Frozen Kingdoms

Week 8

Wow, it's half term already! We feel like it's gone so quickly. A big shout out of thanks to Mrs Foster, who has been working incredibly hard to make sure Year 6 have as much support as possible. Our fantastic work would not be possible without you!

Maths

We finished off the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division unit this week. It's been a huge unit and Year 6 have risen to the challenge spectacularly. What's the square root of 25? We can tell you. 4 cubed? No problem. Can we check using the inverse? Oh, you bet we can. After half term, we'll be starting our fractions unit. Please do recap fractions with your child so that they feel confident when we start again. The White Rose Home Learning website has lots of videos that can help you.

English

We've written a biography of Shackleton's life over the course of this week; looking at key events from birth to death. You (parents and carers) were our audience, so enjoy reading your child's work over the half term! We're starting narratives when we return in November; focusing on setting and building characters.

Topic

We've used all our computing skills this week to build a PowerPoint about our topic, ready to present to a small group on Friday. I'm sure you've seen their impressive skills throughout the week as they've worked on them at home, but if you haven't, log on to their Google Classroom and take a look for yourself. They should be proud.

Please remember that we have evacuee day on Wednesday 4th November, where we ask that your child comes dressed appropriately for the era (1940s). Your child will need to make a gas mask box over the half term in preparation for this day.

Week 7

Maths

We've looked at common factors, prime factors and cubed/squared numbers this week, in between a reasoning paper and a Friday arithmetic test. Next week, we'll apply these skills to mental calculations to help speed up our response time.

English

Biography or autobiography? We can tell you which is which! "Auto", meaning "self", is a big clue. We've researched Shackleton's life ahead of planning and writing the biography next week. We've also taken our half-term assessments in reading, spelling, grammar and maths (reasoning and arithmetic). 

Topic

It's been a busy old week! We created an Antarctic exploration timeline on Monday, to see how exploration has changed over the centuries; Tuesday saw us touch-typing with BBC Bitesize; Wednesday was spent debating democracy, and drawing Vivaldi's "Winter"; Thursday was soap carving; and Friday was PE. We've been working incredibly hard (as usual).

Week 6

Maths

After a week spent investigating factors, factor pairs and common factors, we feel confident in using them to help with long division and multiplication next week.

English

We have produced some outstanding pieces of writing this week about our "experiences" on Shackleton's Antarctic expedition. Using "Shackleton's Journey" by William Grill, we mapped out the journey and wrote journals to describe what we experienced. Next week, we'll be using what we've learned to write a biography of one Shackleton, or another of the great polar explorers.

Topic

We looked in-depth at tourism in the Antarctic, and how the many tourists were affecting the southern-most continent. We wrote reports based on tourist reviews, travel company research, and Antarctic guidelines and rules.

Science

We had a fantastic time "sampling" parts of the field on Monday to see what grows in different parts of our grassland, and how the environment affects what grows in any given place.

Week 5 

Maths

This week we've looked at all four operations: 6-digit column addition and subtraction; 4 digit by 2 digit multiplication, and short division. We will continue to look at these (and how to manipulate the inverse) next week.

English

After reading The Ice Bear by Jackie Morris we wrote some "cracking" ice flat poetry, then moved into Arctic setting description at the end of the week. This work is ahead of recounts next week, where we will be writing diary entries as if we were the first explorers to ever venture there.

Topic

In science, we investigated what makes icebergs melt faster. We thought about the effects of climate change on the Arctic, glaciers and ice shelves. We watched how glaciers "calve" and how dangerous this could be for the animals who live there. 

Following on from our iceberg investigation, we learned about the Titanic disaster in 1912. We created reports about how events unfolded during that evening, and discussed how more lives could have been saved.

Week 4

Bikeability

This week the majority of us have taken our level 1 and 2 Bikeability course. We started on the playground learning simple skills and techniques to help keep us safe when riding our bikes, before taking our training out on the road. We have learnt how to ride safely on the road with traffic, tackling both traffic lights and roundabouts.

English

We have continued to focus our writing on non-chronological reports, gathering our own research around our chosen theme. We then used our research and feedback from our previous piece of writing to write our reports with a clear focus being the use of formal language and the use of a semi-colon.

Maths

In our maths lessons we have been focussing on Addition and subtraction. We have looked at multi-step word problems as well as using the inverse operation to help us check our answers.

Topic

In our topic lessons we have been continuing to explore the Arctic and Antarctic regions. During this week’s work we have been analysing the polar climates and identifying the reasons behind these, as well as the impact climate change is having.

Week 3

Maths

What do temperatures, sea levels and bank accounts have in common? Negative numbers, of course! We’ve used graphs, charts and numbers lines to explore negative numbers over the week to end our place value unit. We’ll need our place value skills as we move into addition and subtraction. 

English

Polar bears experts! We have conducted our own polar bear research, looking at where to find accurate information online, in order to write a non-chronological report about these Arctic giants. Next week, we will put our research and writing skills to the test as we research an Arctic topic of our own choosing to write a report about.

Topic

Did you know that there are seven communities of people who are indigenous to the Arctic? Each child in Year 6 should be able to tell you all about the traditions of at least one of these groups. They will use this information to inform their ongoing Inuit art project.

Week Two

English

We kicked off our week with a fantastic picture book called Here We Are. We used this book to generate some fantastic vocabulary and wrote some truly inspiring poetry about our worlds, and how we see the world.

Maths

Our place value skills are coming along nicely: we have remembered a huge amount from Year 5 and are working at a good pace into Year 6! We've covered rounding to the nearest 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 and next week we will cover rounding to any number.

Reading

We've started reading our new class novel, The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell. Some of us have read her other books - like Rooftoppers or The Explorer - and we're all enjoying the snowy setting of 20th century Russia.