Year 6 have been using their persuasive writing skills this week - we have written letters to several establishments to try to negotiate a ‘deal’ for our end of year trip to Littlehampton. Will these letters be successful? We’ll just have to wait and see!!!
Growl!
Year 6 have had great fun learning about the painting, Surprised, by Henri Rousseau. We have made leaf mobiles using a variety of artistic techniques, and then, inspired by Aboriginal art, we made tiger faces. They look fabulous. The class will be able to explain WHY we looked at Aboriginal art at our art gallery on Monday. Everyone has also written a haiku poem linked with the artwork. Well done, Year 6!
Arctic training
Year 6 started their Arctic training for their new Frozen Kingdom project today. We learnt that explorers pull tyres to replicate pulling their sledges across the ice fields. This helps them build up the strength and stamina needed for when they start their exploration.
Thanks to Mr Relf, we were able to use some big tyres to set up a relay in the playground. Some of us found it much easier than others ( I’m honestly not thinking of you, Miss IM!!).
We hope to tweak this experiment, using two or three tyres and working in teams! Our thigh muscles are going to get HUGE!!!
Bought v Homemade?!
In Year 6, we have been comparing the nutritional values, ingredients and taste/appearance of shop-bought v homemade whole meal bread. Homemade won on all counts ( although not quite a total landslide win - a few members of Y6 preferred the floppy shop-bought bread to the loaf made by Mrs P’s 89 year old parents!!). The most striking difference was in the number of ingredients - 15 for the purchased loaf compared to 5 for the homemade version!!
Recycling can be fun
Year 6 enjoyed spending time helping Letty sort our playground recycling bin into the various different types of materials to aid recycling. To calm down the various squeals, children wore gloves to help sort out the bin’s contents and they all worked really well together to separate all the different packets and wrappers. Thank you to Letty for giving your time freely.
Fairy/pixie/elf dens….
This week has been all about the school play in Year 6 but we have still been doing lots of work. We have been spending time carefully evaluating lots of historical sources in our Great Escape project; we have been learning about the terribly sad bombing of Petworth School during the war ( there is a graveyard in Petworth where you can visit the graves of the children and staff who died. It is a very poignant place - it is just behind The Stonemasons Inn, and there is a memorial near the pub too)… and we have been making doors for fairy/pixie/elf dens to be hidden in the trees around the playground. It has been really lovely seeing the class work so nicely together and some of us are trying hard not to think about the fact that we have only one week left together…
Plaistow, London, visits Plaistow, West Sussex
Year 6 had a fabulous day on Monday when our friends from Year 6 at Plaistow Primary School visited us. After tours of the school plus a few ice-breaker games, we went on a walk to the woods. Stiles were met with intrigue and confusion! We then did some fire lighting on the school field and enjoyed making ‘s’mores together. For the adults watching, it was just wonderful seeing children from the two Plaistows playing together as if they’d known one another for years.
A bundle of trundles!
Year 6 grabbed all the trundle wheels and meter sticks this week for maths outdoors; they were challenged to produce an accurate, scaled plan of the school playground. This caused quite a lot of confusion at first but, after lots of detailed measuring, they have produced some fabulous plans which will go on display in the classroom.
Sun… and fun!
Year 6 we’re blessed with fabulous weather for our residential trip to PGL on the Isle of Wight this week. How luck are we?
The children really pushed themselves to try things that they didn’t think they could do. Both Ms Smith and Mrs Powell were hugely impressed by everyone’s behaviour and attitude, and we even managed to get everything packed up on the final day without Mrs Powell’s stress levels elevating too much!!
Lots of people were open to trying different food, sleeping in funny bunk beds in wooden cabins and generally getting along with everyone else. We are super proud of you and loved having the opportunity to spend time with you all. Well done, Badgers! xx
Den-tastic!
After repeated requests, Mrs P relented and let Y6 make dens in the classroom on Thursday afternoon. This tested the Badgers’ team work and creative skills somewhat, but the results were fabulous and quirky!!!
SATs are over!!!!
Year 6 celebrated in true doughnut style when they emerged from their final SATs paper this morning! We are all hugely proud of all their hard work and are really looking forward to getting stuck into our World War Two topic now. We have lots of things to look forward to in the final few weeks of Year 6. Mrs Powell is just looking forward to having a sleep without waking up thinking about grammar or algebra!
Writing success
Year 6 were delighted to receive this fabulous reply to their letters from Harbour Park in Littlehampton. We are proud of our persuasive skills!
From Plaistow to Plaistow
This week, Year 6 and Year 4 had a fabulous day out to Plaistow, London where we visited our new friends at Plaistow Primary School.
We went by train and tube and were then met by their deputy head teacher at Upton Park Station. From there, it was a short walk to their school. We spent time meeting children in their classrooms, played games together, had a lovely lunch in their hall and then played outside together on their playground.
It was so lovely for us all to meet the children and staff at Plaistow Primary School and we really look forward to forging a lovely friendship moving forwards. We will be welcoming their Year 6 children to our school in July and cannot wait to show them around our school grounds.
Once it was time for us to wave goodbye, we were able to spend some time looking in the shops nearby, enabling us to make comparisons between their Plaistow and ours.
Mr Butler, Mrs Powell, Miss Smith and Mrs Griggs would like to say a huge thank you to all the parents who accompanied us on the day - without you, we would not have been able to give our children this experience. We would also like to thank all the children’s parents for putting your trust in us - we know that some children had been a little bit worried beforehand but we really hope they enjoyed their day and that their confidence has grown as a result.
New York skyline
The children have tried to create the NY skyline by layering shades of colours to give perspective. We now have the most beautiful, eye-catching wall which we can’t wait to show off to you!
Night time in Manhattan
As Badger Class chose to create Manhattan st night, today, we painted everything black. Tonight, I shall be dreaming of black paint… Click the black button below to see two hours’ of painting condensed into 23 seconds!
The Big Apple
Well!!!!! Finally, we have all found out what the boxes are for! Year 6 have worked really hard all day trying to create a huge 3D Lower Manhattan- it’s still a work in progress but is starting to take shape! Tomorrow - the paints are coming out!
Festive pie ‘fun’
Year 6 was awash with pastry-based, circular items as we prepared our ‘actual pie’ charts. Admittedly, the definition of ‘pie’ was slightly stretched but it was great to see the class trying hard to place protractors on top of pork pies, chicken and leek pies, lemon pies, tarte tatin and chocolate fudge ‘pies’. We had done a survey of people’s top three favourite items from Christmas dinner ( I mean - obviously it has to be pigs in blankets, crunchy roast potatoes and gravy, doesn’t it?) and were then trying to represent our data on a real pie! ( OK - look, it seemed like a good idea at the time!)
It is always interesting seeing who can do what -cutlery skills perhaps needs to be added to the Y6 curriculum!
I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas, manages to shake off these horrible colds, and here’s to a Happy New Year for us all! Xx
Buddies!!!
Year 6 have really enjoyed meeting their new buddies from Reception Class. They are starting to get to know one another and are really looking forward to helping them settle into school. It is lovely to watch them playing together. Well done Badgers and Robins!
It’s good to talk!
We had our first Oracy session in Year 6, where we discussed whether first impressions mattered. It was lovely to see the children sensibly discussing their ideas and allowing everyone to have their say.
Well done, ‘new Year 6’! It’s great fun getting to know you.
Farewell….
Well, what a blast this year has been. The worst part of being a Year 6 teacher is having to wave goodbye to them, knowing I may never see some of them ever again having really got to know them really well over a year.
Lovely Year 6 … have a fabulous summer. I am so proud of every single one of you. Be brave in September when you go to your new schools. You will be absolutely fine and will find lots of new friends, as well as being able to hold on to your old friends too.
I will really miss you. Xx
