Year 6 Friday 14th January 2022

Date: 14th Jan 2022 @ 3:07pm

Welcome to our second blog of 2022. Year 6 have been working incredibly hard this week, continuing their leadership roles throughout the school. The school council have been preparing the new Learning Times, which should be ready by the end of this month. Do not forget that next Friday 21^st January, we are at All Hallows’ for a taster day. Please go straight to the high school where you can leave your child at the entrance gate between 8:40am and 8:50am. The children will have a fantastic day with school finishing at 2:30pm.

Our learning in Year 6 this week:

• In Maths, we have been improving our mental and written addition strategies to become more efficient. We then looked in detail at what makes a fraction, finding fractions of shapes and amounts.
• In English, we have continued our novel, ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’, where Tom discovered a new garden at the back of his Aunt’s flat. We wrote as Tom about this discovery and improved our descriptive setting writing through our adjectives and verb choices.
• In RE, we learnt how the Bible is made up of 73 books (46 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament) which took over a thousand years or more for all the books to be completed. We then learnt how to use the numbered code to find out what the piece of writing was in the Bible.
• In PE, we learnt how to apply the skill of hockey to attacking situations, and how to create a gymnastics sequence with travels, turns, jumps and a partner balance.
• In History, we placed the history of the world (from 0AD to present day) in chronological order, whilst working in groups.
• In Music, we have creating our own rhythms and copying them in groups using the djembe drums.
• In French, we started to learn the verb ‘avoir’ = to have. We practised with songs and a game.
• In Science, we interpreted bar charts of the class pulse rates and observed some lamb’s hearts to try to identify the structures we could see. Next week, we will be conducting a pulse rate investigation and it would be very helpful if those children with phones could download a free app that will measure their pulse, such as ‘Heart Rate Monitor’ or another app that is similar and bring them into school next Thursday 20^th January (where their phone will be kept locked away until the lesson begins). This is not a requirement as we can share the devices we already have in school; your child will not miss out on any part of the lesson because of this (heart rate apps just provide us with more accurate results).

Home Practice all relates to this week’s learning. These are the tasks needed to be completed:

• Reading – Continue 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.
  • The days when you can change your book:
    • Monday – Roller Coasters
    • Tuesday – Big Dippers
    • Wednesday – The Waltzers

• Spellings (challenge words)
  • Sumdog (-cial / -tial Sp1 wk 3)

Social, special, torrential, official, especially, artificial, potential, essential, substantial, financial, confidential, partial, impartial, initial, unofficial

• Maths challenges:
  • Counting:
    • This week we have been counting in fraction steps. Try to do the same out loud or with paper.
    • Draw a line with 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.
    • Start with these numbers: 4/5, 4 1/5, 3 ½ , 8 ½ and count up 10 times then back again in one fifth and then two fifths:

4/5, 1 1/5, 1 3/5, 2, 2 1/5 , 2 3/5, etc

and in 2 ½ :

3 ½, 6, 8 ½, 11, 13 ½, 16, etc

• Number facts:
  • To help your maths even more, please continue to learn your numbers facts, 6 + 8 = 14, 8 + 7 = 15.
  • The best way to do this is to simply have someone in your home quiz you with questions like (8 + 6, 6 + 5, 3 + 8, 5 + 9, etc)
  • Then get them to change the place value of these digits (0.8 + 0.6, 0.06 + 0.05, 0.3 + 0.8, etc)
  • Play 'Hit the Button via this link, Hit the Button 

• Sumdog (Times tables x4, x5, x6, x11, x12)
  • Each child has their own tables target which they should know. The Sumdog challenge may relate to their target but if not, you can always use the ‘trainer’ section of Sumdog for extra Tables Practice. Every Tuesday there is a tables test.

• Sumdog (Fractions of shapes and on a number line)
  • For this challenge, there will be questions relating to fractions of shapes – make sure you count what the shape is divided into and then count how many are coloured in. There are also questions relating to fractions on a number line – check the gap between two numbers then divide that by how many jumps it is from one number to the next (we have practiced this in class).

Keep working through the Maths and Spelling Training. As you know, we set weekly challenges that are linked to the learning that takes place in school. As an extra feature, the maths and spelling training sections will provide a tailored challenge for your child to practise skills, facts and words that they find difficult. Once your challenges have been completed, use this feature for challenge in both spelling and maths.

Spend some time training so the program can learn the skills your child needs to work on and practise.