Year 6 News of the Week 22.9.23

In Maths this week we completed our Place Value unit with a discussion and a short assessment. You have smashed this unit Year 6. We then began a new unit, the four operations, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We shared top tips on solving addition and subtraction calculations and recapped both formal and mental methods. We will continue to develop our knowledge next week. Homework set on maths.co.uk reflects our learning.

In English this week we have worked hard to create different sentences of accuracy. Our focus has been on formal and informal language, synonyms and punctuating speech. We have written short descriptive pieces and thought about the feelings of our main character as she sees her town invaded by German soldiers. We have answered questions about our example text and we have edited too. Keep it up Year 6. I am impressed.

We have revisited our spelling pattern and used our knowledge on suffixes to complete different activities. Four in a row is a favourite and the ful suffix is one we are keeping an eye on. We will move onto a new unit soon.

We have all read with an adult this week and changed our books if needed. We have also enjoyed magazines and First News newspapers. I have chatted to all my children this week about keeping up with their home reading as this supports their written work and broadens vocabulary.

We have been introduced to a new initiative in class this week which focuses on wellbeing. We received new journals and spent some time understanding the programme before working on some calming strategies.

Our RE lesson challenged us to create a 'map' of our own life journey this week. We included key events, places, and people. We thought about religious ceremonies in our journeys and added pictures too.

Our History lesson focused our attention on the word invasion. We listened to Neville Chamberlain announcing the war to our country and thought about the feelings of the nation. We worked in pairs, and with a map of Europe in 1939, and 3 different coloured pieces of modelling dough. We listened carefully as I read the Dough War Walkthrough. We split our playdough into three pieces, one for Germany, one for the Soviet Union and one for Italy. Our invasion stopped on the 10th July 1940. As the invasion took place, children recorded any questions they wanted to ask. We will look at these at the beginning of our next lesson.

In our second history lesson we decided on our chosen area of WW2 to begin our own research project. We used my QR codes to access suitable content and thought about how to present our findings.

In Science this week, we recapped our circuit knowledge by making a human circuit. We used tennis balls as the flowing electricity, and ensured we had cells and a switch to check our knowledge. We then used pictures, definitions and diagrams to match the correct symbols. We will continue with this unit next week.

This week in Music, we reflected on the song It's All About Love.

We have taken part in PE this week with Mrs Whittingham and Kick. With Mrs Whittingham, Year 6 worked on their shooting skills. Various games were used to hone their skills and Year 6, once again, worked brilliantly as a team supporting each other and building each other's confidence. The games varied from having a one touch attempt at goal to having to keep the ball in possession past numerous defenders before shooting. Well done Year 6 you all worked really hard.

New homework has been set. This includes: maths.co.uk, TT Rock Stars and regular reading aloud with an adult. Please could you encourage your child to play on TT Rock Stars as often as possible. Times table knowledge on the tip of their tongues is of great help as we move through the Year 6 maths curriculum. Much of my curriculum depends upon sharp knowledge of these facts.

We ended our week by spending time with our buddies and enjoyed chatting and getting to know them even more.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. See you all on Monday.

Your teacher,
Mrs B.