Year 6 - Spring 2 - Week 4
Date: 17th Mar 2022 @ 8:44pm
The sun has been shining and our spirits have been high in Year 6 this week!
Wednesday’s Collective Worship was led by Anne and it was all about St. Patrick…no surprise there! She provided the children with a brief overview of Patrick’s life and explained how he came to be the foremost patron saint of Ireland. Our worship then finished with the children singing, ‘Lord the Light of Your Love (Shine, Jesus, Shine)’, which was rather appropriate given the recent change in weather!
This week it has also been British Science Week and this year’s theme has been ‘growth’. To celebrate this, Year 6 enjoyed two afternoons creating their own slime to see who could make their slime stretch the furthest. On Thursday – since it was St. Patrick’s Day - there was a design brief to make the slime Irish-themed. The children enjoyed following the instructions to make their slime, using green food colouring and a variety of glitter for their Irish ‘twist’…also immersing themselves in traditional Irish culture by listening to music by such artists as B*Witched, Westlife and Boyzone!
Unfortunately, Thursday’s attempt at making slime did not go to plan. The slime mixture just didn’t seem to solidify as much as the children had hoped! This was unusual as many children in the class had made slime before and they had followed the instructions carefully, therefore they needed to experiment with the different variables to see if they could fix their problem. Although some improvements were made, it still wasn’t what the children had in mine and so they had to use their iPads to research alternative methods and identify what factors could be affecting the creation of their slime. Several ideas were given, including: the use of more water; the use of different ingredients such as shaving gel; substituting the contact lens solution used for one containing boric acid. The next day, after providing the requested resources, the children attempt to make their slime again…and it was a huge success! The children loved how well it worked and were able to explain how the role of the boric acid affected their results. This was a great opportunity to once again highlight the benefits of making mistakes / encountering problems as you definitely learn more!
From one challenge to another, this week, the children also accepted the challenge of trying to break free from the SPAG 'Escape Room' challenge. Working together in pairs, the children worked their way out of ten different rooms which all had their own code to crack including: active and passive voice, spelling rules, synonyms, homophones and suffixes. It was not an easy task but the children demonstrated exceptional perseverance until they cracked the 10-digit code.
In Maths this week, all the children have continued to focus on measurement and shapes. They have revised how to find the area and perimeter of compound shapes, as well as how to find the volume of 3D shapes. Next week, Mr King’s group will move onto identifying different shapes, as well coordinates. Mrs Martin's group will also be focusing on coordinates before moving to algebra.
Our swimming sessions resumed this week as well. Both groups focused on backstroke, continuing to work on their kicking technique while also thinking about their arm movements – in particular, how their arms should extend out of the water and then how their hands should re-enter the water.
The class have also been supported by Miss Cameron, Miss Presset and Miss Mordaunt this week, who have been on a one-week placement from Liverpool Hope. They have been a great addition to Team 'Year 6' and we thank them for all their help!
The children are aware of what their homework for this week is. Spellings have also been set on Google Classroom for next week.
A reminder that the SATs briefing for parents will be taking place on Monday after school. Please ensure you have confirmed your attendance with Mr King and Mrs Martin via the Y6 account so that resources are prepared for you. The first round of parent-teacher meetings will also commence on Wednesday too.
Have a great weekend and we look forward to seeing many of you next week!