6 India
Welcome to Year 6 - India Class (6I)
Please remember your equipment each day: filled water bottle, pupil planner and reading book. Each day starts with conversation over breakfast and activities to support and promote well being.
Today we explored WW2 cooking by making an eggless sponge and potato cakes. We could taste the difference between those items and items today - lack of salt, flavour and texture. Some of us would have survived the war time cooking, but others definitely not.
Today was our French flow day. We started the day, while the sun was out, playing boules. We then learned sports and countries together with the verbs aller, faire and jouer. We finished our day playing a Tour de France game, encompassing our learning in addition to directions.
Today we recapped and learned new knowledge about WWI from Dick Forsythe who had been a member of the RAF. We then all flew in the WWI simulator, created drawings and transferred our war poetry onto seeded biodegradable paper. These poems will be taken to France next year and dropped as part of the remembrance service where new flowers and poppies will grow. Well done to everyone for asking some really thoughtful questions.
Meanwhile, those remaining at school had a brilliant time also completing a variety of challenges and tasks.
All that waiting finally paid off and Year 6 went on their residential trip to Danbury.
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Hall of fame backing track
Having practised our stitching yesterday, today it was our turn to create an item from old clothing. We had a choice of a bookmark, pencil case or pin cushion. We incorporated both of our stitches and then decorated it with buttons and sequins. Good perseverance was shown to complete the challenge.
Today was one of two DT focus days - Make Do & Mend. A slogan often heard during WWII. Children learned how this slogan supported Britain during the war. They then unpicked clothing, learned how to do running and whip stitch and finally darned a sock. Well done for supporting each other during our Make Do & Mend Club.
Meet & Eat plane display
As part of Meet & Eat this morning we made paper aeroplanes, helping each other to create the 'best' design. Having given them our personal colours, we took them outside to fly them. Amelia was the overall winner with her plane landing in the middle of the football pitch!
Today was our music flow day. We listened to different songs and compared how they made us feel, the tempo, melody and arrangement. Then having voted for our favourite, we re-wrote the song thinking about our time in primary school. We decided to go for Hall of Fame, and arranged it so we had spoken word verses, and a sung chorus.
Our timetable for summer 2 continues with the core subjects in addition to flow days to teach music, French, cooking and DT. .
statutory spellings
Our PE days are Wednesday and Thursday. Children are permitted to arrive at school in their PE kits comprising black shorts, white t-shirts and black trainers. No items should have any branded logos please. Please remember that earrings cannot be worn for PE and should be removed at home if your child is unable to do this themselves. All long hair should be tied back for PE. Thank you.
Swimming takes place on a fortnightly rota - excluding SATS week - please ensure that all swimming things are brought to school in a separate bag. Thank you
Our summer topic is history based and teaches children about the causes, events and consequences of the First and Second World Wars, the influence of new inventions on warfare, how life in Great Britain was affected and the legacy of the wars in the post-war period.
Our science recaps prior learning about light, with an emphasis on the way that light behaves, travelling in straight lines from a source or reflector, into the eye. They explore how we see light and colours, and phenomena associated with light, including shadows, reflections and refraction.
Our art focus teaches children about the concepts of abstraction and distortion. They study the visual characteristics of abstraction and create a musically-inspired piece of sculpture.
We will reading a non fiction text entitled Wondrous Women of WWII and a fiction text Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian.
There will be different science, art and DT projects after the half term break.
Knowledge Organisers for Britain at War; Goodnight Mr Tom; Science and Art
Today saw the culmination of a two week maths project PHA Deli. The children have investigated how to calculate the best value of items, how to use ratio and proportion to increase quantities. We then thought about the costs, and investigated income and expenditure - did we make a profit or loss?! Finally, we have thought about packaging and the type of net to make the best cup cake box. Then we got to eat cup cakes!
Year 3 came to share their knowledge about fossils today to help Year 6 retrieve the information as part of our current science topic on evolution. Thank you Year 3!
Today was the Gentleman's Picnic. Three children from India class decided to help tidy away the rubbish and earn a vast number of team points at the same time!! Well Done, and Thank You
What a wonderful day was had at Duxford Imperial War Museum. Although we arrived a little later than planned, we still managed to visit three different hangars to explore the Battle of Britain and Land Warfare. In addition, we saw several planes taking off and landing. Thank you to Neil who was on hand to answer questions and give us additional background information about the exhibits. Thank you too, to our parent helpers without whom we would not have been able to have had this experience.
A World War museum was created in the hall and each Year 6 class got the opportunity to have a look around at the artefacts, and to try on the clothes!
India took part in the basketball taster session, trying three different skills/drills.
Year 6 walked to the war memorial in Witham to read their WWI diary entries.
Today we considered inventions that have had a significant impact on our society - in a variety of ways. Our focus today was on bridges, their uses, who designed and constructed them, and the materials that they may have used. We thought about the bridges we knew and then conducted three investigations to see how many 2p (and then 1p coins as we ran out of 2p!) coins each type of bridge would hold. In this way, we discovered that the triangular shape of a concertina helped to support more coins. We then designed a prototype and began the process of constructing it - with limited materials. Unfortunately, we ran out of time before we could test them, but we will return to them in the summer term.
Today we explored environmental art. We learned about the difference between this and Land Art, and found out some names of environmental artists. We considered how the concept of their work was more important to them in getting their message across, than the finished art piece. We then took a range of recycled products and created our own installations, using different techniques to affix materials together.
Having designed a sensor operated product, today we created the coding program and electrical circuit which would power them. We had a range of products designed: from personal GPSs, virtual helpers and notifiers, a moving table on wheels and a "smart dog". Who knows if we will see these in the future.
Today was science flow day where we started learning about the scientist Carl Linnaeus who invented the classfication model - we then had go at classifying biscuits! After that we learned about the different branches of science before moving onto three different experiments. We had to read the instructions and follow them to create a catapult, lift whiteboard pen from a plate and push a pencil through a bag of water. After lunch, we carried out our own investigation and then rounded off the day by researching and presenting information about a scientist of our choice. It was a great day and the children enjoyed it immensely. .
Today we listened to author, Rachel Morrisroe, read her book, Drama Llama. We then had a little quiz before watching the illustrator draw the llama - and we got to join in.
World Book Day 2023. Today we investigated poetry, writing stories, reading and listened to an author talking about how and why she writes stories for children. We had some fantastic costumes too.
Yesterday we had a surprise visit from Ernest Shackleton who told us about his life and penultimate expedition on Endurance.
We used images and "animals" to help keep track of our classification questions
We learned about Nirvana during our lessons on Buddhism. We created shrines and Buddha examples.
On Friday we completed our Trailblazers art topic. We investigated African patterns and used these as our background, with a picture of our chosen black British icon in the middle. This artwork was inspired by a painting created by Chris Ofili entitled "No Woman, No Cry". His painting depicted Doreen Lawrence.
Author Visit - last week we were delighted to meet the author C S Clifford. He spoke to us about how he writes his books, and then we had a go at writing a sci fi genre opening. It was great fun.
Today was our PSHE flow day. We discussed British Values and how these are intertwined with anti bullying week (we did this while dressed in spots for Children in Need). We also considered where protests fit into a democratic society. We finished with a debate to answer the question: "is a democratic system the best way to govern this country?"
Last week we made bread and compared this to processed bread. This week we made tomato sauce and compared that to a processed version.
Today was our Slave Trade flow day. We cooked a dish from the Caribbean, used coding to create a game based on the triangular route, learned about key abolitionists and people whose ancestors were part of this time. Finally we created a kahoot quiz to show our understanding of Britain's involvement in the slave trade.
Today we investigated veins, arteries and the left/right ventricles of a heart. We dissected a pig's heart; saw the pulmonary artery and the tube from the main body. We found blood clots and were most intrigued that the heart had come from the butchers!
What we found when dissecting a pig's heart
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As part of our history learning, we held a debate to put forward both sides of the argument of the slave trade using some of the persuasive language used in English.
Today in science we learned about the organs of the circulatory system. We made a blood representation before creating a life sized diagram of how the blood flows around the body in the arteries and veins.
Working collaboratively we tried to build a bridge with a span of 30cm. Only one team managed a stable structure that would take weight, but we had lots of fun trying.
Today we examined how the Transatlantic Slave Trade operated and its impact on the communities it affected.
Today was art flow through day. We learned how to draw using a horizon line to help give our viewer perspective of our work. Having practised this drawing style outside, we then went on to create African landscapes.
We learned about the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah. We tried apple dipped into honey as the Jews would have as part of the celebration.
Today we had a great day at Layer Marney Towers learning about the Transatlantic Slave Trade by pretending to be reporters, playing a ship trading game, hearing about masks and learning about Harriet Tubman.
If you would like to make contact with the class directly please feel free to use this email address: india@connectedlearningmat.co.uk Please note however, that this will not be monitored as often as the main office admin address.