2018-2019

Mission: Complete

Year 5 children are proud to present their completed trenches.

Progress on the Front Line

This week we have carried on with building our own model trenches, they have now been painted and at the  moment we are working on the finer details to bring our models to life. We have been creating soldiers, sandbags, barricades, bridges, beds and even rats! We have working hard in our groups, taking responsibility for each area.

Maddie: It has been a really fun project as you get to be so creative, working with different materials to make little parts each.

Nicky: I am really enjoying making the trenches as we get to make so many different things, it has been really fun and it is going to look so good.

Sammy: This project is very fun as you can interact with other people to figure out how to create the ideas in our mind, some of it has been tricky but we are working well together.

Magdalena: This work has been very creative, we have learnt so much about WW1 that we have so many ideas. Everyone has been really clever and brought lots of stuff in from home to make stuff, the class is a bit messy but Miss O'Toole doesn't mind.

Kieran: It has been one of my favourite projects, it has been so exciting. It is really fun to create something new out of nothing.  

Terrific Trenches

Year 5 have begun working on their summer term Design and Technology project to build model of a WW1 trench. Last week we designed our trenches, discussing layout an resources we would use and have been collecting resources from home all week. Today we started to build the land of our trenches by recycling paper and PVA glue to build it up. Have a look at the beginning stages of our project below and make sure you keep checking for updates.

New(ton)

This term in science, we have been looking at forces, last week we explored the difference between a push and a pull. We also looked at the different forces acting on an object at any one time and this week we looked at one force more carefully, gravity. We explored how gravity is measured in newtons, mass is measured in kilograms. We then conducted an experiment into the relationship between the two, to find out if there is any link. We found out that the greater the mass of an object resulted in greater weight, we think gravity has to apply more force to heavier objects so they will weigh more.

Easter Assembly

St. Peter performed their Easter Assembly today and it was absolutely fantastic. We have been working on our drama, speaking and singing for two whole weeks and it was clear all our hard work had paid off. We put on an amazing performance that absolutely stunned the audience and made our teachers, Miss O'Toole and Mrs Keskin, very proud. We would like to say a very big thank you to Mr Gamage for all is help preparing us and for coming in to play the piano for us.  

Clay Crosses

As part of art we used clay to make crosses that we will be selling as part of our Lenten fundraising. St. Peter decided to make cards and crosses as we felt they could be wonderful symbols of Christ's love for us. Our finished products will be on sale after our Easter assembly, you can have a sneak peek below.

Keep Fit!

Today we were joined by Olympic medal winner, Steve Frew. The gymnast came in to speak to us about inspiration, working hard and achieving a dream. Then we had a HIIT session to work on our fitness. We had four very hard exercises to do for 60 seconds before going straight into the next one. It was great fun but quite hard work! 

Tasty and Healthy

Today, St. Peter cooked a very tasty vegetarian pasta sauce as part of PSHE, this was linked to our science (animals, including humans) as well as our topic (hobbies). In order to make this we had to work very hard chopping up a lot of delicious vegetables. We all had a great time preparing it, but an even better time eating it! 

Reported by Megan S and Millie 

World Book Day

Today St. Dominic's joined in the celebration of World Book Day. As always, year 5 was very keen to dress up and show off their creative sides. Lot's of us dressed up in a range of fantastic costumes, but one person stood out for exceptional effort and one our class prize for best costume. We also enjoyed a range of book day themed activities throughout the day from the day from book themed maths puzzles, to tasks to unlock different books.

Making Music at the CLC

Year 5 had a fantastic visit to the CLC where they used very sophisticated software to make their own music. We were very focused the whole day and used our musical knowledge to help create beats and rhythm. We had a fantastic time with Rod, our teacher for the day, whilst we creating some fantastic music.

You can listen to our masterpieces on the CLC website:

http://camdenmusic.wixsite.com/musictech/st-dom-y5

Pok-Ta-Pok

This week in English we have been learning all about procedural texts and how they are used to explain and instruct people on how to make, play or cook something. We will be writing a procedural text about playing pok-ta-pok, an ancient Mayan we learnt about in our Hero Twins narrative. So today we actually got to play pok-ta-pok, it was really fun but quite tricky to get used to. Some of the rules are; not being able allowed to use hands or feet, not to cross the dividing line and how to score points.

We will be using what we learn from this game to write our procedural text.

Reported by Nicky

Year 5 and 6 visit Parliament

Following on from our learning about Parliament last half term, year 5 and 6 visited Parliament to have a look inside the House of Lords and the House of Commons.  It was really exciting to have a chance to actually step into Parliament and see it in action. We had to go through a lot f security to get in, luckily we passed, then we met our fantastic guides who took us on a tour of the building itself.

We visited the lobby first and many of the side rooms, before going into the great hall, which was the inspiration for Hogwarts. Along the way we saw a lot of interesting aspects of UK history represented through artefacts and art. Then we visited the House of Commons and observed a debate on legal aid from the gallery, one group was lucky enough to spot the Prime Minister as she walked through. We quickly travelled to the House of Lords which was much more full and they were having a discussion about fire safety following the Grenfell Tower fire. Afterwards, we had a workshop on Laws and Debating and acted out creating our own bill and taking it through each step before it could become a law. It was a brilliant day and we feel very privileged to have had such an opportunity.

Reported by Joshua, Megan S and Brooke

Megan A - It was the best trip I've been on! It was amazing to actually watch the MP's and Lords debating issues. Some of us even got to see Theresa May as she passed through the commons, she looked very busy.

Nicky- My favourite part was the workshop at the end that was all about laws and debating. I especially enjoyed the quiz which was all about the political issues around the world.

Maria R - I really enjoyed it, we were very lucky as only 250 schools get to go during the year. I learnt a lot and was really happy to walk in the same room that Guy Fawkes had walked. Everything was really interesting especially getting to step foot in the actual houses and see a vote taking place.

Joshua - I was amazed to get to step inside and see a day inside Parliament, it was really busy with lot's of MP's taking part in debates and votes. The building was huge and we had to do a lot of walking but it was worth it.

The Hero Twins

This week in English we have been exploring our Mayan myth, The Hero Twins by studying the setting and the characters and describing these elements of the story in our own writing. Today we used drama to help us plan our own narratives of the Mayan heroes. We worked in small groups becoming the characters and acted out each part of our story in detail and recorded our ideas to help us with our writing. In the next week we will be using these plans to write our stories of 'The Fire House.'

In the meantime have a look at our drama session below.

Circuits in Science

Today in science we learnt about electrical circuits, particularly simple circuits. We connected the wires and batteries to make the light bulb light up. Then we added a second light bulb, then we realised that the battery did not have not have enough power to light up both the light bulbs, so after we added a another battery to make  it very bright. We really enjoyed this lesson and hopefully we can do it again!

Reported by Ava-Marie

Happy Christmas from St. Peter

Today was Christmas dress up day in St. Peter and we all had a great day. From a visit from Santa, to lantern making and of course a fantastic Christmas dinner served by Dan and the kitchen staff.

Have a look at our day below!

Speech Off by Cristiano

Today we had a competition held in years 5 and 6 for the best speech. We have been writing and preparing speeches for the last few weeks as you have seen on our class page. Today we got together and heard the best speeches from both classes. They were all fantastic, I'd rate them 10 out of 10!

At the end we had to vote for the best one in each class. Year 5 got together and chatted about the best year 6 speech and voted on a winner and year 6 did the same. It was a very hard decision but we feel confident the best speakers won and were rewarded with audiobooks of Tom Gates.

And the winners are...

Christmas Jumper Day- Reported by Giada

Christmas jumper day was really fun and enjoyable because we got see everyone's brilliants jumpers. It was great to raise for money for such a good cause, Crisis supports the homeless in London. At this time of year we were very happy to help such a deserving charity in a really fun way!

Have a look at us in our Christmas finest below!

Christmas Preparation

This week we have been preparing for Christmas by creating our own Christmas tree decorations. We linked this to our learning in Religion which is all about Advent, we each represented an aspect of the Christmas story on tracing paper and then laminated them. This means that light can shine through them and brighten them up, have a look at this very fun lesson below.

Carol Singing at the Almshouses

This week some of us visited the Almshouses to entertain the residents with some carol singing. We had a lovely time singing some of our Christmas songs and some classics for the amazing audience. We were joined on the piano by our very own music man Mr Gamage who has worked very hard with us to help us practise and prepare. We are very proud to represent our school in this way and have made our teachers very proud.

The Power of Words

Year 5 have been working hard on their speeches and have just completed their final draft. Which means we have now started to practise how we may say our speeches. We looked at some of our other favourite speakers and observed the strategies they used to deliver their speeches. The techniques we liked best were:

• movement
• gestures
• change of volume/tone
• pace
• pausing

We then started to look at our own speeches and how we might incorporate these techniques into our delivery.

Have a look at this in action below!

Books, Glorious Books!

Today was a great day because we got a bunch new of brilliant new books! We were able to get these books with the money raised from the book fair. Our class got many great books that are going to keep us reading for a long time. Our two personal favourites are 'World Football Records' and the 'Goosebumps' pack. We want to say a big thank you to our very supportive parents, who were so generous at the book fair.

Reported by James and Nicky

Reading Presentations by Teddy and Frida

For the past few reading lessons our class have been preparing powerpoints on our favourite authors. Today we shared each of our presentations with the class. Everyone managed to present lots of interesting information about these different storytellers and used wonderful voices and presentation. We are hoping to get better at this next week when we begin to practise our speeches.

Peterburger

Today we had a very exciting lesson, cooking. We prepared veggie burgers (chickpea and coriander) in groups and created our very own patties. The best part was mixing all the ingredients as it was really fun but quite messy! The worst part was cutting the onions, we had a very tearful class. 

Ava-Marie: This was my favourite lesson of the week. It made me feel like I was in secondary school and very responsible, it wasn't an easy thing to prepare so we were really challenged and at the end we got to eat some delicious and healthy burgers!

Book Fair

On Tuesday we visited the Scholastic Book Fair which is in school all week. We host a book fair to raise money to buy books for each class. We visited as a class so we could pick books out for our book corner and had some wonderful suggestions:

Nicky- The F2 Freestyler's Book

Freddie - The Christmasaurus

Ava-Marie - Biscuits, Bangs and Very Big Plans

Frida -  The Nutcracker

Joshua- Ratburger

Keiran - Goosebumps

All About The Author

This week in reading we have been researching the authors of some of our favourite books, Anne Fine, Anthony Horowitz, Philip Pullman, Gillian Cross and Michael Morpurgo. Today we used our collected information to create a power point presentation about our favourite authors life and work. We will be practising delivering these presentations over the next week so make sure you ask us about our favourite author in the meantime!

The Hook by Megan A

Today in writing we learned all about 'The Hook.' The hook is something people use in speeches to really get the audiences attention for their speech. Hook devices we explored are:

• the power of three
• imagine if
• shocking facts
• joke
• characterisation (acting out)
• question

My favourite hook was imagine if because I am writing a speech about poaching and I can really hook the audience by getting them to imagine world without these endangered animals and then tell them they won't have to imagine for much longer.

You can see some of the hooks we've been working on below.

Snowball Search

Today in English we began researching our chosen topics for our speech. We started off by writing our topic title in the centre of the page, we then scrunched those pages into balls, which we then threw into the air (just like throwing snowballs) and picked up a new ball. We opened that up and added new ideas to each topic we found. After repeating this a few times every topic had a lot of ideas so we handed them back to each other and used those ideas to begin our own research into the topic. It was a really fun activity and meant we all had a lot of ideas to inspire us and begin our research, no one was stuck!

Reported by Olivia and Oliwier

What's the Issue?

We have been learning about speeches so we looked at some issues the planet faces today. These are the environment, multicultural world, education and animal rights. People were really interested in animals rights. We used laptops and ipads to research these issues and found out some shocking information like the belief lions could be extinct by 2050 and 94%of people believe it should be illegal to use animals in a circus.

Read All About It

We have a dream...

This week year 5 began a new topic in English, speech. We were introduced to our topic today by exploring our initial ideas about a speech, before watching some. We watched a speech from a London school boy and Barack Obama and explored the different strands which made these speeches great.

We then looked at the four strands in greater depth and how these very different speech maker used very similar strategies to compose and deliver their speech.

After the whole class had a good understanding of the four strands, we created actions to help us remember what each strand entailed. Have a look at the strands and our explanations below.

Physical 

Keiran : The physical strand is how a speech maker uses their body and voice in their speech. They can use their body by acting things out (characterisation) and change the tone and volume of their voice.

Linguistic

Maddy: The linguistic  strand is all about the vocabulary and language they use to make their speech. They use words that are going to fit with their speech and the point they are trying to make!

Cognitive

Millie: Is all the thought and planning in the speech, they don't just make it up as they go along. They plan it beforehand by using content to make their point clear, they have a structure  and they give reasons for their point of view. In his speech, Daniel Edwards had thought of good examples that we all relate to in order to make his point.

Social and Emotional

Megan S: Is all about how the speaker appeals to the audience and relates to them, Barack Obama by telling a funny story. It's also about being confident in standing up and speaking with flair, both speakers clearly practised their speech so they knew exactly what to say and how to say it so people would pay attention.

Music Madness

Our cohort is known for their wonderful singing, we have always been a very musical year group but have shone in the last year as the school choir. This year we will be performing in the Camden Cluster Musical Festival again and we have already begun learning our songs. Mr Gamage, our wonderful music teacher, has been helping us practise.

Pen Licence Experience

I got my pen licence and I felt  really happy that all my hard work, practising every day and trying so hard, I have finally earned it! - Keiran

When I got my pen licence I was really happy because I worked really hard to improve my handwriting and it worked. - Mikel

Earning my pen licence makes me feel like an adult, I am really proud of myself as I knew if I worked hard I could do it and I did. - Sammy

I have been trying really hard to improve my handwriting and take my time. It took me a long time but the more I practised the better I got. I was really surprised I got my pen licence but I am amazed I have! - Malachi

Computing Mad

Today we visited the CLC for day of coding robots. We learnt how to control robots, we made them go forward, backwards and even turn. We were able to use sensors to make them stop before they hit the wall, we had a challenge to see which team could get closest to the wall without hitting it.

The winners were:

1st Place - Lily and James

2nd Place - Malachi and Teddy

3rd Place - Millie and Freddie

Have a look at our photos below and some of the videos as well!

Reported all of St. Peter

Multiplying by 10, 100 and 1000

This week we learnt about multiplying by 10, 100 and 1000. We started our lessons by using counters on place value chart, this is called concrete phase and we act out the math we are learning about. We quickly spotted a trick that makes multiplying by these numbers really easy, you simply add on the amount of zeros in the number. For example 34 x 10 = 340, this is because each digit will move one column larger on the PV chart and a '0' is inserted into the ones as a place holder, or you can just add the zero at the end. Some of us have explained out learning below.

Scientific Enquiry

This half term year 5 are learning all about materials and the changing of state as part of  'Material Matters.' Last week we received a letter from an exasperated commuter whose morning porridge was going cold on her commute to work. She asked our advice on how to keep her porridge warm on her 10 minute journey to work. Year 5 were delighted to help and after a class discussion about thermal insulation we began planning a scientific test to investigate which container Kate should use to store her breakfast.

This week we carried out our test, we followed our investigation plan and took the temperature of the porridge every two minutes. In our next lesson we will be exploring these results and are observations to determine which material and container is best suited to keep porridge warm. Have a look at some photos of our investigation below and be sure to check back for our scientific recommendations.

Thoughts from Ava-Marie

  In this weeks topic lesson we look at different art depictions of London in 1605 and created our own! We used granite pencils, which professional artist use to create a painting, and sketch pencils to do lighter shading with. It was a really fun and calm lesson as we had to really concentrate. I took some photos of our art which you can see below.

Mad for Multiplication

This week we have spent a lot of time exploring multiplication with a focus on specific numbers. We have learnt about products, factors, multiples, prime numbers, composite numbers and then moved on to squared and cubed numbers today. Today we put all our learning together and created an explanation leaflet explaining each of these numbers with examples and pictures to help readers understand.

Thoughts from Brooke and Keiran

This week in maths we have been learning about cubed and squared numbers. a cube number is when the same number is multiplied by its self 3 times. A squared number is when you multiply a number by it self twice. On Thursday we all created an explanation text on it to help year 4 understand it better.

Drama for Writing

In year 5 we like to make use of drama to explore stories and their characters. We also use drama to act out our own stories in small groups, it is an activity we are becoming increasingly confident. This week we used drama to create our own versions of the gunpowder plot. We worked in small groups, taking different roles to act out the events and describe them with rich vocabulary, we will use all our ideas to help us in our writing next week.

Gunpowder Plot

This half term our topic is 'Yes, Minister,' which is all about government and parliament. To compliment this learning we are exploring the story of the Gunpowder plot in order to write a narrative of the story. Today we looked more closely at Guy Fawkes and sued drama to explore his presence, character and emotions during the events. We all took part in role play, freeze frames and hot seating to explore Fawkes and finished off by creating a whole class freeze frame depicting Fawkes from the beginning to the end of the plot. Have a look at it in the video below.

Thoughts from Giada and Megan

This weeks English lessons have been all about learning about Parliament and Guy Fawkes. It has been very exciting since I have always  thought guy worked alone but then I learnt that Robert Catesby was involved and there was more plotters too. It was so exiting and fun especially on Thursday as we did a role play to help us with our plan, we can't wait to write our story next week.

Museum of London

This term we had a great trip to the Museum of London. Once again we were praised for our exceptional behaviour especially as we had different teachers with us. We had a wonderful day and saw lots of exciting things on our day out. Have a look at our day below.

Multiplication Maths

This week in maths we have begun looking at multiplication and explored products, multiples, factors and products of numbers. At first it seemed quite tricky but after exploring it through concrete and pictures we built our understanding.

All Saints Mass

This week St. Peter led the All Saints day mass. We only got to practice for one day but we smashed it ,Miss was so proud of the class. We were especially praised by Father Lawrence for our courage and excellent singing which filled the church with joy. A lot of our parents came to see us lead our very first mass and were filled with pride. On Friday we got a special treat for all our hard work.

Reported by Freddie and Mikel

Licence to Write

I am very proud to get my pen licence this week because I used to be have very bad handwriting but I have worked really hard on it. Now I can be a good example to other children. By Salem.

Super Science!

This half term we have been learning all about the life cycles of living things, like mammal, amphibians, insects and plants. We have been comparing these life cycles and what makes some of them different, like only the queen ant can lay eggs. We put all we have learnt together to create an explanation leaflet about life cycles. Here is some of our work.

Reported by Phoebe and Malachi.

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Mikey - This half term science has been really fun because we learnt lot's of new things especially about life cycles and weird ones, like an ants.

Teddy - At first learning the parts of a flower was really tricky because we didn't realise there was so many parts, but we learnt it over and over in our memory games and now I can remember and label all the parts.

Kaydi- My favourite lesson was when we got to dissect flowers, it meant we could really see all the different parts in real life.

Pen Licence

This week we had our very first Big Write, this is when we connect all our learning over the last few weeks and use them to create our own piece of writing. It is also our chance to earn our pen licence and three very proud children did just that-  Ephrem, Maria and Oliwier all presented their writing wonderfully. They are now proud owners of our special handwriting pen, with a licence to be creative. Have a look at what earned them this special title below as well as some of their thoughts.

Oliwier - "I had my licence before but I stopped taking care of my presentation so I am really happy to earn it back."

Maria- "I have worked so hard on my handwriting and even worked on it during the summer, I was determined to get it this year."

Ephrem- "Everyone wants a pen licence because it shows you take pride in you work and can be trusted to use it sensibly."

'Not Quite Live' from Berlin

This half term our topic learning has been all about 'Walls and Barricades,' in which we explored the historical and social significance of walls. We have investigated The Great Wall of China, Hadrian's Wall and our class favourite the Berlin Wall. Coming to the end of our topic we learnt about the end of the Berlin Wall and created our own news reports on the events.

Welcome to St. Peter

Welcome to St. Peter class, we hope our class page gives you a glimpse into our wonderful class and you helps you get involved in our learning. As year 5 children we are proud to serve our school community and be the very best we can be, we will be sharing lots of our learning here with weekly updates from our teacher, Miss O'Toole, and our class members. Make sure you check back regularly for any updates!