Year 6 work for Wednesday 22 April

Another day, another blog! I’m getting used to this lark now!

Maths:

Choose 20 different sized angles to draw. Then, without using your protractor, have a go at drawing them (pencil and ruler). For example, you might say you are going to draw an angle of 26, an angle of 78 and so on. Then try to draw them by estimation (not using protractor). See my top tip below before you start.

Then, measure the angles you have drawn and see how accurate (or not!) you were.

 Choose a range of acute (less than 90), obtuse (between 90 and 180) and reflex (more than 180) angles.

 I left protractors outside school early last week )(and mentioned them on here) so everyone should have one to hand.

TIP: do one angle at a time as that will help improve your accuracy. For example. I am going to try to draw an angle of 25 degrees. Then, try to draw it. Then measure it. How close was your estimate.  Then, move on to angle number 2.... and so on.

English:

SPaG test from YELLOW folder  first 25 questions plus first test from Reading Comp in yellow folder. The first text is called Deserts.

Look out for satellites in the sky!

Me again! There’s all sorts going on in the night sky at the moment. If you look at this website (below) and search for your location, you can see times showing when it is best to look up and see a whole host of satellites going past above you.

I am going to look at about 9pm tonight - apparently, I should see 41 satellites going past. There are lots tomorrow too! Ask your mums and dads whether you can stay up a little bit late to have a look. Email me if you see some!

https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/?special=starlink&fbclid=IwAR2IJaBoZaSVV1B4dhT8m-c2shTLscyOfFyGomXpzR4YCHWWBWaXq2OQK-g

Year 6 work for Tuesday 21 April

We are creeping our way through April… thank goodness. Well, here is today’s work… bet you can’t wait!!

Maths:

Target Your Maths pg 156 test 2. The page with the test on (you did Test 1 then) was posted on Wednesday March 25 so you’ll need to scroll back a bit (to that date) on this blog page.

English:

Yesterday, you wrote down your prediction for the ending of the book. Reread the first slides of The Watertower. I have added the rest of the book below, so you can read that once you have reread the earlier part. It just helps to go over what you’ve read before as sometimes you identify or notice things which you had not done on your first attempt.

Now read the remaining slides of the book.

How close was your prediction?

Think back to your initial thoughts about Bubba and Spike’s relationship at the start. Has this changed now? How? Why? Make notes on this.

Year 6 work for Monday 20 April

Welcome to the Summer Term!! Who would have though that we’d be starting it like this?!

I hope you had a lovely Easter, ate far too much chocolate, saw fluffy bunnies jumping around in hedges, stroked curly little lambs, quacked at small ducks and generally had a happy, healthy time. I am fine but am missing being amongst 30 children instead of just a few slightly grumpy teenagers/young adults (bit unfair of me really - my own children have actually been very good company and we are improving our baking skills on a daily basis! My lovely Ted is still stuck in Spain, which is a bit horrible for me, but we do speak to him twice a day so, every cloud has a silver lining!). I’ve done lots of gardening, have tidied the basement (that was a tough job), cleaned all the skirting boards, sorted out Arthur’s pants and socks drawers (so many socks!!!), totally rearranged my kitchen cupboards (HUGE job - who knew that I would have 63 bowls?!) but… I still miss you lot!

Anyway, here is today’s exciting work!

Maths:

Create your own pie chart showing something about you/ your house/ your family, Remember that it REALLY helps if your TOTAL is a factor of 360. Bonus point - explain why this helps! You should already have a protractor and compass as you needed them before Easter. You cannot do this work properly without this equipment.

English:

Recap on The Watertower so far. 

Reread the slides of the book that I added before Easter. Think about the relationship between Bubba and Spike. Also, go back to check those three headlines you came up with before Easter. Remember, you will need those later.

Now, write down a prediction for what might happen next in the book. I would like at least half a page of writing, not simply one sentence!  Use your best English and allow yourselves time to edit and proof read. If you can, ask someone older than you at home to check your work as you know you are definitely NOT allowed to keep using capitals incorrectly... plus comma splicing has been A CRIME since last September!!

Easter holidays are nearly over! Booo!

Hi there, lovely Year 6 and families.

Just a quick post to say that I hope you have had a healthy, happy Easter. The weather has generally been really lovely and, at times when I have been feeling a little glum (generally related to missing my poor son, Ted, stuck in Spain), I try to remind myself that things could be so very much worse.

I wanted to let parents know that I have noticed a couple of offers near to where I live where people who have large gardens (and even woodland etc) have offered safe time (whole days, I believe) to play there for families who do not have a garden or safe outside space. Please do contact me if you would like me to pass on these details. It just seemed like a really lovely idea and I thought I would let you know in case you could do with a bit of time outside with your children where you could feel safe. The people making the offers say the gardens/woods would be totally yours to enjoy and there would be no interaction with them other than maybe a wave hello from a safe distance when you arrive. Anyway, have a think and let me know if you would like me to pass on the details.

Monday’s work will appear overnight on the blog. I am going to be in school on Monday morning (and part of the afternoon) so, if you KNOW you need something such as paper etc, please let me know in good time and I will leave some outside the front door for you.

Friday's work... 3 April ... Year 6

It’s the end of term!! Don’t know about you, but I’m delighted to reach this point!!! Today’s work is below here but there will be no work set at all over the Easter holidays. It is more important to spend time with your families (if you haven’t had enough of that already, haha!), playing in your gardens or safely walking in the woods etc. However, try to keep up with your TT Rock Stars (I can check, you know!!) and reading regularly. Reading at a difficult time like this really helps transport you elsewhere. If you don’t have enough books at home, see if a friend can leave one on their doorstep for you to go and borrow (safely, again) and vice versa. I’ll be back on Monday 20 April (I might not be able to keep myself away for that long so keep an eye out for occasional photos of my cats!!)

Here is Friday’s work…

Maths:

Mark Reasoning paper 3… answers below. As usual, focus on the questions you got wrong. Did you make ‘silly’ mistakes? Did you miss out any pages?!?!?! (not naming names here but… it seems to be people with the initials JP that fall into this category. Was it something I said?!?)

English:

Read the parts of the book from yesterday again This is important as it helps you get a real grasp of the story, the setting and the characters. Then, read the next few pages. After these pages, I want you to create thought bubbles for Bubba as he goes back inside the water tower.

What would he be thinking? He might have many different thoughts whirring through his mind. Sometimes, he might feel confident. Then, when he hears something, he might feel scared again, wondering what he just heard/saw etc. Then, he might try to reassure himself. Have a go. In the past, children have been able to come up with at least 10 different thoughts. They won’t be long paragraphs.. They are fleeting thoughts.

Another pandemic... but a much nicer one!

Today’s (Thursday) work is in a separate blog beneath here.

However, this morning, I came across this lovely poem which I thought I’d share with you. A clever friend send it to me to cheer me up and …. guess what? It made me smile! I hope you like it!

Smiling Is Infectious
by Spike Milligan

Smiling is infectious,
you catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too.
I passed around the corner
and someone saw my grin.
When he smiled I realized
I'd passed it on to him.
I thought about that smile,
then I realized its worth.
A single smile, just like mine
could travel round the earth.
So, if you feel a smile begin,
don't leave it undetected.
Let's start an epidemic quick,
and get the world infected!

Thursday 2 April work for Year 6

Here is today’s work…

Maths:

Reasoning paper 3 from orange folder. Answers will be available later this week (probably tomorrow, in fact!!).

English:

I’m going to add below here the first few pages from The Watertower.

Read them (there is a word missing from the far right of one of the early pages the missing word is ‘swim’ … sorry, but loading everything up on here takes a long time and I have only just noticed this. You should be able to understand as long as you have read the above comment about the missing word!!)..

Once you have read these pages, write down what you think about Spike and Bubba’s friendship so far.

Then, using the pages, write down words and phrases to describe the tower.

Phonecalls....

Wednesday’s work is in a post beneath this post!

I wanted to let you know that I will be trying to ring around to everyone in the class over the next week or so.

If I am calling from my home, you will see ‘caller’s number withheld’ or something like that on your phone, so please try to answer! I will only call in the mornings. Don’t worry…. it’s only a very quick call to see how you are getting along. Try to think of something interesting to tell me … a nice walk you’ve had, something you’ve cooked, etc etc. We can talk though any problems you have had doing any of the work set and any issues getting on to Times Table Rock Stars etc (well done to lots of the class for getting onto it, however) so that I can try to help. Thank you to the 16 or so who have sent in test results. Very useful and you are doing absolutely brilliantly. Very well done. Thanks also for the lovely photos of art work inside and outside, plus random pictures of cats (and dogs with v short legs!). I love receiving them. Keep them coming!

Look forward to hearing your crazy voices shortly! xx

Wednesday 1 April work for Year 6

I so very much want to play a joke on you but I don’t dare as I don’t want it to backfire. So, share with me any jokes you play on your family!

Maths:

In my house, there are 30 different cans of tinned food. in the kitchen cupboards These can be grouped as follows:

Soup 5 cans

Baked beans 7 cans

Canned sweetcorn 3 cans

Spam (!) 1 can

Tinned fruit 6 cans

Spaghetti hoops (my husband is a baby) 4 cans

Mushy peas (look, I'm from the North, alright?) 4 cans

Show my range of canned goods in a carefully measured pie chart!

English:

The start of our science fiction text. I know some people have said they ‘don’t like science fiction!’… I’m afraid it is a genre we have to study and need to remain open minded about what science fiction actually is.

Below is the first page from our book, The Watertower.

Pupils to sketch what they think the water tower looks like based on the text. Label the different aspects that they have drawn. Does what they have drawn remind them of anything else?

Then, after you have done your labelled sketch, watch the following video on youtube (copy and paste the link below into your search engine)…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYQOWJ_Zz-o

From the youtube clip, AND the first page of the book, above, take on the role of a newspaper editor. Today, I want you to plan THREE dramatic newspaper headlines about the goings on in the town of Preston (which is in Australia, not the one in Lancashire where I was born!!). Something strange has been happening there. Locals have started panicking. People have been disappearing. People have been behaving very oddly, very oddly indeed. For a bonus point, you could also write the orientation for each of your headlines. Remember the orientation is that short, opening paragraph (maybe one or two sentences) that summarizes the newspaper article and comes at the start of the article, beneath the headline.

You will need these headlines for some work after Easter so don’t lose them!

OK! How can anyone say they don’t like sci fi now!?!

Tuesday 31 March Year 6

The last day of March… who could have guessed that we would be doing so much work online. However, tomorrow is the start of April. After you have played a brilliant April' Fools joke on your parents= tomorrow, let’s all hope that April brings brighter news for us all and that we all keep healthy and safe.

Maths:

Measure the height of at least 10 different objects in your household. Write them down in cms, then covert all to both metres and mms.

Find the range of all the heights, in cm.

Then, find the mean (in cm). List all the heights (cm) of the objects in descending order.

Bonus - TT Rockstars for 15 mins (once the rest of today's maths work is done!)

English:

Answers to Reading Comp from last week were added in yesterday’s blog post. Please mark carefully..

Once marked, you can email me your scores from the 4 tests last week (arithmetic, Reasoning paper 2, SPaG and Reading comp).

Now start plotting your trick on your family for tomorrow make it a really good one! Hehe!!

Morning peeps! School work is in another blog before this blog, by the way!

Hi all Hope you’re all tip top again this week. Keep washing those hands, with soap, for at least 20 seconds… and nag everyone in your house to keep doing the same! You have my permission!!

Firstly, I nipped down to see my poor old mum and dad in Chichester yesterday as they had run out of bread. They are from the North of England and bread is very important to northeners. It’s one of our five a day, don’t you know?! It was blimmin’ freezing and I stood in their garden, about 6 metres away from them, trying to have a conversation (not so easy as my dad’s hearing isn’t top notch so I felt I was shouting rather a lot). My husband says that shouting comes naturally to me!! Anyway, I also gave them your letters. I gave them very strict instructions to only open one or two a week. Well, guess what?! By the time I had driven home (trying to defrost my by now very cold hands in the car!!), my mum had sent me a Whatsapp message saying she’d read ALL the letters. Epic fail!! She is always like this. She has no patience at all!! Anyway,here is what she wrote:

Dear Year 6

Thank you for all our lovely letters. We loved hearing about you (and what you think of our daughter!). Yes, we do support Barnsley (well, my husband does!) and yes, Daisy, his mum was indeed called Ida. Her name, before she was married, was actually Ida Lacey Hatton and we have always thought her name sounded as though she was saying ‘I had a lacy hat on’!

Thank you, lovely Year 6 and keep well. We were very touched that you took the time to write to us. And thank you, too, for all the ideas for how to keep us entertained, especially those word searches!

Mrs Powell’s mum ! x

In other news, I attach below a lovely art idea that I came across. All you need is a shadow. Why don’t you give it a try if you get bored some time.

Finally, no blog is complete without the two key characters from our household, deaf white Louis and little black Dot (who, as you know, also responds to the names ‘Baby’ and also, weirdly, ‘Tractor’!) Dot is sniffing her cat nip ball again! Louis, meanwhile, is fast asleep. As he is totally deaf, he seems very aware of light which he hates when he’s trying to sleep. He therefore always covers his eyes like this, to keep the light out!

Monday 30 March Year 6 work

Morning everyone .. I hope you had a good weekend.

The button on my school laptop that has a dash on is not working (great!) so I am having to use … rather more than I would normally. Apologies but it’s out of my hands!

Here is today’s work. It’s a ‘marking’ kind of day today! Email me with your scores from all the papers (not separate emails for each paper, one email for all 4!)

Maths:

Answers from arithmetic... mark yours and identify errors. The answers are on photos below…

Answers from Reasoning paper 2... as above … Mark your test (photos of answers below) and try to identify those questions where you didn’t read the question properly.

English:

Answers to Spag from last week. Photos below. Who forgot capitals or punctuation and therefore lost marks?!?!

I have also added photos of the Reading Comprehension test please use these for TOMORROW’S English work (which will be to mark Reading Comp!)

Letters...

Awww, Year 6.

I woke up far too early this morning and realised we are now one week in to our remote learning.

I miss you lot, despite you all having the ability to be remarkably annoying!! (My husband always says I am a genius at both giving a compliment and a criticism at the same time!!).

Anyway, I got up before everyone else (apart from the cats, who both nagged me for grub as soon as I got into the kitchen!!) so I opened two (yep two!) letters from you. Yes, Jody, I CAN guess who it was from … and no, blue is NOT the colour!! And Copus, thank you for your very flattering letter. Not sure I’ve often been called beautiful (well, not for a very long time anyway!!) but I accept the ‘crazy’ plus I do very much like the double ‘awesome’!!

I had a really lovely email from Sara who thanked Year 6 for her letters. I told you people would love them. Writing letters to people who miss company at the moment is such a lovely thing to do. Your grandmas and grandads will be missing you all very much at the moment… why don’t you drop them a line?

Miss you all, very much. xxx

Excting treat for you all!!

OK so, late at night, earlier this week, I was pondering life in general and how to make things more fun (please note, NOT ‘funner’)! I came up with a plan to get all the class teachers together on Zoom and to try to sing a song together for you all, to brighten your days, lift up your spirits, make your hearts sing!!

The result will be published on the SCHOOL blog (not the class blog) TODAY (Friday) at about midday… the school blog is on a different page on this website! ( I think it is the very front page of the website, a bit further down)…

You might need ear muffs! You’ve been warned. Sorry it was meant to be pleasant… and believe it or not, this was after a couple of practice attempts!! Enjoy!!!

Friday 27 March work for lovely Year 6

Hey! I haven’t seen you for a week now! Booo! Hope y’all doing fine (can you tell I went to Texas last summer?!).

Here is Friday’s work - you lucky, lucky peeps!

Maths:

15 mins of times tables writing... working backwards from 12 x 12 down to 1x1 =

Find 10 cans/bottles/packets of different sizes in your kitchen. Write down the weights in descending order. Round them all to the nearest 100g.

Measure the perimeter of one of your doors in your home. Sketch it in your book, showing the dimensions. Then, work out the area. Bonus point – measure the thickness (depth) and measure the volume.  Remember units of measure.

English:

Remaining two texts from your Reading Comp test started last Tues. Answer as well as you possibly can. I will provide the results later (next week). Think of everything we have done in class – how to answer fully, using evidence from the texts.

Remainder of Spag test from orange folder (started last  Tues).

Then - get in your garden and design some sort of pattern with natural materials. If you haven’t got a garden, draw something you can see from your window which is natural rather than man-made.

Work for Thursday 26 March

Me again!! How are you all doing out there?

I seem to have spent hours on my laptop doing work but am gradually trying to sort out a better process for juggling work-related things. I have filled out a very (I mean VERY) big spreadsheet that The Weald sent me - all about you lovely lot (well, 21 of you anyway!). That was fun (not!). It was even more fun when I thought I’d finished but then my laptop started to misbehave and I lost several hours’ worth of work and had to redo it. I was obviously extremely calm in my response…….!! Not sure about you though but, at the moment, with so much going on out in the big, wide world, it makes me realise how lucky I am and I am trying to get annoying little things into perspective.

So, on to Thursday’s work.

Maths

Remainder of arithmetic test from orange folder

Remaining questions from  Reasoning questions paper 2 orange folder

English

Science Fiction is precisely that. It is a piece of fiction (not real – made up – a story) with some sort of link to science. It does NOT mean that the setting always needs to be in a laboratory with lots of mad professors in white coats. That can sometimes be a bit obvious.

I want you to research online for a good piece of science fiction. I would like it to be written (rather than a film – more of that later). Your task today is to do that research and find a quality piece of science fiction writing. It only needs to be an extract from a book rather than a whole book, if you prefer. You need to keep a note of this piece of writing (either have the book with you, or know exactly where online you have found it) as you may need to refer to it again later.

What are the key features of Science Fiction writing from the text you found? List them in your red book.

In writing, describe the setting for the piece you found. Then, describe the characters. If you have only read a short excerpt, you may need to use your imagination to describe the setting and the characters.

Message for Year 6 mums and dads

Dear parents

Thank you for supporting all the lovely Badgers with their learning so far this week.

However, this afternoon, I started to feel guilty. Everything is worrying for everyone at the moment and the last thing I want to do is to add to everyone’s pressures and stress. Therefore, if you feel it would be better for you, or your child, to do something completely different on any day, of course, please, please do that instead.

Sometimes, lessons that I set on here will follow on from the previous day. Usually, these can be merged so that the children can capture the essence of the two lessons in just one session. In English, for example, we will shortly be looking at a particular text over a week or so. However, if your child misses , say, Monday’s lesson, it will be possible for them to catch up quickly and still have a go at Tuesday’s lesson.

In the end, it is absolutely your choice. I really hope this helps.

Thanks, and best wishes for health and well-being to all of you.

Wednesday 25 March work - Year 6

Hi folks!! Hope you got on ok yesterday. We will have a few little glitches to iron out over these first few days (mostly caused by me!!). I will put answers to questions/test up on here a few days after you’ve been set them so don’t panic about that yet.

Here is Wednesday’s work…

Maths:

Page from Target Your Maths pg 156 test 1. Photo of sheet below…

English:

Cold task – write the opening chapter to a Science Fiction story. No cheating. I know what classes produce each year when I set this task and I absolutely know lots of children do NOT know what science fiction is. Then, tomorrow, we will talk about what Sci Fi really is!

Write for 30 minutes. Then. The next 30 mins should be used for editing, proof-reading and redrafting! You know that, in Year 6, we don’t accept incorrect use of capitals, missing punctuation, the dreaded comma splicing (google it if you can’t remember - although you should know by now as I go on about it all the time).

Please do not send me photos of your work each day as my email account at school can’t cope with the volume and will get blocked… As and when we are all back together, we can bring all our work in to show people, and I can then do a quick check myself.

Meanwhile, as well as the photo of the maths page, please find a photo of me from 3 years ago when I lost a competition for face painting. Can you guess which family were to blame?! I also attach a pic of Hattie and Arthur working with me in our kitchen this morning. Louis jumped up on a kitchen stool just as I took the photo as I think he wanted to join in with all the fun!?!?

Secondary School confirmation URGENT PLEASE

Dear Year 6 parents,

Every year, I have to complete a very extensive data transfer for The Weald, which takes quite a few hours. Unfortunately, The Weald still have the names of 6 children from Year 6 down as going to them even though parents have told us they are going elsewhere. The Weald now wants me to produce the information for these children, ‘just in case’ whereas I really would prefer not to, as it’s several hours’ of work.

Please, therefore, if you know your child is NOT going there, please notify the LEA without delay, and email me to confirm. If, however you still feel that there is a chance that your child WILL go to The Weald, please also let me know by email asap so I can gather the information.

Many thanks your help with this is much appreciated as it will save me an afternoon’s additional, and probably unnecessary, work. Mrs P x