Monday 17 October 2011

Homework

Dear children,

As explained in class, your homework today is to write a letter or post card home from the point of view of an evacuee. You will need to be descriptive in your letter and tell your parents about:
- where you are staying
- your host family
- what you do on a daily basis
- how you feel

To improve the presentation of your work, why not write it on a tea-stained piece of A4 to make it look old? This is optional. If not, please write the letter on a blank A4, using pencil lines if needed. Please write in ink. If you want, you could also make a postcard.

Once you have written your letter, you need to also go through and underline all the verbs in red and adjectives in green. Soon in literacy we will do a lot more work on our understanding of word types so might as well get started now!

If you need guidance over content, please refer to the following BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/world_war2/evacuation/

Whilst writing the letter, please refer to the following steps for success:
- I can use paragraphs
- I can use a variety of sentence openers or connectives to introduce each paragraph
- I can use powerful advectives and verbs to describe my new life
- I can show my understanding of an evacuee's experience

Don't forget that this homework is due on Wednesday 19th October.

The Year 6 Team.

Friday 14 October 2011

Anyone need an Anderson shelter?

This week definitely proved to be an interesting week for Year 6. We were very proud of the children as they all showed commitment and determination towards their tests. A big well done. They had busy days as they had to spend the morning proving themselves in their assessments and then spend the afternoon showing off their amazing DT skills. Although we didn't have time to get on to making planes (Don't worry, the children will use up their cereal boxes very soon!), we gave the children a good opportunity to master their design and technology skills resulting in outstanding shelters. Photos of these and of the planes will be posted in next week's blog.

We would also like to confirm that no homework was set this week. Homework will be set again on Monday, due in on Wednesday.

Before we wish you a good weekend, we publish below a recommended reading list which many of you have requested. The message we have been giving children is that enjoying reading is paramount. However improving our use of vocabulary and language can only be achieved through the reading of more challenging texts. So, it might be time for some of the children to move away from reading Jacqueline Wilson's books now... and if that seems impossible for some, why not alternate between a "fun" read and a more "challenging" read once in a while... up to you! :)

YEAR 6 RECOMMENDED READING LIST

Fantasy
Joan Aiken: Midnight is a Place
David Almond Skellig: Heaven Eyes
Eion Colfer Artemis Fowl series: The Supernaturalist, Half Moon
Investigations
Susan Cooper: The Dark is Rising sequence
Chris D’Lacey: Icefire, Shrinking Ralph Perfect, The Salt Pirates of
Skegness
Helen Dunmore: Ingo
Cornelia Funke: Inkheart, Inkspell, The Thief Lord
Alan Garner: The Owl Service, Elidor
Alan Gibbons Warriors of the Raven
Elizabeth Goudge: Little White Horse
Anthony Horowitz: The Power of Five series
Erin Hunter: Warrior Cats series
Brian Jaques: Redwall
Diane Wynne Jones: Eight Days of Luke, The Chrestomanci Series
Elizabeth Kay: The Divide, Back to the Divide etc
Stephen Moore: Tooth and Claw
William Nicholson: The Wind on Fire Trilogy, The Noble Warriors
Trilogy
Jenny Nimmo: Charlie Bone series
Ian Ogilvy: Measle and the Mallockee
Christopher Paolini: Eragon, Eldest
Michele Paver: Wolf Brother, Spirit Walker, Soul Eater
Terry Pratchet: Johnny and the Bomb, Diggers, The Amazing
Maurice and His Educated Rodents
Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials Series
Philip Reeve: Mortal Engines
Philip Ridley: Mighty Fizz Chilla
J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter (the children will be asked to read one of the series next term as part of their topic)
Louis Sachar: Holes, Small Steps
Angie Sage: Septamus Flyte series
Ali Sparkes: Shapeshifter series
Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell: The Edge Chronicles series
Jonathan Stroud: Golem’s Eye
Robert Swindells: In the Nick of Time



G. P. Taylor: Shadowmancer
Kate Thompson: The Swithchers Trilogy, The Missing Link
J. R. R.Tolkein: The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings
Dr Who: story books

Adventure
Jon Blake: The Last Free Cat
Frank Cottrell Boyce: Millions, Framed, Cosmic
Melvin Burgess: An Angel for May
Joe Craig: Jimmy Coates series
Jamila Gavin: The Blood Stone, Surya Trilogy
Carl Hiaasen: Hoot
Charlie Higson: The Young Bond books
Anthony Horowitz: Alex Rider series
Sophie Mckenzie: Girl Missing
Willard Price: Volcano Adventure etc
Chris Ryan: Alpha Force series
Ruth Thomas: The Runaways
Mark Walden: H.I.V.E series
Jeanette Winterson: Tanglewreck

WW2
Nina Bawden: Carrie’s War
John Boyne: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
The Diary of Anne Frank
Anne Holm: I am David
Judith Kerr: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Robert Leeson: Tom’s War
Michele Magorian: Goodnight Mr Tom
Linda Newberry: Blitz Boys
Christne Nostlinger: Fly Away Home
Jill Paton Walsh: Dolphin Crossing
Robert Westall Blitzcat: The Machine Gunners

Past
Berlie Doherty: Street Child

Have a good weekend,

The Year 6 Team.

Friday 7 October 2011

Assessment Week

Dear Parents and children,

This week has yet again flown by and actually the cooler temperatures were more than welcome in our classrooms!

Just to let you know that the children have been set two piece of homework to hand in on Monday. The first one was Science on Food Chains and the second one was preparation for next week's DT activities.

We understand that assessments can be somewhat stressful for some children and for this reason we try to compensate by organising "hands on" activities next week, in the afternoons. The children have been asked to come to school on Monday morning with the following: flexible cardboard with which to make their shelters, 2 empty cereal boxes, a roll of kitchen foil, a roll of sellotape/masking tape and doll house furniture if available. With this, they will be making Anderson shelters as well as various WWII planes (English, German, American and Japanese).

The children have been given a rough timetable for their assessment next week but the latter is subject to change. Should their be a change, the children will be notified. For example, it is likely that they will be doing their short writing and spelling assessment on Thursday and Science on Friday.

The children have also been told that there will be no homework set during the week next week as enough will be expected of them as it is. However, if some wish to revise areas of literacy, Maths or science on Samlearning, it is entirely optional.

Many thanks for your support and cooperation,

The Year 6 Team.

Saturday 1 October 2011

And they say it will snow by the end of October...

A big well done for the Year 6 children for just having survived the blistering heat this week in both Year 6 classrooms! Despite the warm conditions, the children still managed to work very hard and produce some excellent writing. I bet some of you can't wait to have a look at their biographies. A few children have asked if they could take their work home. Rest assured. Next week, we will try to find some time to type the biographies in class so that these can be printed, and taken home.

This week also included our yearly European Day of Languages, which also went very well. Elm had a go making an Atomium and learnt lots about their teacher's home country; whilst Elder explored Denmark and it's wonderful culture.

On top of all that, the children have also been looking at gravity, and the difference between weight and mass. It's always nice to work out how much we would weigh on Pluto... ;)

Finally, another gentle reminder about pencil cases. Please make sure the children have pencils, pens, rubbers, glue sticks etc. Quite a few have been asking for pens and pencils this week and we are running short of resources. Many thanks for your support.

The Maths homework is on Sam Learning again this week. Please remind your children we expect them to spend no more than 30 minutes, even if it means they can't complete their task. Any additional time spent is optional.

That's it from the Year 6 team.

Enjoy the sun this weekend!