It was Pancake Tuesday this week and Class 5 were more than happy to get involved in all the fun of the day!

As well as having a special Pancake Day whole school assembly, we had some pancake fun in class, too.

We made pancake batter from scratch then each of us cooked our own pancake to eat with some lemon and sugar. They were lovely! We didn’t want to take the risk of flipping the pancakes we planned to eat so the grown-ups had prepared a couple for us to try out or flipping skills…it’s not as easy as it looks! However, we all had great fun trying to flip the pancake in the pan as you will see from the photos!

In science this week, we learned about how rain-clouds are formed then we made our own rain clouds bu using water, shaving foam and a pipette with food colouring in – the effect was just like rain!

We had our first practice for the Dance Festival this week, too. It went very well, although there are lots of moves to remember!

On Tuesday 11th February, we had a visit from Andy Haddon, the founder of the Big River Bakery. He came to talk to us all about bread as part of our ‘Where Does Our Food Come From?’ humanities topic.

We learned that bread is made from different grains, such as wheat or rye, and that there are only four key ingredients you need to bake bread: flour, water, yeast and salt.

As Big River is a local bakery, Andy also told us a lot about the history of baking in the North East. Did you know that there were once lots and lots of windmills in Newcastle? No, nor did we! As Andy had noted the name and logo of our school, he also told us that Roman soldiers were given a loaf of bread each day made from a grain called spelt.

Andy talked to us about a bread very particular to the North East – the stottie! Stotties are very flat, but very tasty – the reason they are so flat is all to do with the amount of air in them.

Obviously, class 5 had their own questions for Andy, ranging from ‘What’s your favourite bread?’ to ‘How do you make bread crust?’ He found it very tricky to say which bread was his favourite!

Next on the agenda is to plant some spring wheat (we learned that there is winter wheat and spring wheat, too!) and visit Big River to bake some bread of our own. We are all looking forward to it already!

Thank you, Andy!

If anyone from Class 5 is tired this weekend, it won’t be a surprise as we have not stopped all week!

In science, we finished off our sound topic in a very tasty way by making popcorn. “What does that have to do with sound?” I hear you cry! Well, when making microwave popcorn, sound is vital to cooking it just right. We talked about what happens to the kernels as they heat up and that the ‘pop’ sound would start off slow, become fast, then become slow again. The children were asked to predict how many minutes they thought it would take (predictions ranged from a few seconds up to 10 minutes) then they were challenged to raise their hand when they thought the popcorn was done. Once it was cooked, we had to eat it – a very tasty science session which showed how sound helps us in every day life.

Some of us also had a messy play session where we explored sounds – it was great fun!

In English, we have done lots of work on reading and spelling. There has been some super progress in both these areas and the grown-ups are all very proud of how well everyone is doing.

In art, we have been doing some more work in the style of Andy Warhol. Everyone chose a famous character they liked, traced over a line drawing in Sharpie (this was very tricky to do!) and then glued a thin layer of different coloured tissue paper over the top. The results are fabulous as you can see and they will look even better once they’re mounted onto card!

In food technology, we made salt dough numbers to use in maths and, also, some yellow, lemon-scented Play-Doh to use in our choice and fine motor-skills time.

In maths, we focused on our number learning outcomes. There was work on number bonds to 10, reading 2-digit numbers and ordering numbers. All challenging at first, but everyone did brilliantly!

Have a wonderful weekend!

As always, Class 5 have been very busy this week.

In science, we continued our work on sound. This week we looked at pitch. To do this, we made water xylophones using empty glass jars and coloured water. We talked about how the amount of water in each jar changed the pitch of the sound it made. The challenge was for each group to create a scale of sounds with their jars so that they go play them high to low or low to high. We all had great fun investigating pitch this way, although the classroom did get rather wet!

In food technology, we made carrot and coriander soup.We had to use our peeling, grating and chopping skills to make it, but it was well worth it as, when we ate some during afternoon snack, it proved to be a big hit.

Our maths work this week focused on number. We were all using our counting and numeral recognition skills to complete pegging activities, join in songs and play interactive games.

On Monday, we held a special assembly to celebrate Chinese New Year. We all ate prawn crackers and fortune cookies and sampled some noodles. Delicious! All the classes had made things to decorate the hall; we made Chinese lanterns and paper plate rats as this year is the year of the rat.

Class 5 have had such a busy week – we’ve been up to all sorts!

In science, we continued our work on sound by investigating whether sound can travel through water. To do this, we got a bucket full of water, a plastic bottle with the lid removed and bottom cut off and two metal eating knives. The bottle was stood in the water and, in pairs, one of us clanged the knives together while the other listened through the bottle. The effect was brilliant and proved that water does indeed travel through water.

On Wednesday, it was the Burn’s Night ceilidh. We got into the swing of it and danced our socks off all afternoon – fabulous!

Food technology and art were both Chinese-themed this week as Chinese New Year is happening this weekend.

In food tech, we did some food tasting. Vegetable spring rolls, egg fried rice, soft noodles, prawn crackers and chicken curry were all on the menu and they were mostly a big hit with everyone!

In art, we made Chinese lanterns and, also paper plate rats – it is the year of the rat this year, after all!

There’s also been two birthdays to celebrate this week so we’ve had to have cake…TWICE! It’s a hard life…

Throw in some Cosmic Yoga, maths, English, reading and RE and that’s our week! No wonder we’re all tired!

On Wednesday 15th January, Class 5 paid a visit to the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle city centre.

However, this visit was not about art. It was our first meeting with a class from Belford Primary School in Northumberland as part of The Linking Project. The Linking Project supports schools and communities to develop a positive, cohesive ethos by helping children, young people and adults to explore identity, celebrate diversity, promote community and champion equality – which is incredibly important.

Prior to the Christmas holidays, Class 5 and its partner class in Belford exchanged ‘All About Me’ fact files as a way of introducing each other a little. Meeting face-to-face was the really exciting part and we had such a wonderful day together.

We began by playing some ‘ice-breaker’ games to get the children talking. These went really well and there was lots of smiling and laughter throughout.

After that, the children were split into two groups (a mixture of both schools). Each group had a different job to do and, in the afternoon, they swapped so that everyone had done the same activities.

In one activity, the children worked in groups of three to design and create an imaginary world. It really got all the children talking and everyone was involved in the making process, too. Some of the ideas were tremendous as you will see in the photos.

In the other activity, the children used their listening and creative skills as they had to choose a piece of art in the gallery and describe it for their partners to draw. The catch was, their partners could not look at the art work – they had to rely on the what they were being told. Some super work was produced and all the children had great fun!

By the end of the visit, some firm friendships had been made and there was lots of hugging goodbye.

We will be seeing our friends from Belford again soon, which the children are already excited about!

An absolutely wonderful day and we are proud to be part of such an important project.

On Tuesday, December 17th, we had three special things happen at school.

Firstly, it was Christmas jumper day and, secondly, it was Christmas lunch day and, lastly, Santa Claus paid us a visit – AGAIN!

We donned the snowman party hats we’d made before heading to the school hall for our festive feast. It was lovely to see everyone kitted out in all their festive attire, especially when they were pulling crackers and wearing party hats over lunch, it definitely gave us a warm, fuzzy, Christmassy feeling!

Irene cooked up a storm in the kitchen and everyone enjoyed a proper turkey dinner (or veggie alternative) with all the trimmings followed by ice-cream or Christmas pud. YUMMY!

In the afternoon, we all had a lovely surprise when we were visited by the big man himself – Santa! Mr Claus gave every single child in school a special present to take home, which is amazing. Thank you, Santa!

Class 5 have had a very Christmassy week this week.

We began by going on the second part of our Christmas trip – ten-pin bowling at the Metro Centre! We all had a brilliant time and everyone demonstrated some mean bowling skills, with a couple of children getting strikes and several others getting spares. Impressive!

We put the finishing touches to our Christmas cards this week, too, and very splendid they look!

Of course, the major event of the week was the Christmas performance and, it must be said, that Class 5 could not have done better with their dance to ‘Frosty the Snowman.’ All the grown-ups were extremely proud of them all and we know that mums, dads, grandmas and grandpas will have been as well. Weren’t they brilliant?

A great end to the week!

On Tuesday, December 3rd, we were very lucky to have a visit from Santa Claus!

He arrived at school on a special Santa bus, aided by one of his trusty elves and, of course, his favourite reindeer, Rudolph.

All of us got to meet Santa and we each received a present of either a selection box, book or activity pack.

We were all very happy to see Santa and to know that, up to now, we are all on his ‘good’ list!