As part of our work in Digital Literacy, we have been discussing the need to be kind when using social media sites. We discussed what was meant by the term 'wellbeing' and how we could maintain a positive wellbeing when on social media.
A Visit From The Optometrist
As part of their topic work about light, the children in Year 6 have had a visit from an optometrist who works at The Royal Derby Hospital Eye Clinic. She discussed how the eye worked, telling us amazing facts about the eye, before explaining some of the different tests which take place as part of the eye examination. The children really enjoyed getting involved with some of the tests, especially seeing the 3D circles in the images and finding their blind spot in their different eyes. Many thanks to Derby Hospital for the loan of the eye testing equipment.
Reasoning About Fractions, Decimal and Percentages
The Year 6 children have had a great time working in teams to solve puzzles and reason about fractions, decimals and percentages.
The children were given the task of matching up the different question and answer cards by working out each clue and justifying their working to their team mates. The mathematical discussion was amazing and the children really enjoyed proving their understanding to each other.
As part of our art work, we have been creating mystic rose designs. We used a compass to create a circle and measured 30 degrees around a regular points around the edge of the circle using a protractor. We then joined each point to every other point in order to create our rose. Then we created our own design by colouring in each of the different types of triangles within the design. We really enjoyed creating these and hope that you like them.
We have started using Freya Models to investigate the meanings of different words. In whole class reading, we found words which we had not read or used before in our own writing. We then wrote the words in the centre of our models and wrote the synonyms and antonyms for the word, along with the definition. We also had to write the word as part of a sentence and decide which word class it was. We then used these models in our maths lesson to define different mathematical words. We have found these to be really useful to help us to understand our new vocabulary and matheatical words.
As part of our work in English, we have been writing biographies. Over the Christmas holiday, we researched information about a famous person of our choice and then used these notes to write a biography about their life. We have then used different children's work to practise our editing skills, focusing on correcting punctuation and ensuring that the writing uses the correct level of formality.
In Science, we were given the task of proving that light travels in straight lines. We were given a set of resources including: a torch, card, scissors, a ruler, a pencil and blu-tac. We then had to use this to create a model which proved that light travels in straight lines. We had lots of fun discussing, planning and creating our own models, but found it tricky to convince each other that light does actually travel in a straight line. At the end of the lesson, we worked out how to use the resources to show that, when the torch was turned on, a single line of light could be displayed on a black piece of card. We all really enjoyed this science investigation.
Kevin The Carrot Newspaper Reports
Having watched the 2019 Aldi Christmas advert, the children wrote their own newspaper adverts based on the incidents which happened. We discussed the differences between direct and reported speech as well as both formal and informal language. The children worked hard to include these within their reports. Here are a selection of their newspaper reports.
As part of our Maths work, we were asked to use a protractor to accurately measure and draw an isosceles triangle. We discussed the properties of this triangle and then used a compass to accurately draw circles. We then drew lines across the image to create an abstract pattern. Using Sharpies, we then coloured in the design to be the front of our Christmas cards. We hope that you like our designs.
As part of our English lessons, we have been looking at different images of settings. We used the 'Write Stuff's' 'FANTASTICS' to put different descriptive words and phrases about each image into categories. We then wrote descriptions about these settings in both the first and third person. We are really pleased with our pieces of writing. We hope that you like them too!
Website Designing Using HTML
In Computing, we have been learning to use the website coding language of HMTL. We looked at the HTML which is used to make our Willington Primary School website, and then searched the page to find different HTML tags. We then researched the meaning of these tags using an online HTML encyclopedia. We then began to create a very simple webpage using the language of HTML to write our sentences on the screen. We really enjoyed using this code and look forward to creating a fully functioning webpage later in our unit of work.
Whole Class Reading
In Whole Class Reading, we have been studying the text of 'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Prince'. We read the first chapter and after answering VIPERS questions, we were set the challenge of summarising the chapter. Firstly, we had to summarise the 12 pages in 100 words, then we had to summarise it in 25 words, but ensuring that the meaning was still maintained. This was challenging! We were then given the task of summarising the chapter in 20 words and then 10 words! We now understand the challenge that journalists have in creating short headlines which summarise their articles.
In Maths, we have been learning about fractions. We had to reason about the size of different parts of a square, explaining why we thought that they were certain fractions. We have also been writing our own word problems involving fractions of different denominators. We had to make sure that they had the same denominators before we could add or subtract them, so we had to find a common denominator for them both. We hope that you can have a go at solving some of our problems.
As part of our work in English, we have been studying Michael Mopurgo's book 'Kensuke's Kingdom'. We used the Write Stuff process of developing our sentences as a whole class through sentence stacking. We created a whole class narrative using the FANTASTICS and used these ideas to create our own pieces of writing. We hope that you like them.
The Circulatory System
As part of our Science work, the pupils in Year 6 have been learning about the circulatory system. We started by 'lokking inside' each of our bodies using the Virtuali-Tee app by Curiscope. Some of the children wore a special t-shirt which, when the iPad was pointed towards it, let the rest of the class view inside 'their' body using augmented reality.
We then researched information about our bodies using video, the app and the internet. Using this research, we were able to create our own double-page spreads about how the circulatory system works. Here are some of the ones which we produced. We hope that you like them.
In Maths today, we have been learning to carry out long division. Whilst we know that short division is an efficient method of dividing by smaller numbers, long division is useufl to use when dividing by much larger numbers and when there is no calculator available. At the start of the lesson, most of us were unsure how to use this method and found it confusing. However by the end of the lesson, we all found it a really fun method and understaood the process.
A Visit From Dr Cat Jarman
As part of our topic work about The Vikings, we have been studying their invasion on Repton in 873AD. We were very lucky to have Dr Cat Jarman come to talk to us about the research which she has carried out on the Repton Warrior, the Great Heathen Army and the mass burial ground which can be found in the village. Dr Jarman has appeared on many television programmes, working alongside other historians including Dan Snow, and is based at the University of Bristol where she gives lectures and carries out scientific research about the events from this era.
The children had a fantastic time, particularly when they got to examine 'real' Viking artefacts, including sets of game pieces from over 1000 years ago. They also enjoyed handling a replica Viking Thor's hammer, but particularly enjoyed handling the replica Viking sword!
The Dr Cat was really impressed with the knowledge which the children shared with her about Repton during the Viking era, and look forward to hearing more about the research which she is due to carry out over the coming months.