Houghton Primary School

 

 

 Eagles Class are our Year 5 group. They are taught by Mrs Culpin who is assisted by Mrs Lemons.

Please click here for information on the Year 5 Curriculum Autumn 2019

Spring 2020

Sunday 29th March

Hello Eagles... I hope you all enjoyed last week and have been getting up to all sorts of lovely things. The weather was wonderful to get out in the garden and I certainly did that. My garden received a good makeover and its great to see all my spring flowers coming out in bloom. I am definitely going to draw and paint some flowers this week. I will endeavour to show my efforts to you on here next week. Look at the home learning this week on the school web page... it's spring flowers! fab ideas to try at home. 

. I hope you are keeping in touch with each other and sharing ideas. Make sure you all stay safe x 

Monday 23rd March... Eagles' I hope you are well and have loved the spring sunshine this weekend. If you are at home, enjoy trying some of this week's activities placed on the school homepage on 'Birds' and look at any suggestions I have made on my home learning page.

Stay safe and I will be in touch soon .

 

Friday 20th March

This week has gone on as usual and the children have been working hard. We have been learning how to multiply fractions and find fractions of amounts, worked with Mrs David on our anti-bullying dance, produced some writing on 'The Iron Man' and had a go at archery.

Monday will be strange for all of us but I hope you all stay safe and keep in contact with each other via technology. Don't forget to keep checking in with the school web page and our home learning page for ideas to do at home.

Take care

Mrs Culpin 

Friday 13th March

 

Year 5 enjoyed Sport Relief 2020. From some of our class playing against the teachers in a netball match, running the Daily Mile with the Year 1 class, to trying new sports such as pop lacrosse. orienteering and goal ball , it was a great sporting day.

 

 

This week we have been on our bikes practising our skills to earn our Bikeability badge. The children were fantastic listening to the instructors and improving every day when out and about on the roads.

Friday 6th March

Following on from our Huntingdon trip, Eagles travelled to Ely to continue our learning about Oliver Cromwell. We visited the house where he lived and found out more about him. We are now going to be writing about whether we consider him to be a hero or a villain in British history. We also visited the cathedral where Oliver Cromwell collected the tithes for the Church. We had a lovely tour listening to how the cathedral has changed over time and the different people associated with the building. We even got to have a go at brass rubbing.

 

Holding an actual cannon ball and wearing replica helmets

Dressing as 17th century people

Finding out about the kitchen

Laying down on the floor to see the magnificent ceiling of the cathedral

Having a go at brass rubbing

 

 

Friday 28th February

On Tuesday Eagles' travelled to Huntingdon by bus to get a sneak preview of the Cromwell Museum refurbishment, which officially opens Sunday. They were able to see original documents and artefacts about Oliver Cromwell, listen to local historians tell us about what the Civil War was like and even got to dress as they would have in 17th century England. 

Dressing up 

looking at what fighting was like in the Civil War

Holding an original musketball found at Marston Moor

Talking to Stuart, the local historian, about what Cromwell was like

Finding out about  Cromwell from portraits and artefacts

 

I hope you all have an enjoyable half term break. Can't quite believe we have already done half an academic year!

Just a reminder that on Tuesday 25th February we are going to the Cromwell Museum. I shall remind the children of things on Monday but they will need coats, packed lunch and drink.

Friday 14th February

Our Op Art final pieces using the skills we have been trying to master in lessons. I hope you agree they look great.

 

Friday 7th February

Eagles enjoy their PE. We have been developing our skills in hockey and investigating rebound and press and go actions in gymnastics using the apparatus.

 We also love the story of Macbeth and have been working on our witches spell, trying to use the rhyming couplets and seven syllables that Shakespeare had written in.

We created a shadow puppet drama of the opening part of the story; writing the dialogue and making the card puppets.

Friday18th January.

We experienced a new sport in our PE lessons this week - table tennis. Alex Facey from Huntingdon Table tennis Club came into school to help develop our skills. There was definitely lots of concentration on everyones face and we look forward to improving over the next few weeks.

 

Welcome back everyone. It was lovely to see so many happy faces on the first day back. Although it is only the first week back we have been busy! 

The children were really proud to present their cheque for £200 to Magpas in assembly on Monday.

Tuesday saw Lisa, a scientist, come to tell us all about our brain and how it works. We made a brain hat and got to see a lamb's brain. It was so interesting to find out about how different parts of the brain control different aspects such as personality or our sight.

Our science topic for this half term is Light and we started by

investigating how light travels.

Zach and his sister have been collecting crisp packets to recycle for charity. During the christmas holidays they were able to give the 3000 crisp packets to Little Paxton Nature Reserve, a place they both enjoy going to and £20 to the Tapping House Hospice that cared for their Grandad. Well done guys we are extremely proud of you. 

 

Autumn 2019

I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a peaceful New Year. Enjoy the time together and I will see you on Monday 6th January 2020!

Wednesday 18th December

We teamed up with Year 1 to make our Christmas hats. Great fun fingerprinting penguins! 

The last day of the Autumn term and we took our Year 1 hat buddies into Christmas lunch. It was lovely to see Year 5  helping the younger children.

 

Friday 13th December

Our cake stall for Magpas was a tremendous success. We raised just over £200 for this worthwhile charity. I was so proud of all the children.

 

 

 

Friday 6th December

Our work on the heart led us to investigate how much fat is in the processed food we eat. We looked at the labels on the packaging and weighed how much fat was in there. We were certainly surprised by the results.

We thoroughly enjoyed making our bread this week. We had brought in special ingredients to add to the basic dough. Firstly, we made the dough and kneaded it really well, so it would rise.

We then added our ingredients. Some of us chose sweet things such as chocolate, fudge and raisins whilst others made a savoury roll with ingredients such as olives  sausage and egg and rosemary. We shaped them into plaits, knots, simple rolls and we even had a tortoise and a rabbit!

We then baked them in the oven and the best bit of tasting them. They were certainly yummy!

 

Friday 29th November

The children  demonstrated their learning on the heart brilliantly during the class assembly. I was really proud of them. 

Friday 22nd November

On Thursday we had a visit from Sally who is a paramedic with Magpas. She came and talked to us about Cardiac arrests and how we could recognise them. She then demonstrated what to do if we came across someone who had suffered a cardiac arrest. The children practised  the CPR technique on dummies and how to use a defibrillator. The children showed extreme interest through their relevant questioning. I was really impressed.

 

Friday 15th November

Rev Geoff came in to see us this week to talk to us about the Bible. We asked him lots of questions such as who wrote the gospels?, why were they written?, which Bible story was his favourite? He even told us the story of The Prodigal Son. Later on in the week we produced our own pieces of drama based on the parable of The Good Samaritan for kindness Week.

For Kindness Week our class went out to plant daffodil bulbs along the boundary of the field. We hope this will produce a riot of colour for everyone in spring.

 

This week we have looked at the Ancient Egyptian process of mummification and so we have begun to mummify an apple. We have covered pieces of apple in salt just as they did with bodies and we will see what happens to them. We will post our results in a few weeks.

Crisp packets galore! Zach and his sister Erin are collecting crisp packets to recycle in aid of the Norfolk Hospice who recently cared for their Grandad.They are doing an amazing job and have so far collected over 700 packets.

 

Friday 8th November

We are focussing on dance styles this half term during the modern era and this week we have been looking at the 1950s and rock and roll. The children enjoyed partnering up to try the Jive.

Last week we investigated bread from around the world, so this week we had a taste testing session of different types of bread. The children had to evaluate each bread according to its appearance, taste, texture and aroma. Some of us didn't want our dinner because the breads were so yummy!

We have been investigating pyramids this week. We have written a report on pyramids and on the final day of the week we had a morning of Egyptian maths. We calculated using hieroglyphics, worked out the area of tombs, calculated the number of lego bricks needed to build a certain sized pyramid and drew a net of a pyramid. I don't think we were as precise as the Ancient Egyptians!

Friday 1st November

We started the half term by looking at how exercise affects our pulse rate. We ran our daily mile and then took our pulse rates every minute to see what happened. We then plotted the data on a line graph.

Wednesday was the Halloween disco and year 5 had great fun dressing up and we loved dressing Mrs Culpin up as a mummy.

 

Friday 18th October

We had our final play leading session with Mrs David from Hunts SSP. We had designed our own games to be used with children.This was a culmination of all the skills we had been taught over the last 6 weeks. We showed how we could project our voices well, explain rules clearly, work together in teams and cooperate and demonstrate our listening skills. Great job Year 5. You'll be wonderful play leaders.

Friday 11th October

Congratulations to Raffy for becoming the first millionaire of the school year - 15 quizzes taken and so far the word count stands at 1,291,428.

Over the last few weeks we have been developing our sketching skills. We have looked at faces and how to draw in proportion. We think we have done a brilliant job.

 

Friday 4th October

Thank you to everyone for the donations for the Harvest assembly. We recited a poem called 'Autumn' with clear voices. Well done Eagles!

Friday 27th September

We have been scientists this week.

On Wednesday Mr Jones, a scientist came to tell us all about DNA and genomes. There were lots of questions being asked - 'Do germs have DNA?', 'Can you see DNA?' , 'What is it made from?'

We had a go at making an origami DNA strand- really tricky! We then extracted DNA from a strawberry which was fascinating to do and then we made DNA bracelets.

 

On Friday Mr Maclennan from St Peters School visited us to disect a lamb's heart. He was helped by some of his Sixth form students. We were able to see the inside of the heart; the chambers, the tendons and the different arteries through which the blood flows. We even got to see a pair of lungs and Mr Maclennan inflated them by blowing through a tube. This is certainly a science lesson Year 5 will not forget.

Friday 20th September

We've been sporty this week and have been learning more about flag football; developing our throwing and catching and the different plays you can have.

Our first sports morning led by Year 6 was really fun.

Whilst our play leader work with Mrs David saw us trying to use our voices effectively rather than shout!

Friday 13th September

First full week back and we have been working hard. We have already written a Big Write based on the book 'The Butterfly Lion' by Michael Morpurgo.

We have started our play leader training with Mrs David and had an introduction to flag football with Mr Johnson. In gymnastics we have been creating some paired compositions using balances and travelling.

We have also been looking at Growth Mindset and how our brain develops and the ways in which we can tackle our learning using a growth not a fixed mindset.

Our science this term is the circulatory system and we investigated where our heart and lungs are in our bodies in relation to the digestive system that was studied in year 4.

 

Welcome back to school and welcome to year 5 everyone. It has been a great start to the term and the children have come back ready to work hard and already I can see they will make a fabulous year 5.

Please do not hesitate to speak to me if there is anything you are concerned about or I could help with and we can arrange a meeting if necessary. 

Please note our PE sessions this half term will be Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.