Year 6: Blog items
Year 6 - Chords and structures in Music
Date: 25th May 2022 @ 4:44pm
In Music this week we have looked the unit 'Chords and Structures. This involved listening and responding to the three songs 'Wake Up', 'Down by the Riverside' and 'We Shall Overcome'. As we listened to the lyrics we realised that they all had a similar theme that linked with equality and Black Lives Matter. We were also able to compare and contrast the songs and discuss key elements such as tempo, dynamics, structure, texture etc. To finish the unit, we played the glockenspiels to the song 'Down by the Riverside' and began to improvise and compose our own music.
Date: 25th May 2022 @ 8:40am
Year 6 have started the first of their maths consolidation projects. This project will focus on a bakery and we will use or skills in ration and proportion, money, percentages, 3D shapes and volume. Today we were using ration and proportion to work out how much ingredients were needed to make cupcakes. We then went on to work out the cost of ingredients and which shop was better value.
Year 6 - Letters of persuasion
Date: 24th May 2022 @ 10:20am
Over the past few weeks, Year 6 have been exploring and writing letters of persuasion. We looked at information about the current effects of plastic pollution and used these facts to write a letter to Boris Johnson. The letter aims to persuade the prime minister to take action with other world leaders in an attempt to slow down, and eventually stop, plastic pollution. We will be sending several of these letters to Downing Street. Let's see if we get a response!!
Year 6 Writing about the weekend in French
Date: 19th May 2022 @ 7:52pm
Year 6 have worked really hard in their French lesson today. First we recapped on vocabulary from previous lessons including telling the time and activities that are done at the weekend. The children then learned some new opinion phrases, before translating an email into French and writing their own. Super work Year 6!
Year 6 - The Circulatory System
Date: 18th May 2022 @ 11:46am
In today's Science lesson, we learned about the human circulatory system. We found out that blood that comes from the body is deoxygenated. It gets pumped by the heart to the lungs where it picks up oxygen. The oxygenated blood then gets pumped around the body. We took our learning outside and created our own model of the circulatory system. We used blue cones to represent deoxygenated blood and red ones to represent oxygenated blood.
Year 6 Computing - Programming and Algorithms
Date: 17th May 2022 @ 4:52pm
Today we began our new Coputing topic of animations as part of Programming and Algorithms. This involved using Scratch and coding different sprites to move across the screen. The children used different coding blocks to make the sprites move, make sounds and change costumes. Once the children were feeling more confident with using the coding blocks they were challenged to add other sprites and experiment with how to make the character grow, move, change colour etc.
Year 6 sketching - shading and perspective
Date: 13th May 2022 @ 3:53pm
Year 6 continued their sketching unit in Art by practising shading techniques. The children learned about perspective and used their sketchbooks to practise drawing 3D shapes, before moving onto experimenting with different 3D shapes to sketch buildings and architectutal scenes.
Year 6 sketching - introduction to Stephen Wiltshire
Date: 11th May 2022 @ 3:38pm
Today we began our sketching unit by looking at the life and art of the artist Stephen Wiltshire. We looked at his website and appraised some of his pieces - we discussed how he used line and value to create his pieces. We were very impressed with his city landscapes, many of which were drawn from memory. We are looking forward to completing more work in his style and learning about other artists.
Year 6 Introduction to netball
Date: 29th Apr 2022 @ 4:14pm
Today we started our new PE topic of netball. The children have done netball in Year 5 so we had a recap on the different types of throws and passes. We looked at how to accurately use chest pass, shoulder pass and bounce pass to get the ball to our partners.
Date: 28th Apr 2022 @ 3:38pm
Year 6 continued their new unit of French - Le Week-end. We recapped on how to tell the time to the nearest 5 minutes before learning phrases to describe activities that can be done at the weekend. Some children completed a challenge where they had to use their learning from the last two lessons to write sentences describing what activities they do at the weekend and the time that they do them.
Date: 25th Apr 2022 @ 4:33pm
Year 6 had a great first lesson learning street dance moves and putting them into a short routine. All the children participated really well, even those who were initially reluctant. We look forward to learning more in the coming weeks.
Date: 21st Apr 2022 @ 12:04pm
Year 6 had a very busy and productive Science Day. We began by looking at scientific stereotypes and how these could be challenged. We took part in a Primary Futures event, where we were introduced to people who worked in scientific roles within our community. We had a chance to guess which job they did and ask questions about their roles. Although all of their careers were different, they all needed scientific knowledge to do their jobs.
We then moved on to learning about the heart and were given the opportunity to dissect a lamb’s heart. We identified the main parts of the heart, including the aortic valve, atriums and ventricles. We finished the day by focussing on plant-based food. We calculated how many food miles different types of burgers created and then designed our own environmentally friendly version.
Date: 29th Mar 2022 @ 9:16am
Year 6 visited St Mark’s Church to learn all about Holy Communion/Eucharist. Reverend Peter and Mathew explained the service and the rituals that take place as well as the meaning behind them.
Jenny showed the children around children and they completed a little quiz to further their understanding of Christianity.
Date: 24th Mar 2022 @ 12:08pm
Year 6 had a great day learning about the street artist Banksy and created their own Banksy inspired Blackpool street art. First, we learned about Banksy and used our sketch books to explore his work and inspiration. We discussed the meaning behind some of his pieces and whether grafitti is art or vandalism. We then practised using sponges and spray bottles to create a 'spray paint' effect. Finally we used stencils to create our collaborative 'I love Blackpool' street art.
Date: 23rd Mar 2022 @ 2:48pm
We have had a visit from the Police this week to talk about legal and, mainly, illegal drugs. This involved looking at how drugs are trying to be disguised as sweets, looking at the risks and 'street' names of illegal drugs and discussing peer pressure. Year 6 children were really sensible, listened carefully, participated well and asked some great question.
Year 6 Area, perimeter and volume
Date: 17th Mar 2022 @ 8:51pm
In Maths this week we have been working on the last part of our Measures unit. This has involved working out the area and perimeter of a range of squares and rectangles. We were then taught how to find the area of both triangles and parallelograms by using formulae. This linked to our previous Algebra unit. Our final 2 lessons covered finding the volume of cubes and cuboids and solving problems relating to finding missing lengths/widths/heights.
Date: 17th Mar 2022 @ 8:46pm
For the first time in a long time, the sun was shining today on our PE session. We are half way through our hockey unit and we are getting much better at moving and passing the ball. We have learned how to perform the Indian dribble and a jab tackle. Today we tried our hand at accurate shooting and then got involved in a competitive 1v1 game called quicksticks. The progress is clear to see and some of us almost managed to beat Mrs. Hamilton. Almost!
Year 6 What can fossils tell us?
Date: 15th Mar 2022 @ 8:51pm
In Science this week we have been recapping on what we know about fossils. We discussed what a fossil is and how they are formed by watching a video about their formation over thousands of years. We also learned about Mary Anning, a fossil hunter of the early 1800s and how her finds changed the way scientists viewed fossils. We finished with looking at several examples and discussed what we think was their closest living relative.
Year 6 Primary Futures live event
Date: 4th Mar 2022 @ 12:21pm
Today we took part in a Primary Futures live event where 3 different speakers talked to us about how important literacy skills are in their jobs. The jobs were a journalist, a banker and a marketing executive and they told us how reading and writing plays suh a vital role. It was really interesting to listen to them and find out about jobs that we could choose to have when we are older.
Date: 3rd Mar 2022 @ 8:12pm
Today we celebrated World Book. The children looked absolutely brilliant in their costumes and really put a lot of effort into becoming their characters. We had characters such as:
The convicts from Holes
Elizabeth Banks from Mary Poppins
Little Red Riding Hood
Anne Frank
Katniss Everdeen
The staff also enjoyed dressing up as some of their favourite characters. We also took park in a live event, which involved authors discussing their books and finished the day with a fun 50 question book quiz! We hope everyone enjoyed the day.
Date: 21st Feb 2022 @ 2:30pm
In Year 6 today we have taken part in an activity to help us understand evolution. We discussed who Charles Darwin was and how he developed the theory of evolution by comparing finches on each of the Galapagos Islands. He found that there were differences in the birds' beaks depending on the food available. We have taken the role of these birds today by trying to pick up different 'seeds' using a range of different 'beaks'. We found that some beaks were better at picking up seeds than others and this helped us to understand why some finches developed different sized beaks.
Year 6 Making Mobile Phone Cases
Date: 8th Feb 2022 @ 5:06pm
Today, we have had a full day of DT. Our project was to make a mobile phone case and today we have managed to create these. To do this we have followed a journey in order to make sure we have fully researched the product and had a chance to plan it. Today we have researched existing felt mobile phone cases, looked at developing a success criteria, planned and designed our product, made a prototype and then created our final product. To finish, we now need to evaluate our case against our success criteria.
Date: 27th Jan 2022 @ 7:07pm
This week in our gymnastic session, we have continued to focus on balances and counter balances. We learned how to do several rolls, including a log roll and the teddy bear roll. We then combined the rolls with balances to create a short routine. Finally, included apparatus in our routines.
Date: 27th Jan 2022 @ 6:56pm
This week in Music, Year 6 have been using glockenspiels to improvise. After finding the pulse in the piece of music, we listened and responded to musical patterns - first by clapping and then by playing the notes on the glockenspiels. Finally, we improvided using the notes from the piece.
Year 6 Describing Viking hair in French!
Date: 20th Jan 2022 @ 2:30pm
Year 6 had a fun afternoon continuing their 'Les Vikings' unit in French. This week the children learned how to describe hair using the irregular verb 'avoir'. After learning how to describe the length, colour and style of hair, they played games of Guess Who where they had to ask questions - in French - about a person's hair.