This week, as part of our science topic, Light, Year 6 have learnt about the work of Sir Isaac Newton.
In 1666, Newton made a discovery about light that led him to develop his Theory of Colour, a theory that still informs our understanding of light today. He placed a prism in front of ray of light, and his observations were incredible.
We worked together to replicate Newton’s discoveries in class. Isaac Newton realised that although light looks white, it is actually made up of all the colours of the rainbow. When these colours merge together, it looks white to our eyes, but we can use a prism to separate the different colours of the spectrum using refraction.
This week we have finished our English block on Stanley’s Stick by writing our own version called Sarah’s Sock. We have had a funny time in class exploring all the different things an odd (or pair) of socks can be!
In Maths we have been using manipulatives to make numbers to 40 and we are learning to order, read and write them as well.
We have also spent some time focusing on whole body listening to encourage better focus.
As part of this week’s Mental Health Week, we have been thinking carefully about all the different things that we can do to maintain our wellbeing. We did some of these great activities as a class and some with our friends in Year 1. Click on the slide presentation below to see all the wonderful things that we have done this week.
Singing together is great fun.
Let’s get connected …
by making paper chains.
We joined our paper chains together …
until they stretched around the whole class.
We enjoyed the open air when we planted marigold seeds.
We will care for our seeds and watch them grow over the next few months.
We challenged ourselves by solving problems together.
Each class has decorated a jigsaw piece and we are looking forward to joining the pieces together to create a whole school picture.
We have added our finger prints using bright and cheerful paint.
Listening to a lovely story is a great way to relax and take yourself into another world.
Smile at someone and cheer them up!
We showed our creative side when we painted our clay pots.
We designed concentric circles patterns.
We solved problems when we created our own nativity animations.
To end the week, we got our jigsaw piece ready …
to connect with everyone elses.
Just look at our great school jigsaw!
We love to sing Children United …
so much so that when the assembly ended, we came back to class and just kept on singing!
This week in Year I, as part of Mental Health Awareness Week we have talked about connections and worked with different people in our class and other classes. We have taken part in daily Yoga sessions and learnt about being safe when connecting with people on the internet.
We have been drawing our feelings using different media. Mostly we have been learning how to share our feelings in a positive way and help ourselves feel better when we are sad.
In our science learning this week, Year Six investigated the affect of exercise on our heart beat. We had fun finding our pulse and measuring our pulse rate before and after exercise. Not only did we find out that exercise causes our hearts to beat faster, we plotted the time taken for our pulse rate to recover. We also used our scientific understanding to explain why our healthy bodies need our hearts to pump faster during exercise.
We supersized our art work this week, continuing our learning about Michelangelo’s David, but this time working in charcoal.
We have been exploring materials this term and have had great fun learning the new words transparent, opaque, waterproof, absorbent, flexible and rigid.
You’ll never guess what though. Goldilocks was going for a walk to visit the three bears, only to discover that it was raining, so she needed a hat that would stop her from getting her flowing, golden locks wet. We carried out some investigations to see what materials were waterproof and we recommended that oil cloth was the best choice because it is flexible and waterproof.
We recorded the data during the investigation. The water came through the tissues.
Can you see the water coming through the oil cloth?
Hold the card carefully so that it doesn’t fall off!
It must be waterproof because there’s no water coming through.
As part of our learning in English and science, we have been reading the story of The House Held Up by Trees by Ted Kooser. It is a beautiful book and as a result of reading it, we planted sweet pea seeds and a tree that will be part of our schools contribution to The Queen’s Canopy. We have been learning about different sentence types and we wrote command sentences to give clear instructions on how to plant seeds. Our handwriting has got better and better this term and we are very proud of it.
First of all, put on a pair of gloves.
Next, fill up a pot with soil.
Make three holes in the soil.
Put a sweet pea seed in each of the holes.
Cover up the seeds with soil and water the soil. The seeds will germinate early in the spring.
We planted a tree as part of the Queen’s Canopy initiative.
Despite so much illness in school, we are busy preparing for our Christmas play and we are looking forward to performing it to you on 14th December.
With Advent, carol concert practice and classroom decorations, Christmas is really on its way. The children have their names for their Kriskringles. We have been talking about what we can do during Advent, the period of preparation for Christmas; and the children suggested that doing small daily acts of daily kindness is one way of showing love for one another, in the way that God showed his love for people by sending Jesus. We are practising songs for the carol concert in earnest and looking forward to seeing you at the concert on Monday 12th. We are learning this fantastic Christmas song. Please could you practise it at home. Thank you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lnYDohCNSM
The classroom looks very festive.
The children’s fantastic explanation writing is on display – either on the or in one of two books. This week they completed a very different piece of writing, retelling “FaRther” with a different ending, when they used personification, similes, expanded noun phrases and fronted adverbials to write figuratively. In both cases every child focused and wrote incredibly well.
In Maths we’ve moved onto applying multiplication and division facts. The children are using the correct terminology for division; and used practice of the facts using manipulatives to make generalisations about division. For example, the class worked out that if the dividend and the quotient are the same, then the divisor has to be one. Or, if the dividend and divisor are the same, then the quotient must one 1. Today they have been constructing sentences like “The product of 8 x 4 is 32” or “6 x 3 is the same as 3 x 6 because of the commutative rule in multiplication.” Can your child explain these terms to you, in different contexts?
Please remember the deadline for the Called RE home learning which is 8th December.
Today was the last session of Gaelic Football which the children really loved. I will send a thank you email to Rory of Herts GAA for providing this first-class coaching to the school.
