Author: Mr Roundtree

18 November 2016

This week’s Talk Time homework links to Anti-bullying Week and the discussions we’ve had in class.

What is bullying and what can I do about it?

Talk to each other about what bullying is; it’s also important to talk about what bullying isn’t so that we can recognise when something is and isn’t bullying. Then, make sure that you know how to deal with bullying if you experience it yourself or see it happening to someone else.

Don’t forget to write a few notes to aid the discussion we’ll then have in class.

18 November 2016

Our spelling list leads on from our spelling activity from last week. These are the homophones that Year 6 need to learn – remember it’s not the spellings that are tricky but knowing when to use them so you need to practise using them in sentences correctly.

practice / to practise

advice / to advise

device / to devise

licence / to license

heard / to herd or a herd (of cows)

guessed / guest

passed / past

father / further

led / lead

morning / mourning

Great homework as always

What are fractions? was our Creative homework question last week and there was a whole host of wonderful ways that it was answered. Lots I can’t show you as they were done on Scratch or as presentations but here’s a taste of what some of the children did.

 

As always with Creative homework, we looked at everyone’s then sat and looked at one in particular, commenting on their work and discussing what they’d done. The children said that they liked how we look at Creative homework as it was nice to hear what their friends thought of what they’d done.

In the mood

We brought our swing dance topic to an end this week with groups performing their routines to each other. Lots of the children have enjoyed this unit; some enjoyed it a lot more than they thought they would.

Not only were their dances great, but their feedback to each other was brilliant too. They could say what they liked about a routine: precision of movements, use of space, different levels. They were also able to give constructive criticism to suggest how a routine could be improved: moving at the same time as each other, clearer, bigger movements.

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11 November 2016

This week’s homework is Practice Makes Perfect and is due on Thursday 17 November.

To be able to compare and contrast.

The children have brought home some poems we’ve looked at this week. One of the skills we’re working on is comparing and contrasting. Choose two poems. Compare and contrast them. (3 marks)

  • 3 marks means mention 3 things
  • Name the poem you are referring to
  • If you mention a difference, discuss both poems (and make sure it’s a comparison and not just two random differences)
  • Give some examples of what you mean eg. they’re both informal: ‘hiya’ is used in (a) and ‘wassup’ is use din (b)
  • Don’t be too obvious (I know they’re both poems)

Then, choose any two texts (newspaper, story, magazine, comic, info book) and answer the same 3 marks question, comparing and contrasting them.

11 November 2016

This week, you have been assigned three Mathletics tasks.

Fractions

  • Comparing fractions 2
  • Ordering fractions 1
  • Simplifying fractions

These are all skills we’ve learnt in class for the last two weeks so children should be able to complete them independently. Check, using the ?, what the activity is asking you to do. If you make any mistakes, always go back and look at that question again to see if you know where you went wrong or whether you need to check with an adult.

These tasks need to be completed by Thursday 17 November.

11 November 2016

This week’s spelling activity is all about homonyms.

Read the chapter from Ann M. Martin’s ‘How to look for a lost dog’ which is all about homonyms. Rose (the main character) loves homonyms which include homophones and homographs.

  • Homophones are words which sound (hence, ‘phone’) the same but are spelt differently: their, there, they’re.
  • Homographs are words that are spelt the same (hence, ‘graph’, as in autograph) but sound different: to bow, the bow and arrow.

Rose creates lists of homonyms because she really likes them. How many groups of homonyms can you (ewe) create and can you (yew) then use them correctly in (inn) sentences. I wonder whether you can write a sentence with the whole (hole) group of homonyms in it?

Challenge – Rose can only think of one group of four homonyms. Can you think what that is? (Check Rose’s rules for homonyms in the chapter.)

Our noses are often in the paper

Year 6 enjoy a range of reading opportunities and one of our favourites is our weekly fix of First News.

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We’re always keen to share interesting articles with each other and this brilliant paper never fails to disappoint. This week there was a man who’s best friend was a bear; a heart-warming story about a little girl who’s life had been improved by the efforts of WaterAid; and a funny little snippet on a ‘Petmiere’ – cinema for dogs!

We always read FirstNews on a Monday so ask your child at home what interesting articles (s)he’s read each week.

What are the 8Rs?

Year 6 have had a good start to this half term. We’re working on the 8Rs (resilience, safe risk-taking, responsibility, resourcefulness, responding, remembering, reflecting, readiness) to improve our learning behaviour, and therefore our learning, in class. These Rs are easy to apply at home, too:

  • Resilience – try a new skill and keep at it if it’s hard
  • safe Risk-taking – cook with an adult, using knives and other equipment
  • Responsibility – be in charge of getting your own things ready for school or getting yourself up in the morning
  • Responding – if an adult praises you for an action, make sure you do it again (or don’t do something again if you’ve been told about it before)
  • Readiness – be ready to go if you’re heading out for the day with everything you might need

It’d be great to hear of any particularly good examples of children practising the 8Rs at home.