Sports Day
 

We enjoyed a brilliant Sports Day at Crossford Bridge! Competing in sack race, egg and spoon, javelin, long jump, sprint and long distance - we demonstrated all of our school values. Well done to all of the medalists - and even more so to all the competitors who cheered each other on and supported their friends and class mates! 

Great British Science Share

Today we shared a science investigation we undertook for British Science Week with Year 5 children. We used light meters to measure the lux reading depending on the amount of plastic.

Self Portraits: Micrography

Today we have started our self portrait art topic by learning about a technique called micrography. It is where words are used to create lines and depth in pictures instead of traditional lines. Firstly, we used tracing to produce a life-like image of ourselves, including the main features of our face. Then we used key words about our likes, hobbies and personality to create our art piece.

Geography: Climate Change Books

To show what we have been learning in geography, we are creating climate change books. We are choosing from a range of tasks to produce an informative and creative book.

Observing Over Time
British Science Week: Investigating Transparency 

As part of our British Science Week, we have been investigating transparency to see how the density of material affects how much light it allows to pass through. We used light sensors and measured in lux. To maintain a fair test, we kept the location and distance from the light source the same and only changed the number of plastic sheets. This linked perfectly to our geography learning about climate change as we are going to use our findings to make recommendations about how this can be used to reduce “food miles”.

RE: Judaism

Today we have been exploring what we learnt about Judaism by looking at artefacts.

Treasure Island Editing Stations

Today we have been working with children across the year group to edit and improve our writing. We worked our way around several editing stations with specific editing tasks to up-level our stories. It was great to share our work with children we wouldn’t usually get to work with!

World Book Day 2022: Sharing our Reading 

To celebrate World Book Day, we have been sharing our Reading Journals. After each chapter of our Reading book, we complete activities to show our comprehension of what we have read. The activities build up over time to present our journey through a book and how we have experienced the story.

History: Early Civilisations

In History we have been learning about the city of Baghdad during the Early Islamic Civilisation. We learnt about the way of life here in 900AD during the Islamic Golden Age. We also learnt about other Early Civilisations around the world and found out about their discoveries, inventions and trade. Here are some examples of the guides we created to showcase our learning.

Long Division QR Codes

In Mr Stanley’s maths set today we were consolidating our long division method by hunting for problems, solving them and then checking using QR codes.

PE: Badminton 

Today in PE we were putting the skills we have built up and practised this term into match situations. We played different doubles games over the net.

English Non-Fiction: Building a paragraph 

In our English today we have been building a paragraph for our discussion text. We cut out lots of statements and grouped them by topic. Next, we put them in order of importance and added causal or additional conjunctions to link the sentences for cohesion. Finally, we wrote topic sentences to introduce what each paragraph is about.

PE: Badminton 

Today we were learning to use a different type of footwork: lunge. We practiced this using some fun team games and then built up from this, using catching and throwing and eventually both partners using rackets.

The children who have been attending Mrs Baxter’s Maths club competed in the UKMT Anniversary challenge! We are so proud of their motivated attitude and challenging themselves with some very difficult questions! We can’t wait to find out how they got on! 

In our History topic we learned about how commodities were traded and how ancient civilisations developed tokens and seals as early forms of money to trade with. We loved playing the game and bartering with each other!
 

Reading Journals 

We have been making amazing progress in our Reading Journals! We use them to show our comprehension of our home reading books and plot our journey through a story. 

Science: Evolution & Adaptation 

Today we carried out an investigation to demonstrate natural selection. We were given a lollipop stick and told to decorate it with the felt tips on our tables - some tables had bright colours and others had greens, browns and black. Then Miss McNally and Mr Stanley spread them out on the field. Acting like predators, we searched for them and stuck them on a whiteboard in the order we found them. Afterwards we looked at the order and made deductions about why. This led to a great discussion about how animals adapt to their habitats over time.

PE: Badminton

Today in PE, we were working on our lateral footwork to improve our badminton. We also practiced swapping our backhand and forehand grip.

Maths: Converting Between Miles and Kilometres 

Today in maths, Mrs Baxter and Mrs Taylor's classes were applying their learning of miles to kilometres conversions to find different comparison statements, using each digit card once only and making sure our comparisons were either two digit numbers or had two decimal places. Fantastic team work everyone! 

Skyline Art

We have been learning to use a range of materials for different effect. Today we have experimented with acrylic paint, water colour and oil pastels to create different skies.

Science: Evolution & Inheritance Lesson 1

Today we have been learning about how we know about living things that are extinct. We learnt about fossils: how they are formed and how scientists can use them to discover what living creatures used to be alive. By playing a game, we learnt what stands in the way of fossilisation and other factors that aid the process.

Computing: HTML and X-Ray Goggles

Today we learnt about the Internet and the World Wide Web. We explored the source code of some familiar websites and identified the HTML tags that had been used to create them. We then used X-Ray Goggles to remix some web pages of our own!

Art: WW2 Medals 

We have been learning about WW2 medals: their designs and why they were awarded. Using a variety of embellishments and stitches, we created our own medals to award to people for demonstrating our school values.

Unity Coding Workshop

Today we worked with Mr Maloney from MGL to program and code some Sphero Bolts. We created our own pixel designs and then came up with some tricky floor mazes to navigate our robots around. 

D&T: Bridges 

Today we joined groups according to our design ideas. Then we created a shared design in our group. Practising the woodwork skills we were taught, we used saws, mitre blocks and glue-guns to build our bridge structures. Our accurate measuring skills were key: measure twice, cut once!

D&T: Bridges

Today we have been learning about bridges. We learnt about the different types of bridges: suspension, cantilever, truss, arch and beam. Then we were set a focused task to strengthen a basic art straw structure. Through our experience, we discovered that triangular shapes provide more strength.

Research using secondary sources & Pattern Seeking

Science Tasc: Can you use your knowledge of circuits to make an electric buzzer game?
We have been using our knowledge of circuits to make a game. In order to create a successful buzzer game, we worked in groups to identify the parts of the game and what it needs to do. We then designed a circuit that can be broken and completed to create the desired outcome for the buzzer game. Next, we designed a Christmas-themed game and then it was time to make them! 

World War II: Speaking to a Survivor 

Today we have been extremely lucky to have a visit from someone who lived during World War II. Gerard told us about what life was like when before the war, during the conflict and after the war ended. We were able to consolidate some of our learning by listening and asking questions. We are very grateful to Gerard for coming in to share his stories.

English: Quest Story Vocabulary 

Today we began our new English unit: Quest Stories. We read the first part of Barrow Quest and identified specialist and challenging vocabulary. Then we used the Word of the Day format to define the words. We displayed them to use as a vocabulary resource.

History: The Holocaust

In history, we have been learning about The Holocaust. Looking at a range of primary and secondary sources, we have learnt about how life changed for Jews living in Germany during the 1930s and how this led to the creation of concentration camps such as Auschwitz. We watched Six Stories of Children who Survived the Holocaust on the BBC website:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4W3yzYG6DzPBH08Ld0H9L9j/six-stories-of-children-who-survived-the-holocaust

Using what we learnt and empathy for the Jewish people, we wrote A Postcard from Auschwitz.

Percentage Problems! 
Supermarket Sweep! We have been learning about finding percentages and calculating increases and decreases. Mrs Baxter devised a super challenge where her supermarket had a Black Friday sale, money off deals and price rises! We loved calculating the new prices! 

Diwali at Springfield!

Many of our children have been celebrating Diwali this week. Thank you for sharing some pictures of your celebrations and customs! Happy Diwali!

Non Chronological Report: Horrible Histories

This week we have been preparing for writing our first non-fiction piece. Practising a range of SPaG features, we have been creating a sentence resource sheet. We have learnt to use a range of Sentence Starters, semicolons, colons, passive voice, bashes, hyphens and parenthesis to use in our writing.

History: What caused WWII: World War I or Adolf Hitler?

Today we have begun our enquiry into World War II. We looked at the events which led to World War II and tried to empathise with German people during the 1930s. Looking at primary and secondary sources, we discussed how events lead to the conflict.

An outstanding Reading Journal of The Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Yanis Hou.

Science Tasc: Can you design an evidence-based daily exercise programme to meet the needs of a certain physical goal?
Fair and Comparative Testing.Today we consolidated our learning about the human body and the circulatory system. We had to use our knowledge of how the heart works to create an evidence-based fitness programme to achieve a specific goal. We used a heart rate chart, a range of exercises and measuring our bpm to inform our work.

Black History Month: Harriet Tubman

Today we learnt about the 18th century Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Following this, we studied the life and achievements of Harriet Tubman. To demonstrate our learning, we created a cartoon version of her life story. There was some excellent artwork and also great empathy shown in speech and thought bubbles.

Science: What is blood and what does it do?

In science, we have been learning all about blood. We have learnt about the function of different parts of blood: red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma and platelets. We have also learnt about the important role the blood plays in our bodies and the circulatory system. To demonstrate our learning, we wrote A Day in the Life of a Red Blood Cell and produced an explanatory poster to teach a younger child about the parts of the blood.

English Writing: Editing Stations!

Today we worked in groups to edit and improve the first draft of our ghost stories. We moved around the room to different editing stations. Each station had a different focus for us to concentrate on. I can’t wait to read these published pieces Year 6!

Computing: Can you use coding to create a retro video game?

We have started our computing TASC project by looking at the old video game Pong. Then we thought of ways we could modernise it using our coding skills to design, write and debug programs that accomplish specific goals, including controlling or simulating physical systems; solving problems by decomposing them into smaller parts.
Using the program Scratch, we used sequence, selection, and repetition in programs; worked with variables and various forms of input and output to create our own versions of the game.
We had to use logical reasoning to explain how some simple algorithms work and to detect and correct errors in algorithms and programs!

Reading Journals

To demonstrate our comprehension of the books we read, we complete activities in our Reading Journals. These build up our journey of reading our books. Year 6 have made a great start to creating theirs this half term.

Fair and Comparative Testing: Investigating Lung Capacity 

We were given just a balloon each and a length of string and asked to produce scientific data and comparison of the lung capacity of our group.We decided how to produce measurable results and discussed how to maintain a fair test.

Identifying, Classifying & Grouping: Dissecting a Heart

As part of our learning about the circulatory system, we got to investigate the parts of a heart with a hands on investigation. We worked as a team to dissect a heart and label the significant parts. It was fun and exciting! 

Ordering British Monarchs Chronologically 

Today we began our History unit of work by using our investigation and enquiry skills to chronologically order the significant British monarchs since 1066. However, we had to use different sources and facts to discover the dates of their reign.