Year 6 RT
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Summer Term - 2017 The teaching of Year 6 will be shared between Mr Allen, Mr Trayling and Mrs Parietti. Please do not hesitate to contact us if there are any concerns about your child. This term our PE sessions will be on a Tuesday and Friday afternoon. However, the children need their kit in school every day in case of unexpected activities being scheduled at the last minute.
English In English, we will also be continuing our SATs revision in preparation for the tests in May and then moving on to the study of information texts, persuasive texts, newspaper reports and a novel study around the theme of the Aztecs. English homework will be given on Thursday to be completed and returned by the following Wednesday. This will usually consist of a written activity, grammar task or a reading comprehension. Spelling will be given on a Wednesday to be tested the following Wednesday. It is vitally important that the children learn their weekly spellings and complete all homework tasks set.
Big Writing – the whole school writing programme - which was introduced a number of years ago - has been very successful and all classes will continue to participate in these lessons every Friday. The children work on basic skills for the first part of the session followed by the extended writing session in the final part of the lesson. The talk homework, which the children will bring home on Mondays, will be crucial to the success of the Friday session, as this dialogue between parent and child will help to prepare them for whatever topic is presented in these sessions. We look forward to continued parental support with this programme and thank all those of you who have consistently discussed topics with children. It is certainly evident that parental input has benefitted the childrens’ writing progress greatly.
Reading Although the children are in the Upper Juniors, it is vitally important for them to continue to read daily at home. Discussing the content of the books is very important and taking a short time (5 – 10 minutes) to talk about their books will help in many ways to improve comprehension and enjoyment of the texts. They will take part in weekly guided reading sessions in school to further improve their skills. All children will have a reading record book and we would ask that you monitor this record. If your child is not bringing home a book each night, please remind them that this forms part of their homework commitment and let us know so that we can address the problem as soon as possible.
Maths In Maths, we will continue to review all four operations as well as working on shape, space, measures and decimals. Throughout the term, there will be regular arithmetic tests to assessment progress, identify areas for support and prepare children to formal assessments. Therefore, children need to rehearse times tables and mental maths technique daily. Maths homework will be sent out every Wednesday to be returned the following Monday. It will be either paper or computer based.
Combined Studies We will be studying The Aztecs in our Combined Studies (history, geography, art, DT, ICT and music) unit during this term. The attached overview together with the class timetable will give more detail regarding what we will be learning. |
Learning about earthquakes with Reading University
Classification & Evolution - Science
Year 6 have been describing how living things are classified into broad groups according to common observable characteristics and based on similarities and differences, including micro-organisms, plants and animals. This term, we've classified Pokémon based on a range of criteria, applied and adapted Harry Seely's classification system and learned to identify most dinosaurs as either Saurischian dinosaurs or Ornithischian dinosaurs. We've made our own dinosaur skeletons, considering shape and form of our chosen dinosaur and calculated the ratio and proportion of major bones when constructing our wire-frame models.
Still Life - Combined Studies
Year 6 have been exploring the development of still life over time, from the early works to
20th century artists (e.g Cotan, Gauguin, Cezzane, Picasso, Dali). We’ve been studying the different still life artists and art styles and use this as inspiration to create sketches and pastel drawings that show different textures, shapes, form, space and tone. We will improve the mastery of art techniques using a range of materials with creativity, experimentation and increased control.
V&A Museum and Natural History Museum - Science & Combined Studies - Year 6
Dream Catchers - Native Americans
6RT concluded our topic on the American Frontier, by learning about Native American life. We learnt about their culture through studying a range of historical sources of evidence, researching their way of life and kept the bad dreams at bay by replicating Native American dream catchers. Here are some of our creations.
Angry Birds Congregating at Churchend
6RT have been learning to calculate the perimeter, area and volume of 3D shapes and describe their properties. Can you identify our 3D friends?
6RT have been learning about black holes and how they are formed. We set up our own experiment to try and understand how a black hole can be so small yet have such a large mass. We investigated how this might affect its gravitational pull. Finally, we explored existing artistic impressions of these mysterious events and created some of our own images using oil pastels.
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6RT have been learning about Sir Isaac Newton’s 3 laws of motion:
- An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
- Acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass. The greater the mass (of the object being accelerated) the greater the amount of force needed (to accelerate the object).
- For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action.
We calibrated our catapult using a newton meter so that we could measure time at intervals of 6N, 8N and 10N. We then used the formula Speed = Distance ÷ Time to calculate the acceleration of our K’nex car over a distance of 2 meters.
Harnessing the power of wind!
After all of the hard work testing and adjusting, Year 6RT finally got their chance to generate some power, using voltmeters to measure the level of voltage produced.
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Maths - Fractions
Year 6 have been learning to multiply fractions less than 1 by whole numbers, converting improper fractions to whole numbers and divide non-unit fractions by whole numbers. We tested our newly acquired skills by completing a number of timed tasks using jottings and our brilliant mental calculations.
English - Newspaper Report - Kissin' Kate Barlow
We tested a range of liquids to see which liquid would propel our foam boats the greatest distance. Try the experiment out for yourself!
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Gold discovered at Churchend School!
Children learnt how to use a range of panning techniques in their quest for gold. They experienced how the miners would have felt, sifting through ice-cold and murky water, jostling for space at the waters edge. Some children were more successful than others. Whilst most of our prospectors decided to send riches home to family members, others resorted to a life of crime...
Why was the discovery so significant? How did it change the American landscape, and way of life? Was the discovery good for all American people?
Observing Static Electricity
To help our child understand more about electricity, we borrowed a Van de Graaff generator from The Wren school. A Van de Graaff generator produces static electricity that can then be used to visualise sparks and to understand the effect electricity has on other objects.
A Van de Graaff generator gave children the experience of a static electric shock, similar to the shock that you sometimes get when stepping out of a car. Further, children observed that objects with a like charge repel and so by touching the Van de Graaff generator, it was possible to make their hair stand on end.
Don't Upset the Warden
Children learnt that digging holes is not so easy. It is tiring and thirsty work, even on a cool morning in September. After 30 minutes of hard labour, the groups had only made small impressions in the dirt. Now, imagine digging one hole every day, in the middle of dried up lake in the middle of Texas!
American Frontier: We have been using the qualities of watercolour and acrylic paints to create visually interesting pieces.
