Year 6 Blog Friday 29th September 2023

Date: 28th Sep 2023 @ 7:32pm

Welcome to the Year 6 weekly blog.

Having completed their first month, the Year 6s have been praised for their lunch duty roles: helping the infants with drinks, supporting them during their play times and even creating some games to play with them. Excellent work Year 6!

The Reading Ambassadors have started their leadership role of reading with the infants. They made a great impression on the infant staff and are looking forward to more reading time in the coming weeks. The Science Ambassadors and School Councillors have also received their team from the votes in Year 3, 4 and 5.

On Thursday, the football team had their second week of games with the following results:

• A team lost against Little Hoole and drew against Ashbridge
• B team won against Little Hoole B and lost against Hoole St Michaels
• We only have one match left which will conclude on Thursday 12^th October. A letter will be sent out soon as a reminder.

Harvest Festival – please continue to bring in food items for the Harvest Festival which will be celebrated in Mass next Friday at 2:30pm.

This week’s learning in Year 6:

• In Maths, we have been learning how to recognise calculations that require mental partitioning e.g. 6, 584 – 2, 360 or 873 + 350 and how to use this strategy where appropriate.

• In English we began our new novel, ‘Clockwork’ by Phillip Pullman. We learnt about one of the characters, Karl, and used the text as evidence to describe his personality.

• In Geography, we learnt how to describe the 10 features of a mountain: summit, slope, face, tree line, snow line, outcrop, valley, ridge, foot and plateau.

• In PE, we began our new dance topic of ‘heroes’ by using our facial expressions and body tension to display our super powers. 

• In RE, we read a passage from Titus 3: 4-8, which was a letter from St Paul telling the people how powerful God’s love is. We replied with a thank you letter as Titus to St Paul.

• In Science, we learnt how to classify trees based on their specific characteristics: veins (netlike or parallel), shapes (hand-shapes, spear shaped, heart shaped or round), arrangement (simple of compound) and edges (smooth, toothed or lobed).

• In French, we celebrated ‘European Day of Languages’. The class shared any languages which they know, any which they have been learning or any which they would like to learn. Some children shared their favourite word in their language and discussed how they have learned that it. We then listened to a few languages being spoken, suggested which language it was and worked out what each word meant. We also watched some videos of children speaking in another language. We then spent some time answering quiz questions about European countries, including their outlines from a map, their iconic symbols and their traditional foods.

Home Practice

Please complete the following tasks by next Wednesday:

Reading – Use your Home Reading to read every night for 30 minutes. You also have a Reading Journal/Diary that must be used for the title of the book and any reading challenge chosen.

• You may change your book any day between Monday and Wednesday

Spellings (silent letters)

• Sumdog (Silent letters A1 wk 4)
• doubt, climb, guitar, whistle, knight, autumn, thistle, debt, solemn, science, hymn, wriggle, answer, island, dumb.

Maths challenges:

• Counting:
  • This week we have been counting in fraction steps of ¼ and 2/4 Try to do the same out loud or with paper.
  • Draw a line and some marks on it like I do in class. You could write the numbers as you count up or down, then double check it to make sure you have said the correct numbers.
  • g. Start with different numbers and count up 10 numbers then back again in halves:

2 ¼ , 2 2/4, 2 ¾, 3, 3 ¼ , etc

and as improper fractions:

¾, 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, 7/4, 8/4, etc

Start at 13 and count up 10 numbers and down again:

13, 12 ¾, 12 2/4, 12 ¼, etc

Now try in 2/4 with these numbers:

8 8 2/4, 9, 9 2/4, 10, 10 2/4, etc

• Sumdog (Times Tables A1 wk 4)
  • Each child has their own tables target which they should know. The Sumdog challenge may relate to their target but this week we have focused on 3s, 6s, which will be great practice for the future. (Every Tuesday there is a tables test).

• Sumdog (Decimals A1 wk 4)
  • This week’s learning is to make decimals into equivalent fractions e.g. 2/10 = 0.2, 4/10 = 0.4, 35 /100 = 0.35.
  • Also, the challenge will include rounding decimals to the nearest whole number.
  • For further maths work, please visit the ‘Maths Training’ section which you can find in the tasks box on the left of the main screen. This will enable your child to push their learning further with the skills that Sumdog has given them, following a recent diagnostic test.