Year 6 rising to the challenge

Year 6 have really worked their socks off this week. Not only have we been starting to study Shakespeare’s Macbeth, we have been designing and sewing Victorian samplers and then getting our heads around negative numbers and rounding!!

The children are doing well, getting back into a steady, weekly routine and it is lovely getting to know them. I have enjoyed speaking to a few parents this week and am looking forward to seeing people at our Meet the Teacher Google meet at 10.00 next Monday morning. The meeting link was sent out by Mr King earlier this week. I do have to return to the classroom at 10.30 so will start at 10.00 promptly but am sure I will be able to talk you through all the key points that parents often wish to know.

Welcome to the new Year 6 class

It has been lovely welcoming the new Year 6 children back to school this week. We have done a bit of settling back into school but have also settled back into working hard too! Everyone in Badger Class has written down their goals for the year for a lovely badger-y display and I look forward to seeing how many of these we manage to achieve.

We're back ... and raring to go!!

How apt this heading is, after all of Year 6 managed a safe return to school during this week… and are heading off to pastures new at the end of next week!

I am so enormously proud of this fabulous group of children - they worked so hard despite so many of them being poorly. It is almost extraordinary to me to believe they are all disappearing off to their secondary schools after next week, so I am going to make the best of the time we have left together in what is going to be an absolutely jam-packed final week! This week, groups of Year 6 children presented the maths lessons that they prepared together online during our self-isolation. They were AMAZING and I definitely think we have a few teachers in the making in this class!

Well done, Year 6. You are simply great and I am looking forward to spending the remaining five days of the school year with you… sob, sob….

Weald outdoor fun, plus friends old and new

Oh goodness me - YEAR 6 HAVE HAD A SCHOOL TRIP! I can’t believe, after so many months of cancellations and postponements and disappointments, that we have actually managed to have a full day out again.

What fun it was too. We spent a full day at The Weald courtesy of the fabulous Mr Meaney there, one of their senior PE teachers. We were kept very safe, in our own bubble all day long, with our own toilets and water fountain, and took part in team building games as well as orienteering, tent building and bouldering.

It was a beautifully warm day which Mrs Harrison and Mrs Powell loved! At lunchtime, last year’s Year 6 even headed across the school fields to wave hello from a very safe distance, Mrs Powell’s eyes most definitely did NOT water!

Year 6 were fabulously well behaved all day long, polite to everyone and enthusiastic in their approach to everything. I am just enormously proud of them all.

Survival and Sport!

Year 6 have had a very busy week this week - it was our Survival week and the children all worked in groups to make dens. These had to have a cooking area, a sleeping area and a toilet area. One group had to do a late re-design as their toilet was right where their heads would have been at nighttime! The dens were then ambushed by myself and Mrs H using a very handy, very long hose!

We have also learnt how to purify water in a survival situation plus have designed a means of escape from a plane for Captain Eggy McEggface, a British soldier in World War Two, using very restricted materials. Only 6 soldiers perished on the playground, with 17 making it back to the homeland.. Well done Year 6!

We have also hugely enjoyed Sports Week, and I was particularly proud of the children for the way they faced their fears with the visiting Cave Bus.

Journalists descend upon Preston, Australia!

Year 6 have been studying the book, The Watetower, by Gary Crewe, and have created some fabulous front pages reporting the curious events taking place recently in the town. I have added some photos here of some of the children’s work. They are also on display in the classroom. Well done, Year 6, for some wonderful writing!

Johnny and the Bomb!

Year 6 have been enjoying the first read-throughs of our summer production, Johnny and the Bomb! Everyone knows which part they will be playing and, between now and the end of term, quite often, one of the weekly homeworks set will be the learning of lines, both in the play and also the songs for the play.

In the next couple of days, we will be adding the music to either this blog or, more likely, to the Year 6 Google Classroom. Children can, from then on, all practise their songs at home too! We will also be working out what props we might need, as well as what costumes.

We are hoping to be able to put on our play on Wednesday 14 July subject to covid rules - more details to follow nearer the time. The songs are FANTASTIC and very ‘ear worm-y’ ! We are all so excited to be able to work towards holding a production this year - I am keeping everything crossed so that we can show everyone how fantastic this class of children are!

Pom-tastic

Finally, finally, Year 6 have been able to make our fabulous pom pom trees. Inspired by the rituals and importance of blossom and spring time in Japan, we used brown paper bags for the trunks, and used a fork to make our pom poms. Thank you to the Hanauers and the Winderbank Scotts for the inspiration for this lovely art project.

Christmas Pie Charts!

It’s that time of year again! We had done our survey… Sprouts got no votes! Children brought in their own pies and it was time to show the results of the survey on them. This led to lots of very messy protractors and full tummies before breaktime!!

December birthdays already!!

At the end of a busy week, we had the pleasure of our second birthday party in Year 6. Sadly, one of the birthday boys was poorly today so there was just one lucky recipient of THE INFLATABLE BIRTHDAY CAKE HAT!

Year 6 have worked really hard this term and I am very proud of them - it is great seeing them having the opportunity to have fun together.

Year 6 Birthdays!

We were delighted to be able to have our first birthday party of the year for those children in Year 6 with September, October and November birthdays. The classroom transformed into a disco for the final hour of the week - Ollie C and ‘Alphabet’ can certainly move!

Happy birthday to everyone celebrating during this unusual time!

Mayan worry dolls

As part of our well-being week in school, Year 6 have been making very small worry dolls (which links to our Mayan topic as well), We still have a few more to make but we like the ones we have made so far.

Year 6 jelly baby science

Year 6 have been working on how light and sound move; we created a wave machine to demonstrate how energy travels along waves and the way that the amount of energy affects the speed. It is a great visual way to begin to comprehend this aspect of science.

Christmas cards!

Year 6 loved making their PAKSA Christmas cards this year and think they are very innovative! We used lots of DT skills as well as requiring Mrs P to stand on a chair (don’t tell those Health and Safety peeps!) so she could take photos of us from up above! Don’t forget to place your orders!

Year 6 samplers

The lovely Badger Class have been learning about samplers as part of their Victorian topic, and have tried creating their own using needlework. We are really happy with our results… some of our messages are VERY important!!

Remember to go to Google Classrooms for work!

Hi everyone. Just a reminder that, from now on, ALL class work will be set ONLY on Google Classrooms. All but 3 of you have managed now to log on so I am hoping that we can reach 100% in the next day or so. Full details on how to switch over to Google Classrooms were in my post on this blog from one week ago, on Sunday 26th April.

I am going to be in school on Monday (tomorrow as I write this !) - if you need any school resources, please let me know before midday on Monday and I can leave them outside school for you to collect. I might be able to drop them off at your homes…

Finally, thank you to everyone who wandered out and had a chat on Friday. Hattie and I loved it. I obviously got my timings completely wrong as I forgot how very much I like to talk. We managed to see Lachlan. Jasmine, Max, William (and Elliott - thank you for the much-needed umbrellas!), Sophia, Rosie E, Saffron… quick nip to school for a wee!! … then saw the James-Nalls walking in the rain, Daisy, Jessy, Mia, Ogley… and finally, Honor, Rosie C and Jody. I parked outside what I think is Harry’s house but it was absolutely pouring it down and I don’t think the toot, toot of my horn could be heard above the racket made by the hailstones! That was almost half the class and it cheered me up more than I could have imagined. I promise I will try to do something similar again in a week or two and will give you advance warning. I will try to get to Dunsfold after going in to school tomorrow (Monday)…

Anyway, now you need to switch over to Google Classrooms!!

Year 6 Friday 1 May !

Woo hoo! It is May. I LOVE May. In fact, I just love the end of April as I really feel that May is much more summery!

Here is today’s sunny work!

Maths:

Using the temperatures you found yesterday (at least 10 European cities, max and min temps), plots these on a bar graph. I want to be able to see both the max and min temps for each city!

Try to make your graph as neat and presentable as you possibly can. And remember - graphs need titles.

English:

Remember those 3 newspaper headlines you came up with before Easter for The Watertower? I want you to use those to start to create a front page for a newspaper. The front page needs to have 3 articles, using your headlines. You can add images (remember that they’ll need captions), you;ll need to think of a title for your paper (remember that the story is set in Australia) and anything else that you can remember which makes it look more ‘newspaper-y’. Over the next week, i want you to work on this newspaper but, for today, please focus on your front page. Enjoy! This should be fun. You can let your imagination run riot.

Year 6 Thursday 30 April

It’s the last day of April. And I haven’t seen you even once!!! Boo!! (bet you’re all shouting, ‘Hooray!!’).

Here is Thursday’s work!

Maths:

Yesterday, you looked for maximum temperatures for 10 cities (at least 10) in Europe.

With those temperatures, I would like you to do the following:

List them in ascending order.

Find the range.

Find the mean.

Is there a mode?

Find the median (that means ‘middle’). We have done all these things in class before. If you still can’t remember, a bit of a google should refresh your memory!

With the same 10 (or more) cities, I now want you to find out the MINIMUM temperature today (or yesterday) for each of those cities. Tomorrow, you will need the list of your cities, plus the max and the min temperatures for each.

English:

Mark the SPaG paper (yellow folder, 3a) that you finished earlier this week. Answers are below. Then, please email me your score!

Year 6 work for Wednesday 29 April

G’day partners! Let’s hope it’s a sunny day today so we can get outside in the afternoon.

Here is today’s work:

Maths:

Mark the reasoning paper that you attempted on Tuesday (yellow folder, 3a paper 2). The answers are below here. Remember to send me your results, please, so that I can keep an up-to-date list of your scores.

Then, try to find somewhere (either a newspaper or go online) that you can see maximum temperatures for one day this week for at least 10 different cities in Europe. You will need this tomorrow!

English:

More marking! Sorry!! Mark the Reading Comprehension paper that you finished this week. Answers are below. Then, send over to me so I can add to my lovely spreadsheets showing all your scores!!

English:

Remember to switch over to Google Classrooms. 4 days left!

As you hopefully saw on Sunday and yesterday, w e are switching lessons over to Google Classrooms after this week. From next week, this blog will only be used for short messages, photos of bits and bobs etc, as it used to be used. As of last night, 2/3 of the class managed to get on to Google Classrooms in day one - well done to you all.

I am going to start ringing round over the next couple of days to see what is happening with those of you who haven’t yet managed, in case you are struggling. PLEASE ask your parents/carers for help on switching over.. It looks a bit tricky a first but it really isn’t.

Today’s work is on the blog post before this as well as on Google Classrooms (which also has a couple of short questions to keep you on your toes).