Year 5

Stations of the Cross

For our last week in school before Easter, year 5 have been focusing on how we remember Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice for us. In RE, we firstly discussed how Judas betrayed Jesus and what his motivations might have been. We used a conscience alley exercise to replicate the thoughts and feelings he may have had in the ‘Garden of Gethsemane’.

We then went to the stations of the cross in the Holy Hall to learn about the path that Jesus bore on his way to the crucifixion. We learned about Jesus enduring suffering, insults, moments of support, and ultimately, the intense sacrifice.

On Thursday in math, we conducted an investigation which involved putting our creativity skills to the test. We each had to make a paper airplane and fly it! We measured the wingspan of our planes and compared it to the distance it flew. The next step is to make our scatter graphs to decide whether there will be a correlation between the two. Do you think there will be?

Annabel…have a great birthday!

Have a fantastic break! See you after Easter.

-Mrs Kelly

A Hawkhirst Holiday

Year 5 have had THE BEST week! We have all fully embraced our outdoor experience atHawkhirst activity centre. When we first arrived, we shot straight down to the lake for our first activity; bell boating. The children worked in three teams to paddle around the lake and visit different destinations. We then had the campfire after dinner which involved lots of singing and dancing!

On Thursday, we rotated around three activities: zip wire, crate stacking and rifle shooting. Some of us adrenaline junkies had no problems at all but some of us really stepped up to face our fears! After that, we worked in smaller teams to do orienteering using map skills, team work and endurance! Our late night activity was a night hike with lots of interesting stories about the camp…I’m not quite sure all of them were true! We then chilled out with a movie and hot chocolate all together.

Finally, on our last day, we went into the forest for bush craft. This included starting fires using flints, cooking bread on an open fire and (the competition of the century) den building!

The children all behaved excellently and were a credit to St. Charles’. They learned tangible outdoor skills, worked and lived collaboratively and took responsibility for themselves. We have all had an amazing, invaluable outdoor experience and faced challenges we never have before!

Thanks, Year 5! See you next week.

-Mrs Kelly

STEAM Careers Fair

On Friday, year 5 visited the Discovery Museum in Newcastle to attend the careers fair. This was great for the children to see what jobs and opportunities are out there for when they are older. Thanks to all of our parent helpers who made this trip possible!

Also this week, the children continued to work on their badminton skills. We are really starting to improve our serving and hand-eye co-ordination.

Thanks for all of your hard work this week year 5! Get plenty of rest this weekend as – next week – we’re off to Hawkhirst!

See you Monday!

-Mrs Kelly

World Book Day!

We had such a great time on Thursday celebrating world book day. Your outfits were fantastic and we had a great time showing them all off in our assembly outfit parade. Thanks to all of you who joined us for breakfast; it was great to see parents and children eating together and discussing and reading all sorts of books!

Year 5 and 6 got together in the morning to read a book called ‘The Watertower’. It was pretty creepy…tell your parents why! We analysed the images and language used in the book to show how the author created a spine-chilling atmosphere.

We then wrote our own interpretation from the perspective of Bubba. We explored what we thought really happened down there in that tank. What’s your theory?

In the afternoon, we tried our hand at design technology. Our challenge was to make our own water tower which was at least 30cm high and could hold at least 200ml of water independently. We followed the sequence of plan, make, evaluate and worked in teams of three or four to see which group could make the sturdiest tower. Henry M, Finn and Hannah prevailed! Well done to everyone for your thoughtful discussions and design skills.

Have a great weekend! See you next week.

-Mrs Kelly

Just Is!

This week, the year 5’s were invited to the ‘Just Is’ conference at St. Mary’s RC Secondary School. The children took part in a variety of workshops including learning about various ecological issues and what we can do to help. The day also included taking part in some sports activities. The children had great fun and even got to meet someone from ‘The Dumping Ground’; some of us were completely starstruck!

Have a great weekend everyone. I hope you have a good birthday, Ben!

-Mrs Kelly

Sport Sensations

Year 5 have had another great week in the build up to half term. The highlight, for some children, was taking part in the In2Hockey and the 5-a-side football competitions. All of the players in both squads played fantastically and worked so well together as a team!

In topic, we used a variety of sources to research Henry VIII’s four children. People often only know about three of them…can you think of why? We looked in particular at primary and secondary sources and debated on which ones we can rely on the most.

In RE, we have been exploring the religion of Islam and focusing on two of the five pillars; Ramadan and the Hajj. Ramadan is where Muslims choose to fast in order to bring them closer to Allah and so that they can spend time thinking of those less fortunate. It is a little like when we fast during Lent! The Hajj is an important pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims have to do at least once in their lifetime. Can you remember what the pilgrims have to do whilst they are there?

I’ve had a fantastic 6 weeks with year 5. Thank you for all of your hard work and have a well deserved rest during half term!

-Mrs Kelly

Chinese New Year!

This afternoon, the children all went into house groups to learn about Chinese New Year. In St. Hilda’s house, we learned how to write ‘Happy New Year’ in Chinese and then make our very own Chinese New Year cards. Thank you so much to the year 5 and 6 children who helped the little ones with their cards!

Our Mandarin lesson on Friday morning gave us a bit of a head start on learning about the Chinese New Year!

We also had a cake sale and non-uniform day today to raise money for the Youth Mission Team. Thank you to all of the parents and children who donated and bought cakes.

Tuesday was safer internet day. The theme this year was consent so we considered different situations we might find ourselves in online and discussed what would be the right thing to do. We then made pledges to ensure we are always surfing safe!

In topic this week, we were exploring the different Tudor homes and where they were located in England. We used atlases to study both the human and physical geography of the United Kingdom. Can you remember the difference between human and physical geography?

In science, we continued our ‘animals including humans’ topic. We researched the gestation periods of humans and compared it to other animals. Can you remember which mammal has the longest gestation period?

Thanks for working your socks off this week year 5! Have a great weekend.

-Mrs Kelly