This week, Year 6 came dressed in WWII themed outfits for their trip to the Time and Tide museum in Great Yarmouth. Their outfits were excellent! They travelled back in time to 1941 when Great Yarmouth was in the thick of the action as a ‘front line town’. They Discovered how the war affected people on the home front and met an ARP warden, a housewife, a shopkeeper and a Home Guard soldier. We were so impressed by their curiosity!
To kick-start their new English unit: Romeo & Juliet, Year 6 enjoyed participating in a variety of Shakespeare-related activities! Children took part in a scavenger hunt, collecting the answers to questions about the famous playwright and his works. They had to match symbols on their sheet to answers hidden away all around the playground. They discovered Shakespearean language and had to decide if phrases given to them were Shakespeare or ‘Fakespeare’. They explored the ancient grudge between the two feuding families in Romeo & Juliet: The Montagues and The Capulets and learnt about their household crests. Children were then tasked with creating their own crest, focusing on the significance of its design, colour and symbols. It was great to see how enthusiastic everyone was about our new topic and we look forward to seeing how they get on with their writing over the coming weeks.
Year 6 have been investigating the law of reflection this week. When rays of light reflect, they obey the law of reflection: the angle of incidence always equals the angle of reflection. Children held a mirror on a piece of paper and made a very narrow slit in a piece of card. They dimmed the lights and shone a torch through the slit towards the mirror. On the white paper, they had to look for the incident ray and the reflected ray of light. They had to play around with the angle of the torch and the distance they held it from the mirror. Using a pencil and ruler they drew the incident and reflected rays on the paper. Then, they drew a dashed line perpendicular to the mirror, from the point where the incident and reflected rays met. This is the normal line. We were impressed with the children’s curiosity and teamwork!
Year 6 have produced some beautiful ‘Pointillism’ poppies this week in response to Remembrance. After carefully sketching their poppy outline, children used cotton buds to create the dotted effect. Many people choose to wear a poppy in November for Remembrance Day to show respect for the people who died fighting in the First World War and the conflicts that followed it. But there are other coloured poppies too – purple, black and white – that have different meanings.
The red poppy is the most famous symbol used to commemorate those who sacrificed their lives in World War One and conflicts that followed. They say that the red poppy represents remembrance and hope. The purple poppy is often worn to remember animals that have been victims of war. The BlackPoppyRose commemorates the contributions of black, African and Caribbean communities to the war effort – as servicemen and servicewomen, and as civilians. The white poppy is handed out by a charity called Peace Pledge Union, which promotes peace.
We think Year 6 have shown excellent creativity!
Year 6 have been working hard in maths and recapping multiplication. In pairs, they taught each other how to multiply 4 by 2 digit numbers together. There was lots of praise and excellent modelling- super teamwork!
Year 6 have been enjoying weekly steel pan music lessons. They have been getting to grips with the different notes and sounds all whilst learning about where steel pans originate from!
This week, Year 6 have continued exploring emotive character descriptions based on the key text, ‘Rose Blanche’. They have learnt all about figurative language and its effect on the reader. Working as a class, they compiled everyone’s ideas to create a shared write based on a specific point in the text. We think they have demonstrated excellent creativity and teamwork to produce such a powerful image of Rose in the reader’s mind. See if you can identify excellent examples of similes, personification, alliteration and ambitious vocabulary in their paragraph below.
‘Her tear-filled, sorrowful, sapphire-blue eyes were like neverending waterfalls. Broken and fragile, her heart sank down into her malnourished, rumbling stomach which screamed in pain. Rose’s once golden hair was now as dark and gloomy as the forgotten forest. Slow shivers pulsed through her body as she looked over the empty clearing. Her cold, pale hand clutched a wilting blue flower; the only thing alive in this barren wasteland.’
Year 6 have started the year off with an Art project linked to history learning all about WWII. Children re-designed packaging for wartime food products whilst considering the impact of rationing and the need for items to have a much longer life than the usual fresh produce. We think the end results look excellent and have been so impressed by their creativity!
Year 6 got to grips with using a micro:bit this week – a tiny programmable device that enabled children to understand how computers work and learn to code using the language of computers. They familiarised themselves with the device itself and the programming environment before creating their own programs. They then ran their programs on the device. We were impressed by everyone’s curiosity and concentration!
Year 6 participated in some great workshops in support of their upcoming move to high school. Our visitors were very impressed by their contributions and maturity.
