Elm's Star Writer

Congratulations to Nathaniel Ramus for being the Star Writer of the Week! Nathaniel demonstrated perseverance and determination in upleveling his biography. He wrote in third person, utilised captivating sentence openers, and included a lot of inspirational information about his brother named Ashley.

Elm's Topic WOW day

To begin our WOW day in topic (history) on the Anglo Saxons, students investigated the ways in which the Anglo Saxons predicted the weather forecast. Their superstitions and beliefs were quite unreliable but also funny and interesting! Watch our Anglo Saxon weather forecast below by clicking on the link.

Http://YouTube.be/gXRQ1oNGlbA

Area in Elm Maths Class

In Maths, students have been measuring the area of rectangles and squares. We have learned that the area of a shape is a measure of how much surface a 2D shape takes up. Since we are calculating length and width of a 2D shape we know that our answers have to end in unit square numbers. Below are students measuring the area of everyday school items.

Year 6 PE

This week in PE Year 6 were challenged to use their reciprocity skills to make the name of their class. 

Working together, Palm and Acer children decided which children would make each letter of their class name and laid strategically on the floor of the hall for Miss Cook and Mr Potway to take a photo.

"We had to organise eachother and listen to one another, which was quite tricky at first," said Vinnie, Palm.

Can you spot your child in their class name? 

'Mona Lisa' Art Appreciation

This morning, Palm class took part in an art appreciation session as part of their Italy Wow Day.

This 'Mona Lisa' was created by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century in Italy. Da Vinci used oil paint on wood. The painting still puzzles observers as nobody knows exactly who the lady on the painting is. Some historians believe she may have been Lisa Giocondo, who was the wife of a rich Italian merchant. 

In groups, the children discussed what they thought Mona Lisa felt in the painting, there was lots of debate regarding her expression and whether her expression was a smile or a frown. Imagining that they were sitting for the painting, the children wrote about what they thought they would be able to see and what they would be thinking about. 

Lastly, the children drew their own sketch of the painting and researched facts about the famous artist - Leonardo da Vinci.

Palm's Pasta & Pizzeria

As part of Palm's class, Italian Wow Day, the children took part in an Italian food workshop. Groups of children worked with Mr Borrell to make fresh pasta and pizzas.

Did you know that the word 'Pizza' was first documented in the Italian coty of Gaeta in 997AD. The ancestors of modern-day pizzas were simple flat breads, known as foccasia in Italy which were sprinkled with different toppings. 

The Life of Nikola Tesla

For the past two weeks, Year 6 have been researching and writing about the life of Nikola Tesla. Writing a biography of the famous scientist, using a variety of different types of biographical materials and online resources.

The main grammar focus has been relative clauses, perfect form of verbs and modal verbs. 

Tesla who is often called one of history's most important inventors, one whose discoveries in the field of electricity were way ahead of his time and continue to influence technologies today. Despite his accomplishments, however, Tesla died penniless and without the accolades that he would ultimately earn over a century later. 

Translation

This morning, Mrs Gradley's group were drawing and translating shapes on the first quadrant and four quadrants of the co-ordinate grid. The children used vectors to show the movement of a vertex, left, right, up or down. 

In class, the children had a choice of activities to complete. Some used the my maths app and worked through the lesson and worksheet; others completed chilli challenge tasks and mastery challenges.

Elm's Star Writer

Congratulations to Jessica Sampson for being this week's STAR WRITER. She has written an excellent biography about Jeremy strong - a famous children's author!   Jessica created exciting sentences to describe Strong's childhood, adulthood and his life experiences. She has used the parenthesis to include more information, utilised colourful vocabulary and her presentation skills were phenomenal!! Great job Jessica!

Writing an episode in Elm Class

In literacy, we have been studying about narratives. We have been reading "This is NOT a fairytale" and discussed Jeremy Strong text features. Jeremy Strong text features include: subverting stereotypes, humour, jokes and silly names. In addition, we have focusing on using captivating sentence openers, show-not tell, colourful adjectives and wow vocabulary.

For the past week we have been creating an episode in which Ramona meets a frightening character as an extension of one of Jeremy Strong's stories. As a result, we have been up levelling our story barebones by editing and evaluating, and utilising self and peer assessment to reflect on our work. We have been laughing a lot listening to our classmates creatively written episodes.

Below are some examples of our editing and evaluating skills. Stay tuned until we publish our final drafts!!!!

CSI Road Safety Workshop

Many people are unaware that the number of fatalities amongst young people caused by road accidents are higher than deaths from other external causes, including those that receive much more publicity from the media. Last half term Year 6 took part in a workshop to teach clear road safety messages effectively and consistently, using drama to help the children understand and manage risks.

The children were investigating a fatal road traffic accident and had to question witnesses and ask inquiring questions to solve the incident.

Hands up... Who likes pie?

Last week in maths, the children worked on pie charts. They transferred these skills to ICT when they took class surveys and created pie charts in google documents. Here are the results:

Acer Star Writer

Well done to George White, this weeks star writer. George created a historical genre story with excellent use of descriptive features in keeping with the Tudor era.

Well done George.