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!
Get it right, Mrs P !
OK, so it's been a long week and even teachers sometimes make mistakes! I couldn't quite understand why Badger Class had thoroughly confused faces when I set them this problem. I then realised I'd missed out a vital part of the question!
Units of Measure DO matter!!
In the words of 80's rock band, Europe, 'It's the final countdown'... to SATs.
In Year 6, we have had fun and games making sure we are fabulous at converting units of measure. One particular member of the class was especially delighted to have a revision session on this fun mathematical topic! Indeed, it went down so well with the troops that we're continuing with it tomorrow!!
Singing and SATs!
In Badger Class, we had our first go at sitting a practice paper in the hall today... it felt a bit more serious but we all thought it was useful. We are going to have another go next Tuesday. One important thing we have realised is that lots of us need to remember to put our hands up and ask for questions to be read if we are at all stuck.
We then spent the rest of the morning singing in the classroom - firstly, having an early practice of our Leavers' Assembly songs (tissues at the ready - you have been warned!) and then some of the songs from Alice The Musical. It's going to be fabulous!
A morning of writing, editing and pie charts!
Year 6 are busy drafting information guides to our school. We aim to finalise these over the next week or so. We are hoping to produce documents which could help parents of children starting at our lovely school; we're using some persuasive language and including information on all the fabulous facilities and clubs that we have available to us. We have also done some statistics revision this morning and now consider ourselves to be (pork) pie chart experts!
