Welcome to Year 6!

Welcome to our Year Six class page! Here you will find examples of all of the exciting things that we do and learn about in school. 

Mrs Rae is our class teacher and Mrs Edgar and Mr Pickering are our teaching assistants. We work incredibly hard in Year Six but have lots of fun too! We all work together to be the best that we can possibly be; it is a lovely place to learn. Have a scroll down and see some of the awesome things that we get up to!

Y6's Trip to Brockhole, Windermere

On Friday 9th June, we went on our school trip to Brockhole in Windermere. Whilst we were there, we took part in: pond dipping, using classification keys to identify different creatures we found; played mini golf, putting our P.E skills to the test; completed an orienteering course, using a detailed map and key to find the checkpoints and participated in a nature workshop in the afternoon. These activities linked to many of our past and present topics especially our recent science topic on classification. 

We all had a wonderful time and even squeezed in a trip to the play park before we headed home! One of the Brockhole leaders even said that we were the best school group that she had ever worked with! 

We can't wait to apply what we have learned to our lessons in the coming weeks. 

Practical Science in Y6- Lung Function Tests

As part of our science and PSHCE work, we have been learning all about the damaging affects that smoking can have on your body. Today we carried out lung function tests by using a 5L bottle of water and part of a hose pipe! At the beginning of the lesson, we made a scale on the side of the bottle so we could measure accurately. We then filled the bottle with water and tipped it upside-down. We then put the hose into the bottle and blew a full lung capacity breath into it. The water displaced depending on how much air we had in our lungs. We then used our homemade scale to measure the amount of air that was in our lungs. 

Tomorrow we will compare out lung functions to those of a smoker. We will do this by constructing out own pie charts based upon our data.

Mount Kilimanjaro 3D art

Over the past few weeks, we have been developing our own 3D art based upon our geography topic: Africa's topography. We have been learning about the different topographical regions in Africa and proving the the stereotype of Africa isn't true.

We used different mediums to create our art: charcoal, chalk, paint and colouring pencils. We then layered these elements up using 3D techniques to create these fabulous images!

SATs are OVER!

Today, Year Six completed their final SATs test! They have all worked incredibly hard towards these tests and have tried their very best all week- no stress, no negativity, just solid effort all around. We celebrated this afternoon by having a Hartley's ice cream and a trip down memory lane back to reception. The year sixes absolutely loved playing with the smaller children and as you can see from the images below, everybody had lots of fun in the sun!

A mile per day keeps the doctor away!

As part of our science topic, children have been learning about the human body and the function of the heart and circulatory system. They understand how important it is to keep your heart healthy and now they are following their own advice!

We are all competing the mile challenge. All children (and adults) complete the one mile jog per day- this is 16 laps of our school MUGA in an attempt to keep our hearts healthy. We have tried different techniques to help our running including short interval runs and running buddies. The pictures below show children running with a parter. They needed to keep each other motivated and moving at more than walking speed. 

We will continue with this until the end of the year.

Learning about the heart and circulatory system

Today, Year Six were learning about the heart and circulatory system. We started off by discussing what the role of the heart is and what it is made out of. At this stage, we uncovered a tray at the side of the room which had an ox heart and seven lamb's hearts on. The children were amazed (and possibly a little shocked!). We then compared the hearts to our diagram of a human heart and the children worked in groups to discuss the similarities e.g. arteries, veins, shape, colour. We then dissected the hearts and explored the chambers inside. 

The children were fascinated by the ox heart and its size. We made predictions about its mass then weighed it: 2.2Kg! Astounding!

The next lesson, we talked about how the heart is involved in the circularity system: the system in which oxygen is transported around the body. We used role play to demonstrate the system by using different colour cards for oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. The children could clearly see why it was called the circulatory system! 

We love practical science in Year Six and this was definitely a lesson the children will not forget in a hurry!

Collaborative  Grammar

Year Six have been working hard in grammar lessons this week. They have been learning about synonyms and antonyms! Children worked collaboratively to make the synonym snake. They had to match the synonyms together however it wasn't as easy as it first seemed: all words were tricky or unfamiliar words. Children love practical grammar in Year Six and have definitely learned lots of new vocabulary to use in their own writing this week.

African Printing 

As part of our 'Africa' topic, we have made our own animal print styrofoam blocks. We used a pencil to indent the pattern of our animal into the styrofoam block. We then used a roller and paint to print the pattern of the animal onto the correct coloured paper. Messy art is always the best!

Group Writing

Today Year Six have been working in groups to produce a formal letter. This work was based upon our class novel 'Goodnight Mister Tom.'Each group had eight children in and they worked in pairs to write one paragraph of the letter. Children had to think carefully about the formal language and used their online thesaurus to find more formal synonyms. Once they put the paragraphs together, they realised how powerful their letters were! 

Visit to the Magistrates' Court

Today we visited Workington Magistrates' Court. We had a good look around the court and even got the chance to look in the cells! We learned about the types of crimes that would be dealt with in the court and had the chance to ask lots of interesting questions. 

We then acted out a real life case. It was based upon cyber bullying and our class got the chance to act out the different roles. We saw how detrimental cyber bullying can be for the victim and the victim's family. We all agreed that there is NO EXCUSE to bully someone. 

Chinese New Year

Today the whole school celebrated Chinese New Year. We took part in a special Chinese dance workshop in the morning. We loved dancing we the dragon and learned lots of new Chinese dance moves. We performed our routine for the rest of the school at the end of the day.

As well as the dance workshop, Mrs Glover came to talk to us about how she celebrates Chinese New Year. She also taught us how to count in Mandarin then we had a go at Chinese calligraphy! 

We will display our work from the day soon...Watch this space!

Poetry Workshop

This afternoon, Holly - who is Dove Cottage's poet of the month - came to visit us. She brought some very interesting objects with her... Rocks! At first, we thought that these were just plain, ordinary rocks but the more that we explored them, the more we realised how interesting they were. We made poetic metaphors to describe our rocks based upon their characteristics. We then used water and magnifying glasses to delve deeper into the appearance of the rock and adapt our metaphors so that they were more specific. 

Some of us got very attached to our rocks...They even had names by the end!

WW2 Talk by Mrs Kennedy

Today Mrs Kennedy came in to tell us about her experience of life in WW2. We talked about the types of questions that we could ask her and she kindly prepared a talk to deliver to us. We loved listening to Mrs Kennedy as she was so interesting and had some wonderful stories to tell us! She was our very own historical primary source of information.