Author: Mr Wilks

This morning, we met Sam who took us on a virtual tour of a dairy farm.
We learnt about how a dairy farm works. Did you know that the cows wear a fitness tracker so the farmer knows how many steps they do each day and how long they spend lying down and standing up. This is so that the farmer can check on the health of the animals.
We learned about how the cows are milked and that they produce up to 50 litres of milk a day!

We learned about how the cows have been selectively bred for specific desirable characteristics. These cows are bred so that they produce a lot of milk. Other cows are selectively bred for their size so that they grow big and quick or for their hardiness so that they can live in tougher weather conditions.
We also learnt about how wheat production is similar. We produce wheat that has desirable characteristics like its size and its resistance to drought.

In today’s science lesson, we created stop motion animations to illustrate how oxygenated and deoxygenated blood travels around our body.
We learnt that deoxygenated blood travels through the veins to the heart. It then gets pumped to the lungs where it picks up oxygen. The blood is now oxygenated and travels through arteries back to the heart where it is pumped around the body. This process repeats infinitely.

In today’s science lesson, we explored an irreversible change. We mixed bicarbonate of soda with vinegar to create a chemical reaction which resulted in the formation of carbon dioxide. 

We then discussed how we could increase the amount of carbon dioxide that was formed and the importance of controlling variables.

• control variables (the variables we kept the same): the size of the bottle, the amount of bicarbonate of soda, the type of balloon):
• independent variable (the variable we changed):  the amount of vinegar
• dependent variable (the variable we are testing): the amount of carbon dioxide

We found that increasing the amount of vinegar resulted in the creation of more carbon dioxide. However, the 100ml test (green balloon) didn’t support this finding. Possibly there was too much vinegar or maybe the green balloon made a difference! We discussed how repeating this test would make our date more reliable.

Year 6 have been enjoying our recent RSE learning – this is relationships and sex education. I’ve been really impressed by the maturity the children have shown during the lessons. The first couple of sessions focused on vocabulary – making sure the children understood the anatomical names for the body parts. This links well with their science learning also. We reminded the children about the NSPCC PANTS campaign that promotes the fact that privates are private, always remember your body belongs to you,  no means no, talk about things that might upset you and speak up, someone can help. We’ve then moved on to talk about changes that happen during puberty, and, finally, we’ve learnt about reproduction. The children have shown great respect and empathy during these sessions.

In recent lessons, we’ve been learning to use speech punctuation to create dialogue.

In this lesson, we’re practising using dialogue to convey character. Working in pairs, children have rolled dice to determine the setting, characters and a character trait for each character. For example, they might be writing about a cheerful teacher and an angry robber in a bank. They’ve then written  a short narrative with dialogue to convey their characters.

In our writing lesson this morning, we’ve been planning a setting description that we will write in the next few days. The stimulus for our writing is a short animation called Eye of the Storm.
Children have been tasked with planning descriptive phrases and figurative language that they will use in their pieces. You’ll see in the photos that children are using thesauruses to help them choose vocabulary that will bring their descriptions to life.

Here are a few examples of the descriptive ideas we came up with in the lesson:

“The black, ominous clouds were choking the airship as lightning flooded the sky.” Sasha.

“He stood there as lonely as the bruised fruit in the bottom of his fruit bowl.” Leah

“Wire protruded out of his throne-like chair. Ready, he sat calmly like a breeze dancing in June.” Saahir

“The peculiar man stood lonely and in grief as he watched the oppressive sun rise above the clouds.” Khadija

“Like man against Mother Nature, the stuttering airship fought for its life against the ever growing tempest in the sky.” Sam

 

 

 

In our reading lesson this morning, children have read a text about the artists Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. They worked in pairs to retrieve facts about each artist.

 

Did you know that both Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth were born in West Yorkshire?

Did you know that both artists won a scholarship in 1921 to study at The Royal College of Art?

Did you know that Barbara Hepworth was often mistaken for Henry Moore’s pupil rather than his peer?

Did you know that Barbara Hepworth sadly died in a fire in 1975?

Did you know that Henry Moore, his wife Irina and his daughter Mary set up the Henry Moore Foundation in 1977?

Did you know that many of Henry Moore’s pieces were sculpted with the figures in a reclining position, taking inspiration from the landscape he had grown up in?

During health week, we talked about the benefits of physical activity on our health. We learned that there is a link between physical health and academic success.

We then talked about how we can make sure we get 60 minutes of physical activity everyday. We split it into 30minutes at home and 30 minutes at school. We had lots of different ideas and made a poster showing how we can achieve the 60 goal.

At home, talk to your child about physical activity and help them to get their 30minutes each day!

Hi all,

Click here for some extra division challenges  for today’s maths lesson.

Click here for the answers.

Good luck, some of them are tricky!

Mr W