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 12th July

After a week of really miserable weather it was good to be out walking again on Saturday. It's amazing how much I missed the blue skies we were having.

It was lovely to see you on Tuesday last week.  I'm sure some of you had grown (as well as your hair!) Mrs Lemons and I certainly have missed all your chatter. Did you manage to recognise yourself from the class emoji picture?

Thank you also for the lovely cards and gifts.

I hope you all have a brilliant summer and good luck to Raffy in his new school. Take care Eagles and when I see you next you will be Hawks!

Best wishes Mrs Culpin x

Saturday 4th July

As the weather has been a bit changeable of late my family and I have not been in the garden as much, so we have been watching the Harry Potter series of films again and playing scrabble a lot. I wonder  have you seen some interesting films whilst at home or playing games with your family?

I have enjoyed seeing all your efforts on Purple Mash and it is great to see so many of you still keeping up with your mathletics.  I must also say congratulations to Chloe for her prize in a story writing competition. It was an amazing story and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

Mrs lemons and I look forward to seeing you if you are coming to our class catch up on Tuesday 7th

Take care x

 

Sunday 28th June

Morning Eagles! i'ts a bit blustery as I write this but a brisk walk will certainly be in order today. A few of my garden pots blew over in the wind but my tomato plants are coming on nicely. Can't wait for my first juicy sweet home-grown ones -much nicer than the supermarket tomatoes.

Over the weekend I have started getting back to tracing my family tree, which is a hobby I have taken up in recent years. It is fascinating where and who my husband and I descend from. The Culpin name is a fairly easy name to track and there are a few fascinating characters I've come across.  I wonder if your family know your ancestors.

 

I hope you all have a good week and are enjoying some elements of the home learning. This week there is a whole school sporting challenge week for activities that you can challenge yourself to and beat your personal best.

Take care and Mrs Lemons and I hope to see you all soon.

Mrs Culpin x

 

Saturday 20th June

Hello Eagles. Hope you are all well. It has been a busy week in the Culpin household. My son celebrated his 22nd birthday this week and I know 3 of you have had your birthdays already this month. Nearly all my Eagles have turned 10 - only a couple of you to go!

I hope you spend tomorrow looking after your Dad for Father's Day. We will be making lunch for my husband and I will be facetiming my dad to say hello.

Have a good week and remember if you are doing the activities on purple mash send me a message. I love keeping in touch. I really did enjoy playing your labyrinths last week. and seeing some of your Greek posters. 

Take care x

Mrs Culpin

 

Sunday 14th June

Happy Sunday everyone! It looks like the weather is starting to warm up again which is great. That means we will all be outside enjoying ourselves hopefully. I certainly have this weekend. My family and I went for an 8 mile cycle ride yesterday. Unfortunately my husband's tyre burst a mile from home so we had to walk the last bit!

I hope you have been out and about in your area or in your garden. Cricket has been played in ours of course- but I'm not sure this fielder is going to be much of a help!

My tomatoes are also nicely growing in my garden ,so I'm looking forward to a bumper crop.

During an early morning stroll we looked in on the Houghton cygnets. They were having a rest after going for an early morning dip.

 

Have a lovely week Eagles. Enjoy the sunshine, keep smiling and take care

Mrs Culpin x

Sunday 7th June

Morning Eagles! Well the weather has certainly changed a bit and by the end of the week I was digging out my big jumpers. I have been busy in school this week with Mrs Grant, Miss Marshall and Vicky (from Phoenix Club). Mrs Lemons has been in the office all week helping Mrs Brown, where she has been learning all sorts of new things.

 

This weekend my family and I visited Holme Fen as we thought the woods would be a great place to shelter if it rained. We were right! Whilst walking we came across a beautiful patch of foxgloves; colour in a sea of green. We also spotted different fungi.

Did you know? This post was put into the ground in 1850 and the top of the post was at ground level then .Today, 170 years later, the post is completely visible and shows how much the land has shrunk . Incredible!

I hope you are enjoying some of the home learning activities that I have been putting on. I love reading your messages when you add them to your purple mash pieces. 

Make sure you keep busy, help your mums and dads, keep smiling and stay safe. 

Best wishes Mrs Culpin and Mrs Lemons x

 

Saturday 30th May

What fabulous weather we have had this half term. I bet lots of you have been out and about with your family or having fun in the garden. I have been doing the same. I have continued walking with my family and even managed a long cycle ride. Last week I told you that I was going to do some DIY and I have managed to put a new door number up and re-grout my patio - I did help honestly! It has been a bit warm for baking but I did bake a batch of biscoff cookies...lovely when warm and gooey!

Home Learning is back on Eagles page for you to look at and attempt at home after the break. I shall be back in school now teaching in the childcare setting. 

Enjoy your week, stay safe, have fun and make sure you stay in touch with each other

Mrs Culpin x

Sunday 24th May

The start of half term Eagles and I hope you and your families are well. I spent all last week in school looking after the children in the childcare setting. The weather was glorious and at times too hot. I am definitely looking forward to a break and plan on walking lots, baking and doing some DIY! (well I will be instructing Mr Culpin!)  Mrs Lemons will be doing work in her garden as it looks like the weather will be sunny.

I hope you have lots of fun things planned with your family.

Take care x

Mrs Culpin and Mrs Lemons

 

Sunday 17th May

Hello again Eagles! Another busy week for us all. As you may have seen on the school webpage I have been washing all the Houghton team shirts, football kit and netball bibs ready for when we can get back to playing all those sports and games you love. I have also cleared all the PE euipment in school and tidied up the cupboards and as I was doing this I was  thinking about our play leading work we did with Mrs David way back in the Autumn term. How wonderful you all were in devising games and adapting them for younger children. I look forward to seeing you in action with this when we are allowed to.

I have been busy in my garden as well this week and decided to practice my photography. Here are some of the wonderful colours in my garden.

I wish you all a good week. It looks like it's going to be a lovely one in terms of the weather, so make sure you get out and be active. Maybe try some of the PE activities on our year 5 home learning.

Take care lovely Eagles

Mrs Culpin and Mrs Lemons x

 

Sunday 10th May

Good morning Eagles! Another glorious week of sunshine and I know you have been keeping active. I hope you all enjoyed the VE celebrations where you live on Friday. The street where I live had a socially distanced afternoon tea with 1940s music and bunting everywhere.

 

The picture of my family has the Canadian flag instead of the Union Jack as my Grandfather was born in Canada and fought in North Africa during WWII , so it was in memory of him.

It was lovely to speak to some of you this week during my calls to your family and finding out things you are doing to keep yourself happy. Some of you have been perfecting your footballing or artistic skills, learning to cook meals or having music lessons via a virtual platform. I wonder if you have taken up something new? I have spoken to one of you who has started learning a new language! I have taken up yoga whilst I have been at home and for my birthday I received a yoga mat.to practise on.

Enjoy this coming week and the home learning that I've put on for you. I loved looking at your 2animates by the way. Stay safe and happy and enjoy family time.

Take care.

  Mrs Culpin and Mrs Lemons x

 

Sunday 3rd May

Hello Eagles. Well the weather has certainly been different this last week. - lots of dodging rain showers and puddle jumping. I was busy in school this week looking after some children whilst their mums and Dads were working. 

Since we last saw each other 6 weeks ago 3 of you have had a birthday. I am sure it is certainly a 10th birthday you will remember. but I hope you had a wonderful time celebrating with family. Mrs Lemons and I will both be celebrating our birthdays this week and I am definitely looking forward to birthday cake!

Mrs Lemons wanted me to tell you that the ducks that were inhabiting her pond have now had 16 ducklings. 

I shall be making my phone calls this week so I may get to speak to some of you hopefully and you can tell me what you've been doing.  Look at the Year 5 home learning activities on our page as well as  Mrs Maclennan's space activities on the main Houghton page to keep you all busy. 

Enjoy the week, stay safe and keep happy!

Best wishes  Mrs Culpin and Mrs Lemons x

 

Sunday 26th April

Well my lovely Eagles what lovely weather we have been having and I can imagine you have all been outside making the most of it. I certainly have. I very much enjoyed speaking to many of you this week during my phone calls to your homes. It was lovely to hear what you have all been up to. 

Mrs Lemons has been in school this week and has been very busy but has had time to make bread which she is loving. She has also been in her garden and has been joined by the ducks and frogs from her pond. Mrs lemons has also been enjoying walks around her village with her husband.

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I have been  walks around the meadows and when I need a bit of quiet time I get my colouring book out. It really helps me to sit still and relax rather than rush around all the time.

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This week has even seen me change profession and become a bit of a hairdresser!. My son desperately needed a haircut so out came my clippers. It wasn't a disaster thank goodness!

 

I wonder if you have seen on the school facebook or twitter page the wonderful footage of the badgers on our school field. When I was in school 3 weeks ago you could tell they had been very active. Check out the link below of the videos Mrs Read's husband managed to catch with a camera he set up.

https://tinyurl.com/ybynn7gc

I hope you all have a good week and are finding the new home learning I have put on interesting. Don't forget there are also ideas on the main page of the website on a theme. This week it's water where there are great ideas but I know you lot are inventive and can think of other things based around the theme. Stay safe and keep smiling ;)

Best wishes Mrs Culpin and Mrs Lemons

 

Sunday 19th April

Good morning EaglesI I hope you are all well  I have been busy baking more goodies for my family - bakewell tart and biscoff cookies - and I have an idea that I may produce a lockdown recipe book and I am sure you all may have recipes that have kept you busy and you have enjoyed making.

My family and I have also enjoyed a table top fussball tournament but I'm sure as you can expect with my sporty, competitive children I didn't win many games!  I hope you have been playing lots of wonderful games and quizzes with your family. We even did a quiz virtually with other people- great fun.

Before I forget here are the answers to the Easter teasers I left you with:

1. The Easter Bunny can only carry 3 eggs at once. He has to choose 3 eggs from the following colours: Red, Green or Blue.

How many possible ways can the Easter Bunny carry the eggs?

(He can carry the same colour more than once)

RRR     GGG    BBB

RRG     GGR    BBG

RRB     GGB    BBR

RGB

2)   A  4 x £5 = £20       B  3 x £7 =21     C 6 x £3.50 = £21   so A is cheapest to get 12 eggs

3)  80 children x 2 =160 eggs   27 x 6 packs = 162  so I need 6 packs

Don't forget to look at the new theme for this week - Trees or look at our own home learning page for Year 5 work. I might even get to speak to some of you over the coming week as I make my calls to your family.

Enjoy your week Eagles.

Best wishes Mrs Culpin and Mrs Lemons

Sunday 12th April

Hello Eagles! it has been a glorious week this week and I hope you have all been making the most of the sunshine going out in the garden or out walking or on your bikes. This week I have been catching up with your families and it was lovely to hear from your mum and dads all the great things you have been doing. It was lovely to even speak with some of you. How I miss all the Eagles chatter!

This week as well as some school work I have been attempting a 1000 piece jigsaw - it certainly kept me busy. I also attempted Hot Cross buns for the first time and they tasted wonderful, even if I do say so myself.  

Enjoy all the Easter goodies you may have, love the time with your families, keep up with lots of interesting activities, keep in touch with each other and stay safe

With lots of best wishes to you all

Mrs Culpin x

Sunday 5th April

Morning Eagles! I hope you enjoyed yesterday in the sun. I have just been for a lovely walk across the meadows with my family. It was so warm That I even took my coat off. Mrs Lemons says hello to you and she has been enjoying time walking with her family too.

I hope you have been busy this week doing some of the flower activities. I managed to do some drawing this week of tulips in my garden and whilst I was at school had an attempt at printing with celery.  

 

I also have been growing some radish and lettuce seeds on my windowsill, so they need to be repotted this week.

It's not flower related but flour related ! (bad Mrs Culpin joke)I made a batch of chocolate cookies yesterday. Delicious! I wonder if any of you have been busy in the kitchen this week.

 

It is lovely to see so many of you have logged onto Mathletics this week and well done to those who got over 1000 points. Some of you have done even more. I'm so pleased you are keeping up with your maths work .It will be such a benefit when we come back together.

I hope you all have a great week leading up to Easter ... be helpful, be kind and  be happy .Keep well and safe. Don't forget to look at the Easter themed activities to try at home

Mrs Culpin x 

 

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.