Well done to Badger Class for their eggcellent efforts in decorating eggs for the egg roll.
Mayan Masks
As part of our Mayan topic, Year 6 have designed and created some fantastic Mayan masks. The children chose to work with clay or card to make their masks.
They looked at different types of masks; a green mask made from Jade was the death mask, which would protect the wearer on their journey to the afterlife. Some masks were inspired by animals, the Mayans believed animals represented the spirits, for example, many Maya often associated strong kings with jaguars.
Drum roll…. exciting news!!
The Easter holidays are nearly here but, for Year 6, the hard work continues.
This week, maths has been full of ups and downs, with lots of negative and positive number problems. Remember to keep checking in on Times Tables Rock Stars and regularly completing your Times Tables books.
As well as all the hard work, Year 6 have had fun making Maya masks with Mrs Stemp, using clay. They look fabulous! Please feel free to pop into the classroom before or after school to take a peek! Next Thursday, we head to Rudgwick Primary School for the day to share a visit from Mexicolore. Please remember to be at school between 8.25 and 8.30 ( no later please as we need to head off there promptly). Remember to bring your Maya packed lunch too. We will be back at school in time for buses home. Today, we were also lucky enough to have a visit from Hannah and MIni Medics. We are now all experts in CPR. Test your families to see who knows where all the local defibrillators are - you never know when you might need to locate one.
We have also had some VERY EXCITING NEWS from Sainsbury’s this week, as a direct consequence of our persuasive letters which we sent them last month, More information to be announced soon, so watch this space!
Parent Consultations
Today is parents’ consultation day and Mrs Powell is looking forward to catching up with everyone so that we can continue to work together as a great team around our very important Year Six children.
Like every week, we have packed in some fun science, (Maya) topic and Art amongst our SAT test papers and English and Maths lessons. It was great to learn about the Human eye with Mrs Stemp; we carried out a great practical experiment which involved a pendulum and looking at it with one eye covered in blue cellophane. Have a go and see what we observed!
We also looked at the short clips on BBC Supermovers (please see https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/supermovers/42612499) which has lots of different, enjoyable ways for children to reinforce their learning whilst keeping active at the same time
15 minute mile
Even though Badger Class are having to work REALLY hard in the run up to the SATs, we are introducing a 15 minute mile session whenever we are able each day. We head outside and walk (briskly) or jog around the playground, enjoying the scenery and also enjoying time to chat to our friends. The exercise helps focus our brains and we can then return to the classroom re-energised!
Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?!
Year 6 are immersed in writing their own version of a fairy tale… but with a twist!
All sorts of sinister ‘goings -on’ are ‘going on’ on the pages of our English books. Descriptions of shiny, marble-white fangs, young girls dripping in blood (together with blood-covered cupcakes), curious grannies and teal-cloaked young ladies skipping innocently down paths.
We have realised we are now officially more than half way through our final year at primary school. Time is simply whizzing which must surely mean we are having fun?!!
Just a reminder - Bikeability is the very final week of summer term, mostly based in Kirdford. More information to follow!
Survival Of The Fittest!
In Science this half term, Badger Class have been learning about evolution and natural selection. They have been looking at the lives of Mary Anning the first female paleontologist, Charles Darwin and Charles Lamarck. To understand fully the concept of natural selection, Year 6 tried out at being birds who had to adapt to their environment over 6 generations!
Each group of ‘birds’ were given a specific type of beak, they either had a beak shaped like a spoon, fork, knife, clothes peg or straw. They had 30 seconds to gather as many seeds (pasta, rice and couscous) as they could and feed their offspring (put it in a cup!). After counting their seeds they then divided the total number by 10 which then gave them the number of offspring. The groups did this 6 times on different surfaces, each turn was a generation.
The birds had to adapt to a decrease in food supplies due to a couple of hawks (Mrs Stemp and Mrs Harrison!) invading the habitats.
The groups realised that depending on the environments (surfaces) and the adaptation of their beaks over generations (using 2 spoons pushed together), some varieties increased whilst others decreased.
Badger Class - P.E Lesson
Last week in P.E, Badger Class were given the task of devising their own P.E game. They could only use bean bags and hoops; using these they had to work as a team to think up rules, ways of scoring and most importantly, a name!
Badgers worked extremely well in teams, it took them no time at all to come up with some excellent games.
It's a cracker!!
I told them all it wasn't possible but did they believe me? No, they did not! So, after several months of nagging, I brought in several packs of cream crackers and gave every member of the Badger Class the chance to beat the '3 in a minute' cream cracker challenge. As someone much younger than me might say, it was an epic fail. Good job that we tried it outside! So many crumbs!
Year 6 Survival week
We've had masses of outdoor fun this week in Year 6. We have tried making dens which needed to be both wind and water proof as well as being aesthetically pleasing (lots of lovely leaf bunting!). We have created parachutes for Captain Eggy McEggface to help him escape from a tricky situation (a 3 m drop no less!). We have also practised our fire-lighting skills with great success.
We were hugely lucky to have a visit and talk from a fabulous parent who is a jungle survival expert ( I mean - who knew we had parents like that at this school?!?). We are so very grateful to have wonderful people in our locality willing to give up their time to help us.
Sports Week - Blind Games
This morning, Year 6 spent time with our visitors from Brighton and Hove FC having a go at various different sports including wheelchair netball, which was REALLY hard work but great fun, Blind Goal Ball (using a ball containing a bell) as well as Boccia which was a bit like boules (plus learning British Sign Language). We can all sign our names now.
It was such good fun and a really valuable PE lesson. You need strong arms to go fast in those wheelchairs!
Maths investigation
Year 6 spent all morning outside trying to solve a maths puzzle.
They were told they had to plant 10 trees in 5 rows with 4 trees in each row. This resulted in lots of head scratching and puzzled looks.
Everyone then went outside and tried different ways to solve the problem. After about an hour, a bright spark asked whether the rows could cross. 'Yes', they were told! Then, someone else asked whether the rows could be diagonal. Again, 'yes' they were told.... Finally, I offered them a few more nuggets of information such as ' none of the lines are perpendicular'. This seemed to help rather a lot. Here are some photos of the class trying to work out an answer, along with our winning pair, A and R, who were the first to solve the problem.
What's that strange buzzing sound?
No, it's not a bad case of tinnitus - it's just Year 6 making electrical circuits with buzzers and bulbs! We are getting stuck into electricity this half term and will, as the weeks progress, be trying to use electrical circuits to send morse code messages.
In other news, who else is lucky enough to have an Alice (and spotty!) lanyard?!? What a great day!
BGT means ....BADGERS (have) GOT TALENT!!!
Wow!! Year 6 can sing and act!! Mrs Powell and Miss Clark conducted the auditions earlier this week and have been busy sorting out who we think is best for which role. This was REALLY tough because Badger Class have talent!
Children will be coming home on Friday with a sealed envelope containing details of their part, a copy of the script, possibly a CD with music, plus some information about costumes. We seal the envelopes and always ask children not to open them until they get home as we want to ensure people have time to take in the news calmly. I have explained to the class that, sadly, of course, not everyone can have a 'main' part but that everyone's contribution is vital to the success of our show. No one should feel remotely downhearted if they don't get the part they wanted - they have all done fabulously and we think this could be the best show yet!!
I'm singing now!
Hooray - we're finished the SATs and everyone is delighted! We spent the afternoon playing outside or watching a film. Tomorrow, remember we're in mufti clothes and we're heading to the village green. Miss Clark is jealous!!
It ain't over until...
OK, ok, I'll start singing later! (refer to title!)
Badger Class coped fantastically with enduring two maths tests yesterday so we celebrated in the sun and very slowly ate a chocolate biscuit each! One more test to go this morning and then we can pat ourselves on the back, celebrate how well we have done and start to properly enjoy the lovely sunshine. We are off to the village green tomorrow for ice creams and rounders/football etc. We have almost no plans for this afternoon other than simply enjoying spending time together as a class in a relaxed atmosphere! Well done, Badger Class - you are nearly there!
Another one bites the dust...
SPaG is finished and we're eating chocolate biscuits and having an extra playtime in the sun... because we deserve it!
It's nearly the weekend...
Cor, Badger Class have been working their little (or not so little in the case of Ethan's size 7 feet!) socks off this week. We have gone over words like determiner, passive, active, pronouns, relative clauses, dashes, hyphens, prepositions etc and will start dreaming of them at this rate! We have, however, also had lots of fun whilst learning which is vital at this time of year.
I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. I'm looking forward to watching this fabulous class demonstrate how fantastic they are next week. They have tried so very hard (which is what matters). Keep going, Badgers. I'm incredibly proud of you. Mrs P x
Puzzletastic
You might think that all we're doing in Year 6 is practice tests but, oh no! We're doing puzzles.
Please see the picture for two of the brain teasers that we had to tackle today.
Year 6 writing
SATs are soon upon us in Year 6 and, with lots of maths and SPaG to revise, it could be easy to forget the art of writing. However, one of our lovely pupils brought in this wonderful poem which she had written at home and I just felt it was too good not to share. Well done, Walt!
