Year 6: Blog items
The One With @SaferInternetDay #FreeToBe
Date: 12th Feb 2020 @ 3:08pm
Today is Safer Internet Day, where we look at the importance of staying safe online. We recapped what we already know on how to keep safe online:
- Don't share personal information
- Report cyber bulling by using the CEOP button and telling a trusted adult
- Ask for permission when uploading a picture or video of someone
- Use a safe password with characters, numbers and symbols
- Only use websites that are appropriate for your age
- Be an upstander and do the right thing online
- Don't trust everything you read online
In class we then looked at different messaging apps and the age you should be to use them. We also discussed what it would feel like if someone excluded you on a messaging app and how to deal with that. All of the children could explain the importance of staying safe and what they need to do in order to do this : Report (CEOP button), Record and Reach Out (speak to a trusted adult).
The One Where We Looked At Evolutionary Trees
Date: 6th Feb 2020 @ 12:42pm
What a fun Science lesson we had today! We learn that before humans evolved, early common ancestors with other mammals walked on all fours, but fossils that have been found tells us that early humans (australopithecines and homo species) ‘evolved’ to walk on two legs (anatomical evidence, but also bipedal footprint fossils). We now understand that we DID NOT evolve from primates but that we simply have common ancestors. We looked at the advantages and disadvantages of home species evolving to walk on two legs (bipedalism) and how they needed to evolve and adapt in order to survive. We learnt a crazy fact too - our closest living relative is a chimpanzee with around 97% identical DNA. Who knew that? Well, we do now! We then looked at how biscuits have evolved over time and what has changed to their characteristics each time. We ordered the biscuits in complexity and described how they have changed - this helped us to understand the evolution process of many living things; such as, cockroaches, ferns, primates and many more.
The One With The Author - Dan Worsley
Date: 29th Jan 2020 @ 10:16am
Today, we were lucky enough to have Dan Worsley in to help write an opening to a jungle themed story. We looked at a setting description that Dan created himself so we could discuss the figurative language he had used and why; we were able to magpie some of his ideas. Thanks to Dan, we were able to grasp an idea of how to write our own jungle themed setting description and we can't wait to show him what we have achieved this time next week. Keep your eyes peeled for some our work being published on the website soon.
Thank you again to Dan for coming in to share some of his fantastic writing skills with us!
The One Where The Fire Service Visited Us
Date: 29th Jan 2020 @ 9:47am
We have had an informative afternoon, where Lancashire Fire Service came in to discuss the importance of having good 'Road Sense'. We looked at the importance of wearing a seatbelt, using a booster seat (up to 135cm in height), using helmets, being visible from dusk and crossing roads safely. We all showed a good understanding of how to be safe when walking to and from school and the importance of always using these rules, even when we go to high school.
Thank you again to Firefighter Luke and Will, who came in to see us - it was an extremely informative and relevant session.
Date: 23rd Jan 2020 @ 4:23pm
In our dance lesson today we revisited the types of gestures we would display before and during an exam: tapping head, yawning, stretching, looking at our watch and thinking. We enjoyed joining all of our movements together where we did them in unison and we contributed to adding a sequence in canon too, which looked extremely effective.
The One With The Glockenspiels
Date: 23rd Jan 2020 @ 9:19am
In today’s lesson we looked at another Carol King song - ‘One Fine Day’. We compared the three songs that we have listened to so far from Carol King - ‘You’ve Got a Friend’, ‘Loco-motion’ and ‘One Fine Day’.
We then used the glockenspiels to begin to follow the rhythm and pulse of ‘You’ve Got a Friend’. By the end of the lesson, we could recognise the notes: A, E, C, D, G and F on notation and play them in time with the beats and with each other.
Date: 22nd Jan 2020 @ 3:56pm
Today we continued our work on spreadsheets in Computing. We were taught how to create a table in Google Sheets and write in spelling results for 15 children over a six week period. With all the data put into the table, we were then shown how to use the SUM function to add up the children's spelling results and to use the AVERAGE function to find an average score for each child. To challenge us further, we were then show how to order columns alphabetically or order totals in ascending/descending order.
Date: 21st Jan 2020 @ 4:58pm
Today, we had our second 'No Pen Day' of the academic year! Along with that, we had some of our parents come in to school and see their children learning. The parents enjoyed coming to learn some maths and watch the children tackle some challenging work - loop card games involving fractions, decimals and percentages and a square number problem where children had use patience, resilience and determination to find a solution. We also spent our morning looking at different ways on how we could practise our spelling without using pen and paper. We thoroughly enjoyed the 'Taboo' game where we had to describe a particular Year 5 and 6 spelling. In the afternoon, we learnt about adaptation and mutations - how plants and animals adapt in order the survive in a certain biome.
Date: 9th Jan 2020 @ 9:46am
Date: 9th Jan 2020 @ 9:44am
Spring 1 Topic Overview 2019/2020
Date: 9th Jan 2020 @ 9:43am
Date: 10th Jan 2020 @ 1:49pm
This morning, we began our topic on Evolution with a lesson on understanding evolution in finches. We learned about Darwin and his travels on the HMS Beagle, which took him to the Galapagos Islands.Here, he studied the differences between finches on a range of different islands and came to the conclusion that different finches needed a different beak to eat the range of seeds/insects available on each island. To understand this, we took part in a task that required us to ‘be a bird’ and ‘eat’ seeds. We either had a fork, spoon, pair of tweezers or a peg and had to gather as many items off the desks as possible. There were 7 islands with 7 different ‘seeds’. These were: skittles, rice, pasta, marbles, counters, cubes and peas. We found that some items were easy to pick up with our ‘beaks’ and others were very tricky. This helped us to understand how different finches had evolved to survive on each island.
We also took part in an activity called 'Talking Telephones'. This involved sending a message around the circle by whispering it to the person next to us and seeing where changes in the message occurred. We then linked this to mutations with DNA through time, which helped us to understand how mutations lead to evolution.
Date: 17th Dec 2019 @ 2:21pm
This half term we have been looking at mountains and volcanoes in Geography. To link this to art, we decided to draw a volcano and paint/colour it in the style of Andy Warhol. We looked at a range of his pieces of art and discussed what was similar about them all. This included his strong lines and use of vibrant block colour. We were given the freedom to draw our volcano in any style we wanted, just so long as we used his strong lines and bold colours. We think our end products were great!
Date: 10th Dec 2019 @ 8:28pm
Today we began our Christmas celebrations by attending our annual Christmas pantomime at Blackpool Sixth Form College. This year's panto was the Grinch and it was absolutely brilliant. It was very funny and the girl who played the Grinch was utterly brilliant!!
Date: 28th Nov 2019 @ 1:33pm
Our Year 5&6 Basketball Team participated in the Blackpool Schools Youth Games Basketball Festival which took place at Blackpool Sixth College. They were coached by Blackpool Sixth Forms 1st Team Basketball Coach and Players to learn more about the sport and enhance their own skills and performance. As their training session came to an end with the 1st team coach and players, the team then got the chance to compete in a tournament against other Blackpool Schools. Our Team finished 2nd in the group with 1 win and 1 loss, which unfortunately was not enough to qualify for the final. However our team were brilliant. WELL DONE TEAM!
Our Year 5&6 Indoor Athletics Team Qualify For Athletics Final!
Date: 27th Nov 2019 @ 8:56am
Well done to our Year 5&6 Indoor Athletics Team who have qualified for the Blackpool Primary Schools Athletics cup final after finishing in the top 4 in the Year 5&6 North Shore Indoor Athletics Competition which took place at Stanley Park Sports Centre.
The Athletics Cup Final will be held on Tuesday 10th December. Good Luck Team!
Date: 14th Nov 2019 @ 7:51am
The Vikings are coming! The Vikings are coming!
Today we had a brilliant time with our visitor, Wolfrik. Over the course of the day we learned about:
- Weapons and protection
- Arifacts
- Making name in runes
- Food
- Burial
We learned so much with Wolfrik and thoroughly enjoyed our day. Gabriella said, "It's brilliant having visitors like Wolfrik in. We get to look at artifacts and learn so much more by having practical lessons.
Date: 11th Nov 2019 @ 8:12pm
Today, we held our own Remembrance service to honour those brave men and women who have fought for their country. We each made our poppy, which held the name of a soldier who died in WW1. Each poppy was planted, row upon row, in our own remembrance garden. Year 6 then led the service at the front of the school culminating in a two minute silence to remember the fallen.
The One With The Open Morning!
Date: 5th Nov 2019 @ 3:55pm
Today parents were invited in to join us for an hour and assist with our learning. To link in with Remembrance Day on Monday, we all produced poppy art. We were given an A3 sheet with a war poem on and a set of water colours. We were given 4 designs to use as a stimulus and were asked to recreate one of the pictures on the poem - or a design of our own. We produced some excellent paintings and some of them will be used to put up in the hall on Monday.
The One Where Year 6 Do Forest School!
Date: 1st Nov 2019 @ 9:55am
Wow - what a day we had during our forest school session! We started off our session by gathering the resources around the outdoor area to create a spooky structure (Halloween style). We had to work in groups to show our team-building skills and we had to use our imagination to come up with a creative design. Finally, we finished our session by sitting around the campfire fire - we drank delicious hot chocolate and tested out our singing skills as we sang some fun campfire songs. We thoroughly enjoyed our session and we can't wait to see what is in store for us in our next session!
The One Where Year 6 Ride Their Bikes!
Date: 31st Oct 2019 @ 8:23am
Congratulations to the Year 6 children who took part in a 2-day Bikeability course - they all passed with flying colours. All children can now ride their bike safely using what they have learned. Well done Year 6!
Date: 28th Oct 2019 @ 3:36pm
To link in with our unit on 'Volcanoes and Mountains', today we had to build and 'erupt' our own volcanoes. We were split up into groups where we had to use the resources (cardboard, plastic bottles, PVA glue, paint and strips of newspaper) to shape a volcano made from paper mache. Once we had built our volcanoes, we then headed outside where we used white vinegar, bicarbonate soda and red food colouring to 'erupt' them. We had a great morning during our WOW session and we can't wait to learn more about volcanoes and mountains.
Autumn 2 Topic Overview 2019/20
Date: 28th Oct 2019 @ 2:28pm
Date: 28th Oct 2019 @ 2:27pm
The One With Electricity At Aspire!
Date: 17th Oct 2019 @ 9:38am
Today, Year 6 went to Aspire to take part in an electricity workshop to link in with work we have done in our Science topic. The children were tasked with carrying out an investigation into what would make a bulb brighter/dimmer in a circuit. They all agreed that adding more cells to a circuit would make the bulb brighter as there was more electricity being supplied to the bulb.
