Year 5: Working together to carry out a scientific experiment linked to water resistance.

We worked together to set up our experiment and used the scientific equipment safely.
What happens when we drop these different 3D shapes?
We found out about the effect of water resistance on the falling shapes. We thought about our findings from our investigation and drew conclusions about why our results happened.

Into University Week

Last week, 6CD took part in a focus week, put on by the lovely people at Into University. We spent 3 days with them at the local community centre where we learnt about different icons in the creative arts area. We had a product designer called Ole Christiansen, a fashion designer called Stella Jean, a writer named Jacqueline Woodson and Bruno Reddy, who created the app Times Table Rock Stars. We worked together in our groups to make posters and presentations about our famous person. On Wednesday, we took a trip to the Sainsburys centre of visual arts to walk around the different galleries. We made our own zines (mini magazines) about the art we had seen but with different prompts to make our art unique. On Thursday, we spoke about the different university options available to us and where we would go when we are older. We learnt about lots of new courses we didn’t know existed or that we could study. On Friday, we got a tour around the University of East Anglia and the presented our new knowledge to parents and carers that came along. After this, we ‘graduated’ from our mini creative arts degree of the week.

Visit from Steve Skidmore

On Thursday the 5th of October, we were visited by our patron of reading, Steve Skidmore. Steve worked with us in the morning to talk through his re-telling of MacBeth, and helped us the understand the story a little better. We then took part in a Drama exercise with him, where we were in groups of 3 and got the chance to be the weird sisters (witches) in the story. We had a script to work from but got to add our own personal touches with how we delivered it. Some groups chose to put on voices, others used props and few added movement into their piece.

Welcome to our 2023/2024 Year 5 Blog

Year 5 Trip to Norwich- ‘Our Fine City’

We went to visit the centre of Norwich. Once there we were given a number of challenges to complete on our trip. These included:

  • Visiting Norwich Market
  • Creating a map of key Norwich landmarks that can be viewed from the top of the market.
  • Going on a George Skipper building hunt to think about how one architect can make a difference to one city.
  • Viewing the George Skipper’s botanical tiles in the Royal Arcade.
  • Sketching the botanical tiles to provide inspiration for our printing designs once back in school.
  • Investigating the modern Norwich streets for historical clues as well as journeying underground to find out what hidden secrets lie beneath our feet.

Butterflies

A few weeks ago we had some little caterpillars. They slowly grew and then began to change and formed a chrysalis. After a few more days the butterflies nibbled their way out. Before flight, they had to dry their wings and refuel on sweet water and fruit. Once strong and healthy the butterflies were released into the wild. We loved studying the butterflies in real life and this informed our understanding of life cycles.

Patron of Reading Visit: Macbeth Workshop

What a fabulous workshop. We loved learning about Macbeth in our taster session and are really looking forward to taking part in the Macbeth drama workshop when we are in Year 6. Steve Skidmore also had lunch with the Year 4 children and held to Awards Assemblies in the afternoon. We found out that one of the Year 5 classes had read the most words in the school and that one Year 5 child had gained their ‘Millionaire Reader Badge’. Well done everyone and keep reading.

Garden Project

The school has been working in partnership with the ‘Garden Project’. As part of this project we have planted trees with the Year 4’s at the bottom of our field and have attended a range of workshops to find out more about the Science and Geography of our local environment. Here are a few photographs from our day.

UEA Drama Project

Students from the UEA planned, lead and delivered interactive workshops for the class. The children fine tuned their listening skills and had the opportunity to take part in drama games, improvisations and a scavenger hunt outside. Some of the children felt nervous at first but were motivated to have a go and showed bravery when performing in front of others.

Marvellous Macaroni Cheese

As part of our cooking and nutrition curriculum we continued to build our knowledge of what we need to eat to stay healthy. We discussed the three different types of carbohydrates and know that humans get energy from carbohydrates.

To develop our LIFE SKILLS we used measured out our own ingredients. To do this we used a range of measuring equipment and worked together to apply our maths skills to read scales in grams and millilitres. We also set the oven temperature and used a timer and clock to know when our delicious dish was ready.

Cooking macaroni cheese meant that we were able to practise:

  • Looking for bubbles when boiling water
  • Tucking in our knuckles when grating the cheese!
  • Making a roux and watching what happens when you add cheese to the butter and flour.
  • Baking in the oven.
  • Eating together in a community.

Throughout the session we made certain that we kept safe and followed high levels of hygiene (hand washing, hair back, aprons etc.)

Our cooking session and end results can be seen below.

Grating is serious business.
Sprinkling over an extra layer of cheese.
Ready to be baked. In the oven it goes.
Times up, gloves on and ready to take our Mac & Cheese out of the oven.
Eating together- mmmm.
Enjoying our delicious food with friends.

West Earlham Junior School
Scarnell Road, Norwich NR5 8HT

Telephone: 01603 454569
Email: office@westearlhamjunior.norfolk.sch.uk

Headteacher: Mrs Catrin Eyers
School Business Manager: Mrs Beverley Savage