PE – dance
Our new topic in PE is dance this term so I hope the children have brought their dancing shoes to school.
The children are becoming familiar with different genres of music. This week, we listened to ‘Le Freak’ which has a pop/disco vibe to it. Lots of the children recognised the piece of music so their adults must have great music taste. You can listen to the song here if you would like to reminisce about your disco days!
They spent the session creating a dance routine in small groups that matched the rhythm of the music. They then performed them in front of the class. They were fantastic!
Christmas fun!
Yesterday was a great day! Not only did we enjoy a very delicious Christmas lunch, we had the opportunity to visit all the Christmas inflatables that magically appear every year. They were fantastic!
Here is a lovely photo of the class. Hopefully, everyone is smiling!
Wishing you all a peaceful Christmas and looking forward to seeing all the children back in January – hopefully germ free!
Science: A World That Never Stops Moving
This half term, the children have been exploring space and developing a deeper understanding of our place in the universe. They have learned that the Earth orbits the Sun and that this journey takes a whole year, helping to explain why we have seasons, while also discovering how the Moon orbits the Earth and changes shape as it moves through its lunar cycle. Through models, diagrams and thoughtful discussion, the children have been able to visualise these movements and explain them using accurate scientific vocabulary, showing great curiosity and a growing sense of awe about the vastness of space and our small but important place within it.
Help at Home: Talk together about what causes day, night and the changing shape of the Moon.
Nets of 3D shapes in Year 6 maths
Year 6 children have been exploring how many different ways they can create a net of a 3D shape. First, they visualised how the nets might fold to make a cube. Then, we used magformers to create the cubes. Finally, we used Polypad to explore some examples and non examples of nets for cubes.
Help at home: Discuss mathematical language of 3D shapes such as vertices, edges and faces (mathsisfun has a great dictionary function to help) Look around for examples of prisms and pyramids in the items that you buy from the supermarket. Explore unfolding the shapes and looking at the nets.
Inspiring artists!
This week, we have been using Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth as our inspiration for creating our own designs. We sketched some of our favourite designs and then used these ideas to create our own sketches. These will be our final designs that we’ll create our soap sculptures from. The children added texture and negative space to their designs.
A Zoom from Antarctica!
On Friday, KS2 made history by joining the first ever Zoom webinar streamed live to thousands of schools… from Antarctica!
Hosted by Picture News, we were joined by Robert Swan, a conservationist who is the first person to walk on both the North and South Poles.
We learnt about the importance of Antarctica and how we are all owners of this beautiful, unique continent.
Help at home: Visit the 2041 website and ask your child what they learnt on Friday.
Tree Planting
Year 5/6 had the opportunity to plant some trees in our local area this week. This was part of our Where In The World Am I topic in which we looked at carbon stores.
Help at home: Look at the Woodland Trust website for more ideas for how to help biodiversity in your area.
Testing our memories!
Each week in class, the children complete recaps as part of their learning in topic and science. These are great at getting the children to recall the learning they’ve done recently but also remembering the learning they’ve done in previous years. Today, they completed a topic recap as their morning task. It tested their knowledge on geography – the children had to remember the vocabulary linked to fieldwork from last half term. It also made them recall their learning on computing and climates from a previous geography topic.
Design technology – food
This week we’ve been putting out culinary skills to the test. Each child has had the opportunity to make tomato and lentil soup – perfect for the cold days we’ve had this week. They used knives to safely chop and dice the vegetables and fried them on the hob. Adding lentils and chopped tomatoes then created the base for the soup. They sneakily added some seasoning and then left it to simmer. It was great to see how confident the children were with their cooking skills, especially the ones who obviously cook at home. It was also great for those children who don’t often get to cook at home. When they tasted the soup, most children thought it was very yummy. I thought it was delicious and I’ve already consumed three bowls so far this week.
Help at home: Here is the recipe in case you would like to cook it at home. I highly recommend it.
We are artists!
We were developing our subject knowledge as artists this week. The children were given a range of different artwork ranging from paintings to sculptures. The children were great at recognising some of the artists and the names of the artwork. They sorted the images however they wished in their groups and talked about their choices. A lot of the groups categorised them according to figurative or abstract and they showed a great understanding of these terms. They were able to discuss their favourite pieces using accurate vocabulary.
