Maths wizards and water babies

23rd November 2018Antonia White

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.

 

A summary!

19th November 2018Antonia White

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!

 

Ready, bready, go!

12th October 2018Antonia White

The Great British Bake-off has nothing on 5B this week!

Our design and technology project for this half term is ‘Bread’ so we have been getting our bake on baking, you’ve guessed it – bread! No bread machines were involved, it was all done the traditional way using yeast and waiting for the dough to rise.

We began by baking a basic wholemeal loaf then made a white, cheesy loaf, both of which were delicious! However, we decided to go one step further by baking a cheese and onion plaited loaf which was, though we say so ourselves, spectacular!

Everyone contributed to the making process by measuring cups of flour, adding pinches of salt, tablespoons of sugar, cups of water, etc. And, of course, we all had a go at kneading the dough each time – it was hard work! A grown-up plaited our loaf as we found it quite tricky to do.

Knightly Persuasion

10th October 2018Antonia White

On Tuesday, 9th October, 5B (and their friends in 5A) all visited Newcastle Castle for knight training school – and very good it was, too! We made the visit as part of our humanities topic, ‘Life in a Castle.’

Our guide for the day was David and he told us everything we needed to know about what it was like to be a knight in Medieval England. We had to climb the stone steps of the castle to reach the learning room – there were a lot of them!

We learned some very interesting facts, such as knights began their training when they were only young boys by being ‘page boys’ for someone who was already a knight…most of us didn’t like the idea of being someone’s servant!

There were lots of amazing artefacts for us to explore – and all real things a knight would have used. The chain mail, helmet and gauntlets were all very heavy, but they needed to be to stop opponent’s weapons in battle. We got to explore (dulled) swords, knives and a shield and even had a look at a mace; the mace seemed particularly scary!

As well as all of these artefacts, we also watched a history of the Newcastle Castle and how it had changed since it was originally built.

To finish our trip, we went into the castle dungeons. There were still hooks on the walls where prisoners would have been chained up! There were also some stocks, which David was kind enough to ‘model’ for us – they looked very uncomfortable!

All in all, it was a super trip and we were really able to experience lots of things, not just about knights, but also about life in a castle.

 

Being a page boy

Trying on chainmail armour

Trying on gauntlets

The gauntlets were not very comfortable!

The helmet weighed a lot!

Knights used shields to protect themselves in battle

The shields were heavy too!