On Tuesday, we welcomed Mrs Thompson into our class. Mrs Thompson is helping us respond to Pope Francis’ plea to care for our common home by beginning an eco-project in conjunction with the Potters Bar Women’s Institute. This will result in a new seat for our outdoor area made from eco-bricks. Please remember to bring as much packaging waste as possible for Tuesday when we will continue to make our eco-bricks.

This week in RE, we have continued learning about the Jesse Tree and have begun to find out about the ‘O’ Antiphons. On Wednesday, the children worked in groups to present to the class about each antiphon.

In music, the children worked in groups to come up with 2-bar rhythms inspired by train journeys, which were then layered on top of each other to create an exciting rhythmic performance!

Year 6 and Reception class ended the week with a beautiful act of worship led by Owen, Sofia, Matthew and Mia.

This week’s home learning (due Tuesday 26^th November ) is as follows:

English	You have each been given a sheet with your writing targets on and a story starter underneath. Your task is to write another paragraph of the story whilst focusing on your targets and attempting to use two of the hyphenated spelling words below.
Spellings	Using hyphens to join compound adjectives to avoid ambiguity: adorable valuable advisable believable desirable excitable knowledgeable likeable changeable noticeable
Maths Times tables	(online) Mathletics tasks.   Continue to revise all times tables.
Reading	Daily reading and recording in Reading Records.   How to complete your reading record As you’re reading, take notice of the language used then. When you’ve finished reading, choose an aspect of language that you really liked, write it into your reading record, and then explain why you found it effective. Things you might comment on: ·         Effective use of personification; ·         An effective metaphor; ·         An example of ‘show don’t tell’ ; ·         Good use of the semi-colon; ·         Hyphenation; ·         Direct speech that develops the characterisation; ·         Formal language; ·         A new word whose meaning you worked out from the context.

Have a nice weekend; see you on Monday.

Miss Donatantonio

Well done, Year 6, for a beautiful class mass on Wednesday. Your reading, singing and participation was wonderful and you made me very proud.

This week has been both Parliament Week and Judaism Week. For Parliament Week, we discussed the current political climate, then the children wrote about what issues are important to them and what they would implement if they were Prime Minister. Next week, we will debate some of these issues in front of the House of Commons backdrop.

For Judaism week, we learned why the Torah is the most sacred part of the Jewish Bible and looked at ways Jewish people observe the sacredness of the Torah.

Our maths has been focused on using mental strategies to work out calculations efficiently, as well as using estimation as a checking tool for more complicated calculations.

In science, we made observations about the mould-growing experiment that we set up before half-term. We were very intrigued as to why some of the bread had turned red!

In art, the children learnt how to mono-print their self-portraits and in PE we carried on with football training, this week practising how to receive the ball well.

This week’s home learning (due Tuesday 12^th November ) is as follows:

English	You have each been given a sheet with your writing targets on and a story starter underneath. Your task is to write another paragraph of the story whilst focusing on your targets and attempting to use two of the hyphenated spelling words below.
Spellings	Using hyphens to join compound adjectives to avoid ambiguity: man-eating little-used rock-bottom wide-eyed pig-headed tight-fisted cold-hearted stone-faced green-eyed short-tempered
Maths Times tables	(online) Mathletics tasks on estimating and using mental strategies.   Continue to revise all times tables.
Reading	Daily reading and recording in Reading Records.   How to complete your reading record As you’re reading, take notice of the language used then. When you’ve finished reading, choose an aspect of language that you really liked, write it into your reading record, and then explain why you found it effective. Things you might comment on: ·         Effective use of personification; ·         An effective metaphor; ·         An example of ‘show don’t tell’ ; ·         Good use of the semi-colon; ·         Hyphenation; ·         Direct speech that develops the characterisation; ·         Formal language; ·         A new word whose meaning you worked out from the context.

Enjoy your weekend.

Miss Donatantonio

In history this week, we learnt more about life on the Home Front. The children experienced the air raid siren going off then learnt about the necessity of rationing food. They wrote diary entries about their reactions to rationing, compared propaganda posters, then made their own.

In science, we were learning about the smallest living things on earth: microorganisms. The children came up with their own questions about what factors might affect mould growth, then set up their own investigations with bread that will enable them to find out the answers after a week or two. Here are some of the questions that are being investigated:

• Does mould grow better in the light or in the dark?
• Does moisture cause mould to grow more?
• Does mould prefer to grow in hot or cold conditions?

PE this week focused on basic hockey skills. The children learnt that they must keep their knees soft, keep the ball in front of them, use only the flat side of the stick and keep the stick touching the floor. They worked on changing direction with the ball and stopping a ball that is coming towards them.

This week’s art learning was using collage to create self-portraits. They will finish these off next week.

And finally, here are this week’s photos of some of the Year 6s with their reading partners:

Next week, Year 6 will be learning about Poland for One World Week, so check the blog next Friday to see the creative learning they will have produced!

The main part of this week’s home learning is to research Poland and to show this learning creatively. In addition to this, there are the following spellings to learn:

co-operate

co-ordinate

co-own

co-author

re-enter

re-educate

re-examine

re-evaluate

re-energise

re-elect

This week has been action-packed, including yesterday’s WW2-themed trip to the British Schools Museum in Hitchin. Thank you for the fantastic efforts with all the children’s costumes and props; they looked superb! Have a look at what we got up to:

This morning we were lucky enough to be visited by Richard’s Reptile Roadshow, to link to our whole-school English writing focus on Joan Procter the scientist. There were feelings of fear, achievement, surprise and overall great excitement as Richard brought around snakes, lizards, a cockroach, a tortoise and even a chichilla to hold, and we learnt so many interesting facts about the animals’ adaptations for survival. Thank you to Miss Pringle for arranging this fantastic learning opportunity!

This week’s home learning (due Tuesday 8^th October ) is as follows:

English	Spag.com à Semi-colons & colons (A) and Linking ideas & cohesion (A)  Research: Next week, you are going to be writing a biography about Joan Procter. In preparation for this, please carry out research to find additional information that isn’t covered in the book we have studied this week. Write your findings on an A4 sheet of paper that you can use in our lessons.
Spellings	Adjectives ending in –ant into nouns ending in –ance/-ancy: observant observance expectant expectancy hesitant hesitancy tolerant tolerance relevant relevance
Maths Times tables	Questions on place value, to be completed in the yellow Home Learning book: ·         CGP Year 6 book pp. 24, 48, 49 ·         CGP Year 5 book pp. 21, 44 Continue to revise all times tables.
Reading	Daily reading and recording in Reading Records.