hang over the edge of the desk. It was all great fun to do!

In addition to all this, we had World Book Day on Thursday. There were some wonderful outfits and it was lovely to see everyone dressed up. We listened to lots of stories throughout the day, including No-bot the Robot, Winnie Flies Again and It Was a Cold Dark Night. There was a special assembly in the hall where Year 6 did a play of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ – they were super!

What a week!

This week, some very special visitors from Iraq visited our school and 5B did some lovely artwork for them. We painted the sky and grass in the morning, let them dry then added  flowers and self-portraits in the afternoon. To help us be more accurate with our work, we used cotton buds to paint the flowers and self-portraits. We were very proud of our efforts and it was wonderful to present the pictures to our visitors.

We continued the artistic trend by adding decoration to the harp boxes we are making in DT. They all look extremely colourful and are ready to be ‘stringed’ with elastic bands so we can play them.

In food technology this week, we baked a fantastic banana loaf. It was light and fluffy with no soggy bottom in sight – Mary Berry would have loved it! We each had a piece with our afternoon snack and, even though the grown-ups all claim to be on diets, they had some too. In fact, we couldn’t help but notice the grown-ups pieces were considerably larger than ours…perhaps the diets aren’t going too well?

We busted some amazing moves in PE this week in our dance lesson. All the classics got played: Gangnam Style, Moves Like Jagger – name a cheesy track and we probably danced to it, but we LOVED it! Everyone was exhausted afterwards and by the afternoon could easily have had a little nap but, instead, we had to trampoline and do reading!

A fabulous first week back for us all!

On Tuesday, 5B thought we would take advantage of the unseasonably mild weather and head down to Jesmond Dene. We had a lovely time there!

After parking the bus, we strolled down to Pets’ Corner and looked at all the animals. We saw peacocks, guinea fowl, parrots, ducks, geese, canaries, love birds, budgies and lots of different types of chickens and goats. Everyone had a different animal that they liked the most.

After that, we walked down to the pet cemetery, which is also in Jesmond Dene. We noticed that all the headstones we could read were for dogs. We talked about how lovely it was that the owners of these animals loved them so much they had put up a permanent reminder of them.

As we walked, we learned about Lord Armstrong, who bought the land which became Jesmond Dene and is responsible for enclosing it, planting many trees and shrubs and developing the land.

Of course, it hasn’t all been relaxing walks in 5B this week. We’ve been doing literacy, maths and phonics work and, of course, feeling in the mood for love because of Valentine’s Day.

To mark Valentine’s Day, we baked very sweet, heart-shaped biscuits which we decorated with pink icing. We also used the salt-crystal hearts we grew in science to make Valentine’s cards.

As we break up for half term today, we would like to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday! Relax and have fun, everyone!

The winter weather may have been trying to thwart our normal activity levels with its coughs and colds, ice, freezing temperatures and even snow, but it has not succeeded! We, in 5B, are very resilient!

In design technology this week, we have been making musical shakers. We made design choices, such as which container to use, which colours to cover it and which images we would like to put on to personalise it. The choices ranged dramatically – everything from Spiderman to the Red Arrows! The shakers look very effective and now just need the final touch of some dried split peas so they make a sound. Oh, and we’re super gluing the lids on so the peas don’t fall out!

In science, we’ve saturated a solution again but, this time, with the laundry detergent borax. This grows crystals, just like the salt did, but in a more spectacular way! You will have to wait to see the end result as our crystals are still growing.

We’ve focused on literacy work this week and everyone has been carrying out reading and/or writing tasks. The progress has been impressive and the grown-ups have had to give out lots of stars for all the wonderful work!

In food technology, we made a delicious, and very healthy, vegetable soup. Everyone practised their peeling and chopping skills when preparing it. Our resident Mary Berry (aka Alex) knocked up a loaf of homemade, wholemeal bread so snack time that day was particularly scrumptious!

Have a wonderful weekend and stay warm!

Happy New Year and welcome back! The Christmas holidays seemed to be over in a flash, but we hope you all had a wonderful break.

Despite everyone in 5B being a little tired this week (adults and children!) we have been very busy doing all sorts of things.

In art, we are looking at the work of Andy Warhol so have produced some brightly-coloured self-portraits and hand-print pieces. It has to be said, they look very effective and everyone has really enjoyed doing them.

In maths, we focused on number. Some of us have been practising our addition skills, while others have focused on numeral recognition by baking salt-dough numbers. We’ve all been playing maths games too, which helps us develop our maths knowledge and practise turn-taking and sharing.

In literacy, some of us have focused on writing our names and others have been focusing on Phase 2 Letters and Sounds.  Challenging work, but everyone has worked really hard and done very well.

It may sound hard to believe, but we managed to find time to do PE! It’s been a packed first week back but we have all been working with enthusiasm and interest, despite being tired.

Well, there aren’t many sleeps left until the big day, but that hasn’t stopped 5B being full of busy as usual!

This week, with the aid of our very own resident Mary Berry (well, Alex – who’s just as good!) we baked some delicious Christmas treats to take home to our families. There were gingerbread snowmen and reindeer muffins, too. Both were beautifully wrapped up especially for Christmas.

We were extremely lucky to be given two wonderful Christmas gifts this week by one of our parents, Dawn Omar. She bought the children a toy builders set and a toy cleaning set – it’s been hard to tell which is the most popular! Suffice to say, we have all had great fun playing with them and would like to say a huge ‘THANK YOU’ to Dawn!

Our art-work also had a festive feel as we made to lovely paper-plate Christmas wreaths to hang at home.

In amongst the work, we’ve watched some Christmas movies and, of course, we had our Christmas lunch on Tuesday! There were party hats, crackers, fizzy pop and a traditional Christmas lunch – the tables looked fab and the food was lovely!

Thursday was our Christmas party day! We did some dancing then played pass-the-parcel and corners – the school hall was full of smiles! Of course, the smiles got even bigger when the big-man himself arrived…SANTA! Thankfully, we’d all been good enough for him to leave a present for each of us. PHEW!

After Santa said his goodbyes, we returned to class for our party food – a massive thank you to everyone for sending in so many treats as we really did indulge!

It’s been a lovely week and, with only tomorrow to go, all of us in 5B would like to wish everyone the merriest of Christmases! Have a great holiday!