P6A have had another busy week, and are definitely ready for the holidays now!
We have been doing a lot of Easter activities, like filming Jesus being nailed to the cross for the Stations of the Cross. We did a good job, and it got put together with other class’ stations for the whole school to watch. We also did a reading comprehension about the Easter story, and researched how Easter is celebrated in other countries. We used our research to make invitations to an Easter event, and it was really interesting learning about other country’s traditions. For example, in Poland they have water fights on Easter Monday, and in some parts of France they make giant omelettes!
In writing, we were writing directions for a route we know well. We went on Google maps to explore, and then write instructions using details like landmarks and street names. For example, lots of people wrote the instructions on how to get from their house to school.
For numeracy, we finished off our work on fractions, decimals and percentages. On Thursday, we were going to do an assessment but Ms Mitchell gave us a fake quiz to begin with which was way too hard, for April Fools Day. We can’t believe she pranked us! We did the real assessment on our iPads and everyone did well.
To finish up, we did an orienteering treasure hunt in the Treverlen Park. IT WAS FUN!
In numeracy this week, we have been converting fractions and decimals into percentages. We did a lot of practice and then did a codebreaker where we needed to do the conversions, find our answer on the key and solve a riddle.
In science we have been learning about electrical circuits. We learned about how circuits are represented by symbols, and then drew our own circuits including things like motors, buzzers and batteries.
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is a book that we are using for Health and Wellbeing. This week, we looked at an interesting quote from it: ‘One of our greatest freedoms is how we react to things’. We discussed how you can’t always control what happens, but you can control how you react to it. Ms Mitchell then read out some scenarios and we acted out how we could react to them.
This week’s writing was computational instructions, where you have to think like a robot and list every single step exactly and precisely. We practised by giving each other exact instructions in the playground, then we wrote down how to make our favourite sandwich, making sure we explained every single step, even how to pick up a knife and spread butter. It was very fun.
Sunday is Palm Sunday, so we read the passage from the Bible that tells us what happened. We then wrote diary entries as if we were there at the time that Jesus rode into Jerusalem.
Overall, we have had a great week. We have also done a lot of PE and games outside, and are hoping that we get more nice weather next week!
We have really enjoyed being back at school – seeing our friends and teachers has been a special highlight. The early mornings – not so much, as we are feeling very tired by the end of our first week back. We have had a super busy week reconnecting with each other and getting back into the school routine. Here are some of our lessons from this week:
In numeracy, we have been learning to convert fractions to decimals. We converted the fractions so that they had 100 as the denominator, so it was easier to calculate the decimal. We even took the chalk outside and did some practice on the ground! Also, on Monday we learned how to calculate the perimeter of compound rectilinear shapes (some tricky mathematical language there!)
In literacy, we continued our focus on discursive writing. We learned that you need to present a balanced argument, so started by picking a topic that was interesting to us. Some people chose topics such as zoos, dogs in parks, branded clothes, social media or VAR in football. We wrote lists for and against our topic, to help us be balanced in our writing. It was fun and we really enjoyed choosing what we wrote about.
At the start of the week we did a bit of music. First, we listened to a piece called ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ by Edvard Grieg. While we listened, we drew what the music sounds like, as we know that music can be used to tell a story. For example, rough sounding music might be a bad guy, or happy might be a hero and so on. It was so relaxing listening to the music while drawing.
On Tuesday, everyone went outside and made posters with positive messages about managing change. Some of were things like ‘after every storm comes sunshine’ or ‘when you are stuck in a hole, build a way back up’. The pictures and messages were based on a book that we are reading all together called The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy. It was really fun to do, and we loved getting to spend time outside.
This week in PE we have been playing games to work on our fitness and throwing and catching skills. We started by playing tornado where you run in a circle and try to catch the person in front of you, and did a circuit in groups to try lots of different interesting activities.
On Thursday we swapped teachers, so we learned about St Patrick’s Day with Miss Maguire. We did a cool art activity where we cut out the shape of a shamrock to use as a template. We then dipped our thumbs in paint and created awesome designs, with the shamrock white in the middle.
Today, it is Red Nose Day, so we did a quiz all about the colour red and noses! Some teams found it fairly tricky, but overall it was really fun. Also, we watched Comic Relief video about a boy who had to go to a charity called ‘Steps’ because he has Cerebral Palsy. It showed us why it is important to support charities like Comic Relief.
Finally, Ms Mitchell’s highlight of the week was finally getting a trolley to charge our iPads in! It has been a long wait due to delays with the supplier but we are delighted to have a neat and secure place to keep our tech!
This week in writing we were working on our discursive writing, which helped us understand and make balanced arguments. We decided to write about whether school holidays should be longer.
We learnt that a discursive argument is when you hear both sides of the story, and you have to be impartial or people won’t listen to you, because people don’t just want to hear one side of the story.
Numeracy
This week in maths P6b have been learning to convert fractions into decimals.
On Tuesday we challenged ourselves with the chilli challenges.
We’ve been learning to times the denominator to 100 and then do the same to the numerator. We also did revision of what we had learned about in lockdown, and how to divide the denominator if it is more than 100 and we want to make it into a decimal.
HWB
This week in HWB we made emotion thermometers. We thought of different words for different emotions and levelled them from the highest level of that emotion and the lowest. For example, when we did happy the top word was ecstatic and the bottom was content. So, at the top there was extremely high emotions and the bottom was a low level of it. So now when we are not sure how to describe how we are feeling we can say for example, I’m feeling about level 3 on the sad thermometer, or you could say I’m feeling level 5 on the excitement!
Science
In science this week we have learned about batteries and different circuits. We learnt this by pretending to be different things in the circuit. I learnt that batteries need to be attached with both sides for it to be complete. It’s like when you put in a battery in the wrong way round it won’t work. This is the same to lightbulbs and buzzers.
St Patrick’s Day
For Saint Patrick’s Day we learned about Saint Patrick and all of the wonderful things he done. First we Cut out shamrocks on paper next we got Blu-Tac and stuck them onto a different piece of paper, thence got some paint and bought it outside because it was a bright and sunny day. Next we went outside and use our fingers prints to go around them in a rainbow form while we let them dry we played a few games outside with balloons. We got into groups and played over and under with them. Then we came back inside and done some Irish dancing around the tables.
PE
In P.E we started played lots of games with Mr Devine. Games like chaos tag, a tornado game and a game called switch. We also played a catching game where we catch a ball into a cone or a box. We did lots of catching, throwing, and speed games, we really had fun.
We are delighted that after a lot of hard work and exciting projects over the last few years, we have been successful in our application for another Green Flag. This means that our status as an Eco School has been renewed for another two years, and we will be restarting our journey towards our next flag soon!
Well done to everyone who has been involved in this success, from the school staff and pupils to parents and the wider community, everyone has played a part in this. It hasn’t been easy given the lockdowns, and several plans have been postponed and cancelled so we are delighted with this certificate! Thank you!
