Year 6 News - 28th March 2024
After another busy half term, the children have earned a break in order to recharge ready for their last term in primary school!
Over the last two weeks, we have started developing ideas and learning about persuasive writing in order to create a piece of writing persuading people to visit an all-new, state-of-the-art theme park based on the world of Pandora from Avatar. The creatures within this world have given us some fantastic ideas for rides, food establishments and even a hotel! The children have very promising ideas and I can’t wait to read the finished product.
In maths, we have been ensuring that a range of topics have been covered so that we know everything we need to know for our Key Stage 2 assessments in May. We have been consistently going over previously taught methods as well so that we can recall facts quickly and effectively.
During science, we have finished our unit of work on light and looked at ways to live more sustainably by trying to prevent light pollution. We were surprised at just how much artificial light has affected the natural world, including our own sleep patterns as well as the migration habits of certain animals.
In RE, the children visited St Bartholomew’s church in Cresswell and spoke to the reverend there, asking questions about Christianity, as well as exploring the graveyard. The gravestones were explored to look for messages of hope. This also linked in rather nicely with our reading text, The Graveyard Book.
I hope you all have a wonderful Easter break!
It’s a very short but busy half term!
Already, we have taken part in World Book Day where the children were part of an
online workshop with author John Patrick Green, who has written and illustrated a
series of graphic novels called InvestiGators. He taught us how to draw his main
characters as well as answering questions about his work and how he got into it. Later
in the day, we did some paired reading with Year 1 – it was lovely to see the Year 6
children partnering up with some of our younger pupils and sharing books and stories.
Book, meeting a whole host of weird and wonderful characters as well as completing a
range of activities to help us understand this story in more depth. We have been
inferring personalities, creating short pieces of drama as well as debating the pros and
cons of being a “ghoul”.
In maths, we have explored area, perimeter and volume as well as applying our
knowledge of fractions and percentages to pie charts.
In science, we have been finishing our unit of work on light by looking at refraction
and will soon be exploring how light pollution is being caused by artificial light,
affecting both humans and animals. Having explored renewable and non-renewable
energy in science sustainability lessons, we have started to examine this in more depth
through our geography unit. In this unit, we have looked so far at how population
increase has affected energy use as well as how countries trade energy.
Year 6 News - 9th February
Over the last couple of weeks, Year 6 have been enthusiastic learners.
In English, we came to the sad – yet fantastically written – ending of Private Peaceful. It brought on a lovely discussion about why we care so much about the two brothers’ relationship and the harsh realities of WW1. We have now started the spooky novel The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. In our writing lessons, we have started our unit of work on balanced discussions and also took part in a Red Cross workshop on migration and empathy in order to understand one side of the argument.
During maths, we have been flying through work on fractions, decimals and percentages as well as moving on to ratio and proportion. We are becoming much speedier in our CLIC sessions as we recall more and more key facts as well as previously learnt methods. We also applied our knowledge of fractions and proportion to a problem solving activity during our recent “Number Day”.
As part of Children’s Mental Health week, we were part of a national assembly learning about online safety and showed our true selves during “Dress to Express” day. Throughout our PSHE unit of work, we have continually focused on our mental and physical health so that we can notice when we’re not feeling great as well as when we’re feeling fit and healthy. We understand the importance of a growth mindset as well as what good habits look like. As part of our work on physical health, we created presentations on immunisation in order to understand how they work and why the World Health Organisation encourages people to get their vaccinations.
In history, we have been continuing with our work on the Ancient Maya, exploring their creation story and finding out about their gods and goddesses.
Year 6 News - 26th January 2024
Year 6 have made a good start to 2024.
Over the last few weeks, we have been exploring the Ancient Maya civilisation in history, understanding just how long this historical period lasted for and evaluating some of the challenges they faced living in the rainforest as well as the solutions they came up with. We found that they were very innovative and advanced in their thinking.
In science, we have looked at the differences between renewable and non-renewable energy sources (which we will also return to in Geography later this year) as well as starting our unit of work on light. We have had a go at drawing ray diagrams in order to demonstrate light travelling in straight lines, explored parts of the eye and understanding the difference between luminous and non-luminous objects.
In English, we are almost finished with our novel, Private Peaceful, and are devastated at the prospect of ending the story; however, we really want to find out what happens to Tommo and Charlie! It’s very conflicting!
We have also been exploring the ballad “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. We held a debate to discuss whether Tim was really the one to blame for the deaths of Bess and the Highwayman as well as understanding the features of a diary entry so that we could write one from the point of view of a character involved within the storyline.
The other day, we enjoyed a visit from employees from National Rail as well as the British Transport Police so that we could better understand how to keep ourselves and others safe around railway lines. We were amazed by the speed and power that trains actually possess and know that it is never ok to cross a railway track unless it is safe to do so at a designated crossing area.