Happy Friday!
Another busy week full of imagination in English, multiplying and dividing in Maths and investigating in science. This week, we have continued using the book 'Windrush Child' to inspire our writing in English. We've written diary entries in character, used conjunctions in a piece of writing giving advice for children coming to England, and used relative clauses to add extra information when writing about things we are grateful for. In Maths, we've practised using the formal long multiplication method to multiply 2 digit numbers by 4 digit numbers, and refined our used of short division. In Science, we investigated how we can tell whether a chemical reaction has taken place. Some of the clues include smell, change in colour and fizzing. We conducted an investigation into this by mixing some vinegar with baking powder to observe what happened. History took a local focus and we thought about how Devon changed during the industrial revolution. In P.E., we worked on counter balances in pairs. Next week is the last week of this half term. We will be learning how to do long division in Maths, writing a persuasive speech in English and completing our science and history units. Have a lovely weekend. We've had a really lovely week this week in Sycamore Class!
In English, we started our new unit of work based on the book 'Windrush Child'. We have learnt all about Generation Windrush and the experience of the people who moved to England for jobs following WW2. The children have been really empathetic and have written in role as someone moving from Jamaica to England, thinking about how they might have been feeling and the thoughts they might have had. In Maths, we have had a busy week learning about factors, multiples, prime numbers, square and cube numbers! We move on next week to looking at the formal written methods for multiplication and division. We conducted 3 investigations in science this week to look at how to separate mixtures through sieving, filtering and evaporation. Our history lesson took us back to the times of the Victorian inventors and we learnt about some of the revolutionary inventions which changed life forever. In French, we are learning how to introduce ourselves and say where we live and where we would like to live. A highlight of this week was our workshop with the Devon Wildlife Trust. We were identifying mammals and learning how we could tell whether they have visited our gardens! Enjoy some photos from this workshop and some from Art today, where we used a Chiaroscuro technique to make words look 3D by using light and shadows. Hello,
It's Friday! We've spent the day drawing together some loose ends and finishing off some things. We have finished our Place Value unit in Maths. We moved onto our new unit, 'The Four Operations' (adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing). Next week, we will be looking at factors and multiples. We have also finished our writing our stories, 'The Star and the Fox' and published these in neat. The children worked hard on their presentation of these so well done. In Science, we conducted an investigation involving dissolving sugar into water. Our focus was making careful observations and using scientific language to talk about these. Our History lesson took us back in time to the industrial revolution to look at what working conditions were like. The children had to decide whether they'd prefer to work in a mine or a factory... neither option was very appealing! This morning, Phillipa and Vanessa from FONTS brought in some sample leavers hoodies and t-shirts for the children to try on. They will be bringing home their completed form so if you'd like to order these, please return this with payment by next Wednesday. Have a great weekend. Hello!
Another week has flown by! The weather is turning colder and we've had a lot of rain so just a reminder that children will needs a coat in school every day from now on please. This week, one of my favourite lessons with the children was History. We were learning about living and working conditions in the Industrial Revolution, particularly in cities, and everybody was so interested and curious. It shows a great learning attitude. The children researched some facts about conditions and produced lovely fact files, one of which I've pictured below. In Science, we learnt the difference between pure and impure substances. One of the facts that the class found interesting was that rose gold is gold with copper added to it, and white gold is gold with platinum added to it. In English, we have continued our reading lessons through 'Book Club'. 'The Explorer' story is getting really interesting now and the children are thoroughly enjoying this! They are able to show a deep understanding of the text and demonstrate this through book talk and discussion around key ideas of retrieval and inference. In Maths, we've continued the topic of Place Value. Today we've finished the week with rounding numbers up to 10 million. Something worth practising at home if possible! Art was a great lesson where the children designed their own symbolic imagery, using the Mayan belief that everyone has a spirit animal companion. Ask them which their 'way' is! A bit of a guilty highlight this week was designing Christmas cards ready to be sent off printed. Thanks to FONTS for organising this. We all had fun getting into the spirit and feeling festive. Thanks to those of you who made it to my parent meeting. I will be holding a SATS information session before Christmas so I hope to see many of you again there. Have a lovely weekend. This week has been a busy one in Year 6!
We have started our new topics in our lessons. Our 'Book Club' book, The Explorer, is proving a hit and we've had some really insightful book talk and comments in our reading sessions! We've been writing short extracts based on the book 'The Fox and the Star' in English. In Science, we are learning about physical and chemical changes and spent our first lesson recapping the properties of solids, liquids and gases. We made careful observations of ice melting and came up with some great scientific explanations for why this happens. In History, we are learning about the Victorian era, in particular the Industrial Revolution. We learnt about the three classes in Victorian society and the children acted out what they thought a day in the life of each class would be like. There certainly are some excellent actors in this class! In Art, we have started a unit of work on drawing. We analysed Mayan art, thinking about the patterns, imagery and colours used. We then recreated this in our sketchbook. The children completed their first Maths SATs papers this week so well done to them all for trying their best in these. We will be sitting the reading and SPAG papers next week too. Homework folders have been issued with Maths homework due on a Wednesday, and spelling and reading practise expected daily. Thanks for your support with this. Have a lovely weekend! Hello!
It's Miss Radbourne here taking over the Sycamore blog as I've now moved from Year 4 to Year 6! We've had a lovely first few days back at school. Despite the heat, we've all had a lot of fun and have been working hard. In Maths, we've started our unit all about Place Value. We have been writing and presenting ideas for a project about Crazy Contraptions. We had some brilliantly creative ideas including a robodog, fantasy backpacks and levitating phones! The children all stood at the front and pitched their ideas, Dragon Den style, so well done everyone. We had our first SAINTS P.E. session this week and we'll be focusing on hockey skills for the next few weeks. Next week, we'll be getting into all of our new topics in all lessons. I will also set up homework folders for the children where they will be able to complete their daily reading, spellings and Maths. Have a lovely weekend. Another incredibly busy week filled with Sports events, transition days and play rehearsals. Here is a little preview of what you can expect next week! The children are working so hard and the play really has come on in leaps and bounds. We are so excited to share this with you. Have a good weekend!
On Monday this week we continued writing our information text about the heart. We revised the use of colons and tried to include them in our writing. After break, we played a great game of rounders in the sunshine. In the afternoon we continued practising for our play - the songs are beginning to sound great as we work out the different parts. The children are really beginning to show their confidence.
After some focussed work on Tuesday morning when they first arrived, the children did some reading activities before being called to have our class photos taken. As part of the national child measurement programme, all children were weighed and measured at school on Tuesday. After break we had our third RSE lesson. This lesson was all about positive healthy relationships. Next week we will have our final RSE lesson which is about how babies are made. It was back to more play practice in the afternoon where we started to introduce props. The songs are really coming on! On Wednesday, Miss Collins continued teaching the science unit which is about diet and lifestyles. They also continued their RE unit. After lunch, the afternoon was dedicated to play practice. On Thursday we took part in the OCRA Quad Kits event which included a sprint, a jump, a throw and a long distance run. It was really enjoyable and the children showed great team spirit in supporting each other. We look forwards to hearing about the results next week! During the afternoon we did more play practise and it was lovely to see how it had improved over the course of the week! On Friday we started the day with singing and then P.E. with Coach Edwards. The rest of the day was dedicated to organising our Leaver's books, finishing off our profiles and French. We spent the afternoon rehearsing Cinderella Rockerfella! It was also Rainbow Day where we celebrated everybody's differences and shared how we are all unique and individual. Thank you for your continued support! Have a wonderful weekend. The website is finally up an running, so here is a round up of our week!
On Monday this week we began practising our skills for our sports day events. We ran races to decide who would make up the relay team for each house and practised throwing and jumping events too. It is so lovely to enjoy our wonderful school field with the sun shining. The children carried out research to find information about the heart in order to write an information page in the style of our model text ' Anatomy'. We had the third of our RSE(Relationships and Sex Education) lessons which was about responsibility and change. In the afternoon we continued practising for our play. We had visitors on Tuesday - The MED Theatre group. They came to do a transition project which included, planning, rehearsing, acting and filming scenarios about moving to secondary school. The children were fully involved with all aspects of this, learning how to use the technical equipment and all about the process of film-making. It was a great day and I can't wait to see the final film which will combine our work with that of South Tawton and Chagford Primary and year 7 from Okehampton college. On Wednesday, Miss Collins returned to year 6 and is teaching the class our new science unit which is about diet and lifestyles. She is also teaching them RE each Wednesday until the end of term. After lunch, the children began using their notes to begin writing their information texts about the heart. They impressed me with their ability to write with great awareness of their reader. The rest of the afternoon was dedicated to play practice. On Thursday we spent the morning preparing information for our Leaver's books and then did some activities linked to transition. We talked about things that we were worried about and also came up with some positive affirmations to help with any nerves. The afternoon was again dedicated to play practice. On Friday we began the day with a short French speaking activity followed by P.E. with Coach Edwards on the field. We played rounders and all of the children enjoyed being out in the sunshine together. The rest of the day was spent rehearsing small elements of the play and putting drama to songs. We have some very talented performers so really hope as many of you as possible can come along to watch! Hello everyone,
We hope this end of Spring term blog finds you well! Here is a round up of our week at school! When writing these blogs we often find we don't include every curriculum subject as there would just be so much, but Miss Boyce teaches our R.E. and music lessons on a Wednesday. Therefore, she has given us a brief overview of what Year 6 have been learning in music and R.E this term. Thank you, Miss Boyce! In RE this term, Year 6 have been exploring the question ‘Are science and creation conflicting or complementary’. We have recapped the book of Genesis and compared our own ideas about creation with those set out in the bible. We learnt that many Christians find science and faith can complement each, by seeing the bible as allegorical. We have been exploring artistic impressions of the big bang and the Christian creation story. We are looking forward to interviewing Reverend Spence next term! Year 6 have some very insightful thoughts and are becoming very good at justifying and expanding upon their ideas – we have had some great discussions this term! In music, we have used the theme of waves to create music. We have been appraising the work of Mendelssohn and further developing improvisation and composition skills. We have been focusing on pitch, dynamics and texture in our compositions. The children have been learning to:
In Maths we have been recapping how to find the volume of shapes, reading and interpreting graphs, finding out about the 'mean' in averages and about the four quadrants, focusing on co ordinates, translation and reflection. Science Over the last couple of weeks in science we have been learning about speed and kinetic energy. We understand now that speed doesn't just refer to going fast but that it is the measure of the time taken to cover a distance. We carried out an investigation to measure our speed over a distance of 20 metres using the formula: speed = distance covered/time taken. We also carried out some research to find out which are the fastest (and slowest) animals in the world. the fastest being the peregrine falcon which can dive at speeds of up to 390km/h. The following lesson was about kinetic energy (the energy stored in moving objects). We realised that a lorry travelling at the same speed as a small car has far more kinetic energy and we can understand this because we can imagine the difference in the impact if the lorry collided with something compared to the impact of the car. We therefore understood that kinetic energy is affected by the speed and the mass of an object. We calculated the kinetic energy in different examples using the formula: KE=0.5 x mv². As you can tell, we are covering some challenging topics in science this term, but the children are showing a good understanding of these complex ideas. English We are always impressed with the children's use of language in our class and the way they are able to draw on a good vocabulary and apply these ideas to their own writing. This is due in no small part to their love of reading at home and to listening to the class novel(s) at school. They have been using this expressive (including figurative) language to complete the poems they started last week and to begin writing a story sequel to The Promise. We are encouraging them to show off their writing skills including using a range of punctuation and grammatical forms and giving them the time to really carefully proof-read their writing for correct spelling and grammatical sense. We are getting close now to the time when we will have to look through a collection of their work to decide upon their writing levels and it is important that they are always writing with focus, skill and stamina and to the best of their ability. Lifeskills This term, our lessons have been about media literacy and digital resilience focussing on social media and online images and relationships. In this week's lesson we began the 'Selfie Project' where each child has taken a selfie of themselves or with their friend. All of these selfies have been stuck into our life skills book where the children can then write positive comments about their friends and peers. The idea of this, is to challenge the traditional view of what beauty is and to help them see that they are all beautiful and that being yourself and being different is really what beauty is all about. This idea was inspired by this video clip which we watched in the lesson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFkm1Hg4dTI Well done to the Year 6 Festival of Hope football team, who took part in the tournament held at Okehampton College. They played very well, were competitive but showed great sportsmanship and most of all were polite and respectful. They won 3 out of their 4 matches, with plenty of goals from many of our players! During our P.E. lessons we had a change of plan due to the weather! We played some team games involving crossing an imaginary toxic river and then bench ball. The children really enjoy playing these games and it's great ti see them working as a team! This week has been as busy as ever, with various assemblies, meetings about SATS and sporting events. Thank you to those of you who attended parents evening and also managed to come to the information evening. The relevant information can now be found on our class dojo pages. I am sure we are all looking forwards to some time at home to enjoy the lighter evenings, the warmer weather (we can hope!) and time with our families! Happy Easter everyone, we will see you in the Summer term! Thank you for your continued support as we venture into the last term of your child's primary school education! |
AuthorWelcome to the blog of Sycamore Class at North Tawton Primary School Archives
April 2024
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