Houghton Primary School

 

 

 Eagles Class are our Year 5 group. They are taught by Mrs Culpin who is assisted by Mrs Lemons, Mrs Blem-Larsen and Mrs Roberts.

Autumn Term 2018

Please click here for Eagles Autumn 2018 Newsletter/Curriculum

 Please click here for Eagles Spring 2019 Newsletter/Curriculum

 

Have a wonderful Easter. Cherish the time with your families and enjoy the chocolate. I will see you all on Wednesday 24th April.

Friday 5th April

We finished our handball sessions this week and it culminated in a mini tournament inside. We have learned so much over the last 6 weeks and our game has improved.

 

We have been busy writing and illustrating books for year 2 based on the Easter story this week. We used our knowledge of speech and associated punctuation to write them. We then had a fun session with Year 2 reading our stories aloud and sharing Hot Cross Buns. They shared with us their eggs, which they had decorated with Easter symbols.

 

Friday 29th March

Maths this week has involved looking at equivalent decimals, fractions and percentages and we found playing maths games really helped.

We have started our Anglo-Saxon pattern printing and although it is time-consuming and tricky, the results will be amazing.

On Thursday we ran a multi-skills session for foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 in the lovely Spring sunshine. We hope they enjoyed themselves.

Final day of the week saw 'Wear a hat day'  in aid of Amelia's fund. 

Friday 22nd March

We were lucky enough to be joined in school by the folk group 'The Young 'uns'. We listened to a sea shanty and then made our own rap based on an old story from the 1300s about the Peasant's revolt. The children thought it was amazing.

 

Friday 15th March

This week year 5 have been doing Bikeability. They started off on the playground, checking their bikes and learning about the road. They then progressed on to local roads showing their skills. It was not the best of weeks for the weather; gale force winds and driving rain but the children kept going..

Comic Relief 2019 - the children came in non school uniform for a donation and we painted red noses on our faces. During lunchtime we were able to take part in activities organised by the year 6.

Well done to Jasmine who won a science writing competition, organised by St Peters School, with her survival guide for being stranded on a deserted island.

Friday 8th March

During our curriculum PE time we have been learning a new sport - Handball. It is very popular in Germany. It is a cross between netball, basketball and football. We have been practising dribbling, passing and catching the ball and have even advanced to some mini games. We think it is great fun.

During World Book Day on Thursday a quiz was held in the library and a team of year 5 girls won. Well done girls - all that reading pays off!

Friday 1st March

Welcome back!

After a week off the children have come back ready to learn and what better way than to have an Anglo-Saxon/Viking Day to inspire us.

Mrs Murphy from Gripping History came into school and helped with the understanding of our topic. We found out where the Vikings came from and why they came.

We played a trading game to understand what Anglo-Saxons and Vikings might have needed in readiness for a voyage -which was great fun. We also played games they did - some of us thought they were better than electronic games we have today.

We practised writing in runes, which was their lettering system.

During an archaeological dig we used our inference skills to understand what a Viking burial might have looked like if they were to get into Valhalla.

Finally, we got to handle some of the weapons they used in battle and the tactics they employed, which ended in a battle between 2 warring sides. 

Looking at the weapons they would have used

Preparing for battle.

Finding out about Viking burial 

Trading goods ready for a voyage

Playing games

The children all came dressed ready to experience what was indeed a wonderful day.

6 of our class took part in the Hunts SSP hockey tournament at the St Ives Outdoor Centre this week. They were a great team, showing determination and passion to succeed. Super defending from all and some lovely goals. We won 2 matches, lost 2 and drew 1. Harry, Lucy, Elliot, Rose and Kasie got on the scoresheet and Remi was a tremendous defender literally throwing himself on the line. I was so proud of them!

 

Friday 15th February

We had a German school day as we have been studying what German schools are like. We came to school in non uniform as German children do and once inside we changed into our slippers.

We already knew the names of school subjects, how to say I like Maths and what schools were like. Today we answered the register in German and  looked at what objects you might find in schools.

At breaktime German children get Bratwurst and chocolate milk, so we also enjoyed ours in the lovely sunshine.

 

It was a great day which helped cement some of our understanding of the cultural differences and vocabulary.

 

It is so lovely to see the home learning and how much the children have enjoyed it.

 

Friday 8th February

Our last decade of dance has seen us looking at the 1970s. We were disco dancing and showing off our best Saturday Night Fever moves.

Continuing on with our science, we used the data loggers this week to find out which material would keep the water warm  and could be used as a thermal insulator.

In readiness for our History topic we were learning historical vocabulary such as bias, exaggeration, chronology and primary and secondary sources.

 

Friday 1st February

What a great science week we have had! It was kicked off brilliantly by Mr Maclennan, a science teacher from St Peters School, who came to talk to us and show us some cool experiments.

Our science this week has all stemmed from 'Kensuke's Kingdom', the book we have been reading.

We looked at how strong UVrays were and if we wanted to build a shelter to keep ourselves protected from the harmful UV which material would we use. We used UV beads to help our investigation.

 

Another experiment we conducted was to find out how to clean dirty water. We used 3 different types of filter to help us with this.

We also looked at how we could extract salt from sea water using evaporation. We looked at the different containers we might have on a deserted island  and which would be best to help us get the most salt. 

As all our science was based on the book 'Kensuke's Kingdom', we decided to use the opportunity to also paint pictures in the style of Hokusai, a Japanese artist and write our own Japanese Haiku poems on the sea. The pictures are so effective and the vocabulary used is amazing.

 

Friday 25th January

Our first time at leading sports morning this week. All the children worked well within their groups, showing passion and determination to produce games that Year 2-6 enjoyed. I was very proud of how they conducted themselves. They learnt a lot from the session and are looking forward to playleading again.

 

Friday 18th January

We conducted an experiment on the solubility of different solutes this week and had to predict if we thought they would dissolve. We then tested this in test tubes to see if we were right.

 

We were also visited this week by Andy from Astrazeneca. We are entering a competition they are running called 'The Energy Challenge'. Andy came in to introduce the competition and show us balance machines that we may need to help us with our work.

Friday 11th January

Welcome back to the start of a new year and term. We have already been busy this week starting our new science topic and looking at the author Michael Morpurgo.

We have all written our brain goals for this term. We shall keep reminding ourselves of these throughout the coming weeks and focussing on how we can achieve our goals.

In Dance this half term we are experiencing different dance styles throughout modern history.  Within this we shall be looking at the clothes and the music of that era.  We have started with the 1950s and the hand jive.

 

I wish you all a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

I look forward to seeing you all on Monday 7th January.

 Friday 14th December

The final full week of term has still been really busy. We have been practising for our carol concert and in class we have been looking at the book 'Coming Home' by Michael Morpurgo. We have written stories from the Robin's point of view and created robins in our art lesson in different mediums. We have also been busy making bird seed cake ready for winter.

We joined forces with Year 1 this week and made our christmas hats (a robin theme of course!) It was then lovely to have christmas lunch with them.

If that wasn't enough we spent some time playing our maths games that we created for home learning. We all know a lot about prime, square and cubed numbers. It was a fun session.

 

Friday 7th December

We have been investigating what affects the pitch of sounds. We had various tasks to do such as look at how the volume of water, length of straws and strings, thickness of bands and size of instrument can all affect pitch.

 

Friday 30th November

This week has been all about our eggnauts and designing and making a space landing module. We had a certain amount of materials to make a craft that would protect our eggnaut on their re-entry from space.

After making them we then tested them and hoped our designing skills would mean our eggnauts were safe.

Only 2 missions failed which we think is a good safety record!

 

Friday 23rd November

We watched a BBC science live lesson this week all about space. We were helping Doctor Who on her mission to bring light back to Earth after a mystery planet had blocked all of it.

 

Friday 16th November

We had fun on Monday making fizzy rockets and finding out how gases and heat combine to propel rockets into space. Ours did not reach those dizzying heights but we could see how carbon dioxide is used to thrust our plastic rockets skywards. If you look closely in the picture below you can see the trail of the rocket but the children's faces are the best thing ever.

Once again we teamed up with year 2 and had a great time on the field creating our own leaf art in the style of the artist James Brunt.

 

 Friday was Children in Need day and we came in non school uniform and the activities organised by year 6 at lunchtime were great. We even managed to colour in Pudsey using our German vocabulary knowledge.

Friday 9th November

This week we have been commemorating the end of World War 1 and basing all our learning on this. We have been finding out about the causes and creating a timeline. We looked at trench warfare and what it was like in battle. From this we wrote powerful poetry. We constructed graphs that showed the casualties of the different countries and researched other areas such as women in war, medicine, the use of animals and life at home. The children were so enthusiastic in their learning of this very important topic.

Our wonderful collage art work represents the Flanders fields with the poppies. Some even have some Belgian newspapers within them.

We were also lucky to have visitors in school who live in the village to tell us all about the men from Houghton and Wyton who lost their lives in action. They brought in medals, photographs and even shell casements. It was fascinating.

 

Monday 5th November

Today we visited the National Space Centre in Leicester and had a lot of fun. During the day we had a planetarium show about the stars and our solar system which was 'so cool' according to the children. We also learnt about the space race, what qualities an astronaut needs and how rockets and space craft work.

Friday 2nd November

What a fantastic response to the home learning set over half term. Eagles' are such a creative lot. They presented their work on the moon in such a variety of ways.

We have been looking at the stars this week and posing questions and then trying to find out the answers. We even made our own star gazers looking at constellations.

In art we looked at Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' and did our own interpretations of the picture.

2 girls from Eagles brought in some space food for us to try - Astronaut Neapolitan icecream sandwich. We liked it!

Amy played the flute in assembly this week to get ready for her exam. We were really impressed and wish her luck. 

Friday 19th October

We have been focussing on partner work in gymnastics this half term, concentrating on balances and jumps.

In music we have been listening to The Planet Suite by Gustav Holst and so this week we created our own piece of music that represented the planet Earth .

 

We helped Year 2 on Friday to collect leaves ready for their art project next half term. It was lovely to be out in the sunshine.

Friday 12th October

Mr Johnson came into our class this week to teach us all about American flag football. We have only just started but everyone had great fun. We are looking forward to learning more.

Aliens invaded our classroom this week! Great homework projects by the children, showing how their alien has adapted to its environment.

 

 

Friday 5th October

We have been looking at the Earth's and Moon's orbits this week and tried to recreate this on the playground. We learnt a lot of facts.

In our German lessons we have been looking at how you have conversations on the phone and the numbers 1-12. We played bingo and did some German maths calculations to help us remember the vocabulary.

Our art work was completed this week. We studied the artist Peter Thorpe and recreated his style of space art. We think we did a pretty good job. They are in display in the classroom and atrium if you want to come and have a look. 

Friday 28th September

Our first home learning produced fantastic results from the children. You could tell how hard they had worked on their project and the care taken. They were a delight to read, look at and eat!

We had a visit this week from Lisa, the scientist who made ice cream with us. We were looking at the science behind it and the changes of state- freezing, melting, evaporating and condensing. It was great fun and we got to eat our experiment. Yum!

Adding ice

Which flavour?

mixing the powder in the milk

All busy rocking our mixture in ice.

The best bit!

Friday 21st September

Planets has been the topic this week and we have been investigating the size of the planets in relation to the Sun and representing them in fruit form.

We then began to think about how far they were from the Sun.We realised we wouldn't be able to get the exact distances so we used a scale - 1 piece of toilet tisuue for every 10 million kilometres. We had to go on to the field to measure it out.

We were amazed at how far Neptune would really be.

To find out more about the planets we conducted a bit of planet speed dating. Great fun! Now we are ready to write our own fact files.

Friday 14th September

We have gone meteor mad this week in class. On Monday a rock was discovered on the field and it looked like a meteorite. We then used books and the internet to find out about meteors and meteorites and whether it could have been. We tested it to find out if it was magnetic and the weight of it. Finally, Mrs Smith cut it in half and we were disappointed to discover it was nothing more than a crumbly rock.

 

This then led us into investigating craters and the impact they make and we conducted an experiment to see whether different weights of 'meteorites' create different depths of craters.

Ensuring a fair test 

Welcome back! Everyone has come back refreshed and ready to learn. We have already had a busy 3 days starting our science topic- Space, getting outside to start playleading and trying some active maths and writing a recount about a little yellow alien. We are all looking forward to the new term and the challenges ahead.