Conway
The Year 6 children returned from the Conway Centre on Thursday night and by all accounts, a good time was had by all! We can't wait to see some of the photographs and I'm sure the children will have lots of stories about the activities (and the dormitories) to tell us this week! The children will be preparing a presentation about their time to show you in the near future. We will let you know a date as soon as possible.
Junior Area
Whilst the Year 6 children were in Conway last week, the Year 5's worked really hard to transform the area outside the 5/6 classrooms. We were very impressed at how many ideas the children came up with - we nearly had to stay in school until 8pm every day, just to get through them! They are now very protective over their new displays and even guard them during breaktimes! It's great to see the children taking such a pride in their work!
Fire Service Visit
On Tuesday afternoon this week, the Year 5 children will be taking part in an interactive visit from the Fire Service. They will watch a video about causes of fire and possible preventions and following this, they will take part in a smoke tent activity. This 'smoke' is entirely safe as it is synthetic, but will give the children a real sense of what to do if they were ever in such a situation. You should have received a permission letter last week for this and we would br grateful if you could send it in as soon as possible.
Literacy
This week, we are looking at biographical and autobiographical writing. We are looking at biographies of authors such as Roald Dahl, Dick King-Smith and even Charles Dickens! This is a really interesting genre to investigate because of the diversity in each subject.
The children are really trying to get to grips with writing and we are encouraging them to really think about the small pieces of information that an author gives, that really brings a story to life. Try to get your child to think about 'time connectives and phrases' to help the reader get a picture of what is happening in their heads.
...as the last glimmer of sunshine disappeared from the sky...
...as the final drop of dew evaporated from the caterpillar-gnawed leaf...
http://www.athena.bham.org.uk/autob.htm
This website helps to identify some of the key featurres of an autobiographical text. These are the things we will be looking for when we mark the children's writing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/interestsentences/compoundsentences/
This site from the BBC, allows the children to have a go at making longer sentences, using some of the time phrases and connectives from the literacy lesson.
Science
This week, we are investigating the difference using different water temperatures has on the time it takes a solid to dissolve. We will be reading the temperature from a thermometer in centigrade and then converting it to fahrenheit. The children will also have to use a stop watch to ensure that they are conducting a fair test, along with reading a scale on measuring cylinders to make sure they are using the same volume of water for each test.
As well as all this, they will need to plot all their results on a graph to show what happened over time.
http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/grapher.html
http://www.coppschool.lancsngfl.ac.uk/blackbar.htm?/Classwork/Classwork/Class3/maths/data.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/mathsfile/shockwave/games/datapick.html
These sites help support the work we are doing in graphs, particularly line graphs. You could help by asking your child to show you which axis the numbers should be on. We have done lots of work on Tally charts, so they should be able to tell you how to transfer this information onto a bar chart.
http://www.e4s.org.uk/director/dissolve.htm An online experiment which shows the effect of heat on water.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/measuring/temperature/index.shtml reading thermometers
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/8_9/keeping_warm_fs.shtml
Foundation Subjects
We really do have some talented artists this year, so we are really looking forward to some of the work which will be produced. This week, the children will be using a variety of media to produce an image of a landscape. We will also be investigating how to give an image depth, by using perspective in a drawing.
http://www.sanford-artedventures.com/play/landscape1/index.html This is really good website for showing the children completed pictures.
In ICT, we are looking at using databases to record information about ourselves. The children will need to know what a field, file and a record is and be able to input this information into a database. This work also links with all the work on reading scales and graph work this week.
For the rest of this term, we are investigating the ancient civilisation of the Aztecs. This week, the children will be archaeologists, who discover a suitcase, filled with artefacts from a dig. They have to find out where they came from, and show the rest of the class what they think happened for them to get into the suitcase!
http://home.freeuk.net/elloughton13/aztecs.htm A Great site from Snaith Primary, which gives lots of information about the Aztecs for research.
It will be a busy week, but one which the children are sure to enjoy!!
5/6 Team.
