NE vs The Rockies

This week in Geography, we have been comparing the North East of England with The Rocky Mountains in North America. We found out that the North East has a Marine west coast climate which explains why we have colder temperatures than the south of England!

Just like ours, winters in the Rocky Mountains are wet and cold with an average temperature of -2 degrees. We were surprised to see how many rivers there actually are in North East England – there are more than the Rockies have but we found out that theirs all join the Atlantic, Pacific or Arctic ocean at some point.

“Wow! I didn’t realise how tall the highest mountain was!” - Millie.

“I’m surprised to see that people actually live in the Rocky Mountains just like we do in the North East.” – Harrison.

Dear Humans

This week we began a new and exciting writing focus in our English lesson: writing in the role of an Arctic animal. We are using our best persuasive language techniques in a letter to encourage the citizens of Earth to mend their ways and protect the lives of vulnerable Arctic creatures.

First, we took time to understand the plight of our chosen animals, which include narwhal, polar bear and arctic fox, and now we are planning and building our vocabulary banks. We must ensure that we write in a formal tone so that our letters are taken seriously and incorporate emotive language to help the reader sympathise and take action.

We are already very much into our roles and can’t wait to share our finished letters with you soon…

“Can we address the letter to ‘land dwellers’ if our animal is from the sea?” - Summer

“We need to make humans feel sorry for us so that they stop putting our species at risk!” – Halle

Year 6 are dotty about decimals

We can’t believe how far we have come in maths this year (and we are only in February!) With our hard work in fractions over, we have started a new unit, working with decimals, “Decimals are related to fractions and mixed numbers because they represent the whole and fractions of amounts” – Crystal.

So far we have learned all about the place value of each digit in a decimal.  We can now confidently mentally multiply and divide by 10, 100 and 1,000 too, “Miss Clarke has a song for everything - to the left, to the left, when we multiply move the digits to the left!” - Mahya

This week we have been using written strategies to solve problems when multiplying and dividing with decimals.  Here is a real life example for you to have a go at solving.

Sky Song

Our new class novel this term is Sky Song by Abi Elphinstone. Sky Song is a magical, mystical story of good versus evil set on the Arctic-like plains, mountains, forests and caves of Erkinwald. So far, we have been introduced to the two main characters, Eska and Flint, not to mention a mischievous fox pup called Pebble! Both classes are thoroughly enjoying the tale so far and it is really helping us with our frozen kingdom related vocabulary.

We love Lyfta!

Linked to our RE topic, we met Leah a twelve year old Jewish girl from Denmark in our recent Lyfta lesson. After watching a video about her life and exploring her home through the 360 degree images we can access, we looked for clues about her religion and way of life. We discussed how Leah lives her life and how her faith impacts her choices. We also took a visit with Leah to share a Shabbat meal which is the family meal that they enjoy on their holy day.

“The Jewish holy day is a Friday!” Graciie-Mae

“Leah is a very compassionate person because even though she has lost her grandmother, she still spends time with her grandma’s friends at the care home. She plays violin for them,” Clare

“She was really proud when she got to read the torah at her bat mitzvah – it’s the only time in her life that she’ll be able to read from it!” Regan

Frozen Kingdoms

Our new topic this term takes us the coldest places on our planet. We have begun by locating the range of biomes we have on Earth on a world map and are now beginning to delve deeper into the tundra biome. We will look at the similarities and differences of the Arctic and Antarctic regions and our impact on their decline.

“A biome is a location with similar climate, plants and animals,” Charlie

“It was very interesting to discover that North America and Russia are in the Arctic Circle, yet there is no land in the Antarctic!” Halle

On a similar chilly theme, look out for our setting descriptions of Narnia which we are currently writing in English. We also have a special visit planned from someone that we met last year: Al Sylvester. Al will be coming into school in March to tell the tale of his perilous journey across Antarctica. Now that is a diary entry we can’t wait to write!

Year 6’s last ever Christmas Performance!

After so much hard work and dedication over the past few weeks from the children and staff preparing and practising for our Christmas Performance, the day finally arrived on Wednesday afternoon. We loved performing old classics and introducing new songs to our family members and friends whilst retelling the story of Christmas. It was an emotional afternoon as it was the last time we will perform at Christmas at Highfield but we’re sure you will all agree that it was the perfect one and we did ourselves proud.

Snow Day

We were greeted with the sight of snow on Monday morning and we were all desperate to go outside to play. Once break time hit, we loved being outside playing in the snow, making snow angels and building snowmen! Even our teachers joined in the fun and we were able to get some lovely year group videos and photographs that will be treasured for years to come!

‘It was a nice surprise when we thought it was time to go back to class but it was actually time to build a snowman!’ Summer.

‘We had so much fun playing out in the snow, it was like we were in a different world.’ Logan.

Rose Blanche

Continuing with our World War Two topic in English this week, we have completed our Rose Blanche narrative, retelling the story of the warm-hearted, generous and sympathetic little girl who was never to be seen again...

We have spent time reading the story, creating sentences using a range of punctuation and detailed description and conversations that Rose may have had with other children in the story, putting it altogether to create our own Rose Blanche narrative. A few tissues were needed when we shared our work with the class!

Fraction fun and games

Our brains have been working overtime in Year 6 over the last two weeks, whilst learning how to calculate with fractions (it’s easier than you may think).  We have learned some useful tips and tricks to help us accurately add and subtract fractions and mixed numbers, such as finding a common denominator and exchanging a whole when subtracting mixed numbers.  We are now so confident that we are beginning to reason and problems solve too.

It’s all about Self-Respect!

Through our RSHE lessons this week we have been thinking about our behaviour – in school and out in the community. Discussions have forced us to reflect on how our actions have an impact on each other as well as ourselves. We thought about what Highfield means to us and that how we must show respect to each other to get the most out of each and every school day. We realised that we are very proud of our school and that we each play our part in making it the best that it can be.

“I’ve designed a poster to promote good behaviour to our younger friends in school.” Halle

“I need to think about how I react to difficult situations. I could talk to a trusted adult, count to ten in my head or take deep breaths.” Bradley

“Highfield means a lot to me – I get emotional when I think about leaving at the end of the school year.” Harrison

We know that demonstrating the correct behaviour, trying our best to be resilient and being kind to ourselves shows that we have self-respect. We have had a brilliant week and will remember the lessons we have learned.

A fresh start!

We have finally started the topic we have all been waiting for...World War Two.  Surprisingly, our teachers have managed to plan it into nearly every aspect of our learning and we are engrossed.

Our topic began with a touching animation called ‘Beyond the lines’.  We won’t give away too much, but it follows two young boys as they find themselves in the middle of the D-Day landings.  Along the way, we noticed clues such as TVs, rocking chairs and toy trains scattered across the battlefield but why are two children in the middle of a war zone?  All will be revealed once we complete our setting descriptions in the next couple of weeks.

In Science this week, we have been learning about how light travels. 

Graciie-Mae said, “Light travels in straight lines”. 

Charlie added, “It reflects or bounces off an object into our eyes so that we can we can see it.” 

Did you know that for us to see, there must be a light source such as the sun, fire, a torch or a star?  Did you also know that the moon is not a light source but a reflector? 

We discussed how our knowledge of how light travels was vital to Sunderland during the Blitz.  We learned that homes and buildings completely covered their windows so that no light escaped. 

Claire said, “This was called blackout and meant that the enemy aircraft could not find their way to bomb the cities.”

We have started our class museums in Year 6 and we can’t wait to add to them as we learn more and more.  We have started off by filling them with real artefacts, newspapers an some of our favourite World War Two books – we highly recommend Once by Morris Gleitzman.

Finally, this week Witham class won their first On Time Ted of the year, so they chose to take Bill with them for the week.   

Well done Witham! 

Keep it up everyone in Year 6 and let's aim to be on time everyday.

What a great start we have had to year 6. Although we were a little nervous, we have had a warm welcome from our teachers and have gotten straight down to work.

In our first English lesson, we received a letter from our teachers so that we could get to know them properly and it has been our task to write a reply. They are in for a treat as they get to know why it is good to be us. We have been reading the Charlie Makesy book, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, and we were inspired by the positivity in his writing as well as his beautiful artwork, which you will see our interpretation of next week as we develop our watercolour painting skills.

Our classroom reading corners are fantastic. Miss Clarke welcomes us aboard her pirate ship destined for Treasure Island, Mrs Anderson’s is inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia and Mrs Robson has a sprinkling of magic in her Harry Potter themed reading space. The Reading Revolution is underway and each class is determined to read as much as possible at home in order to beat the other two classes – please help us to remember!

Our first topic in year 6 is World War Two and we are all very excited to learn all that we can about this period in history. This week, we took time to understand the sad news of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and as tribute to our monarch we have been creating artwork, poems and eulogies in her honour.

Our PE lessons this half term will be delivered by a rugby coach and will focus on developing our team working skills as well as our control over the ball. PE is each Thursday so we must remember our kit!

Homework books are on order and when they arrive, we will be set a piece of maths and a piece of English each week. This will be given on a Wednesday and should be returned the following Wednesday so that we can mark them together during the afternoon session.

We are very excited for the year ahead, ready for new challenges and are determined to succeed!