Year 6
Autumn 1
We have had a really exciting start to Year 6.
Tile Barn
We had a wonderful residential trip to Tile Barn. There was such a wide variety of activities and we all got to face some fears and show great perseverance and teamwork. Further photos are on Google Classroom, but here's a taster of some of the things we got up to!
Art
We have also had the chance to make our own clay pots. We have been studying Ancient Greece as part of our History Topic and within Art, have studied Ancient Greek pots, their hidden messages and their designs, in order to inspire our own. We also compared them to more contemporary designs such as pots created by the artist Grayson Perry, who had a similar structural design to Ancient Greek pots, but was covered in their favourite things. We used the coiling method to create our own pots, then carved in repeated patterns to show inspiration from Ancient Greek design. We will then be combining and decoupaging our own favourite things on the pots too, to show the combination of the two styles.
History
We've also had the chance to vote for our new school councillors just like they did in Ancient Greece! The candidates gave speeches and through the power of democracy and ballot boxes, we got to submit our votes at the polling station.
Greek Day
To immerse ourselves in our History learning about Ancient Greece, we had a Greek Day. In the morning, we had a workshop with Open Box Theatre Company who taught us all about the Ancient Greek Olympics. As well as this, we tried a variety of Greek foods and rated them according to their taste, appearance, texture and overall enjoyment. In the afternoon, we had our own Greek Olympics and worked our way through various ancient Greek Olympic sports, that are still used today!
Relax Kids
This half-term, we have been lucky enough to have a Relax Kids practitioner come in each week and work with us. She has taught us a variety of calming techniques that we can use in every day life that enable us to calm ourselves and regulate our emotions.
Summer Term
Writing this half term has been wonderful! We focused on Charles Darwin and researched his experience with various topics whilst on his expedition to the Galapagos Islands. We took on the persona of the Scientist and wrote a letter home to explain our findings/experience. Here is an example:
For our indoor P.E sessions this term, we used the wall bars and other large equipment to help us create a sequence of balances and movements. We worked on trying to be symmetrical with our groups which built on our previous gym sessions earlier in the year.
French:
This half term, we received postcards from Testbourne Year 7 pupils, currently studying Spanish. We had fun decoding key phrases and looking at the similarities between the two languages; the Spanish speakers in the classrooms were a great asset! The children have worked on their ability to approach a longer written text and answer questions about it. We have also practised asking and answering key questions about ourselves. Year 6 have worked hard this half term, getting to grips with ‘Regular -er verbs.’ This knowledge will help them enormously to approach new verbs, in whichever language they study next academic year. We finished the half term with a project, in which the children could prepare a poster, activity or game to help learn these verb formations.
Spring Term
During Art this term, we studied an artist called, David Hockney who is famous for his landscape paintings. We analysed his landscape pieces and noticed how he used tones, contrasting colours and perspective to create such wonderful paintings that really stand out. We began our own art journey by practising with tones and colour matching:
Then, we went on to sketching out a landscape in the style of Hockney, focusing on sections and how they are used to create perspective. We noticed that the further back the sections were, the flatter and smaller they would be too. Once we had practised with our perspective, it was time to paint our landscapes. We did this by incorporating different tones and shades and then layering on texture towards the end.
French:
Year 6 started this term learning about how Epiphany (‘La Fête des Rois) is celebrated in France. They were invited to make the ‘La Galette des Rois’ at home and have worked in small teams to play ‘The King’s Cake Game.’ They needed to understand simple fractions in French and basic game vocabulary to play successfully. Everyone loved becoming king or queen!
In addition to this cultural understanding, the children have revised their core numbers – using some helpful French phonics sound patterns to improve pronunciation. Most children will be secure in 0-69 and some are able to now explore higher numbers…but they will need good maths! We now move onto our Geography Topic – talking about where we live.
In P.E, we have been working on developing our shape and balance through our gymnastic sessions. Another focus was partner balances and making sure that we could show symmetry in our routines.
French Spring 2:
In Year 6, we have learnt how to add more detail to sentences about where we live. The children can now say and write a sentence about the town, country and type of location where they live. We have conducted listening activities which have led to discussions about different towns and regions in France.
The KS2 MFL Day was a great success and I was impressed how engaged this year group were throughout the day.
We are now exploring regular -er verbs (for example, ‘habiter’ which means ‘to live’) so that we are able to use a range of pronouns in our French work. This grammar work is a crucial foundation to any language work they will encounter next year at secondary school.
Autumn Term
We have had a very busy term in Year 6! We started the year with our Ancient Greek topic and even had a Greek day. Open Box Theatre Company came in to run a workshop where we learned lots about the Ancient Greek Olympics. We made Greek Pottery in Art and we even made some traditional Greek Food:
During Autumn, we also went on our first Residential Trip to Tile Barn Outdoor Activity Centre. We shared many great experiences from climbing to the top of a vertical gym to coming together as a year group to enjoy a quiz night. Here are just a few pictures from our time there.
Our Year 6 children prepared and presented a tour for prospective parents, showing them around our wonderful school. They did an incredible job!
Science:
Towards the end of Autumn term, we learned all about Space. We had a fun homework project to create a model of our chosen planet and even went on a trip to Winchester Science Centre.
For our outdoor P.E lessons, we were learning how to play tag rugby. We learned the positions and rules and had a lot of fun playing the matches against each other.
