Welcome to the Year 6 Birch webpage.

Class Teacher: Miss Utley

Support Staff: Mrs Mellor

Current Learning Journey: How Does The Way We Look Define Us?

PE Days: Monday and Wednesday

Please remember to send your child to school in their PE kit. They need a pair of trainers, a white/blue t-shirt and a plain grey/blue/black tracksuit.

You can keep in touch with Miss Utley on ClassDojo. Teachers use the app to set home learning activities, pass on messages and to send you photos of your child learning at school. You can use the app to get in contact with Miss Utley and she will do her best to answer any questions as soon as possible. Let school know if you need instructions for how to access your child's Dojo account.

Here are some learning activities that will support your learning at home:

https://ttrockstars.com/

https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/levels/zbr9wmn

www.thenational.academy

Please tell us if you have forgotten your passwords.

Here are this week's Learning Champions...

Well done!

During Arithmetic Friday, we planned and budgeted a holiday for Miss Haden. We had to decide where she was going, how long for and what activities she was going to do. We had to use our addition and subtraction skills to make sure we didn't break the budget. We sent Miss Haden on some great holidays!

In Science, we have been learning about the theory of evolution. This week, we have been focusing on the theory of how humans evolved. We watched some videos to gather some information and then we used the Ipads to find out some of our own facts. We presented our findings back to the class and we learnt some interesting facts!

Week 4 (21/09/2020)

We have had another great week in Year 6 Birch! 

In writing, we have been focusing on grammatical features and looking at how we can apply them to our letter writing to make them more cohesive. We started by looking at how to use phrases and clauses and then we looked at a range of cohesive devices and applied these to our own writing. We wrote some really great paragraphs ready to go into our letters next week!

In maths, we have been focusing on place value. We have been focusing on numbers up to 10 million and how to round these. We also looked at negative numbers and how to add and subtract these. 

In reading, we have been reading our book 'Clockwork'. We have been focusing on the characters 'Spotter' and 'Chatterer' and we have been using these to create reading strategies to help us answer questions. 

In Science, we have been researching Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. We have researched the finch birds on the Galapagos Islands and looked at how they have evolved over time. We had lots of questions and wanted to find out more!

Autumn 1 week 3 w/c 14.9.20

The children have settled into school well and are now working really hard in all subjects.

In writing, the children have been focusing on the text 'The Matchbox Diary' and have made many predictions about what the illustrations show throughout the text. They have then used this to understand how key characters feel through different events that take place in the story. This knowledge of the characters has been  transferred into what it would look like if key characters were to write a letter to their loved ones. The boy in the story left for America to be reunited with his father and in return has written a letter to his grandmother that was left behind in Italy. The children have focused on the differences between a clause and a phrase as part of their grammar lessons and have begun to identify these well. 

In maths, the children have been learning about place value and are now beginning to answer a range of reasoning questions to support their understanding. The children have looked at a range of true or false questions to allow opportunities for them to problem solve and reason. 

The children have become engrossed in their science topic so far this half term and have learnt how we inherit characteristics from our parents and how living things adapt to their environments. 

If your child is off due to Coronavirus, here are some activities they can be doing at home:

Welcome back Y6! We are so happy to have you back in school and back learning with us again. 

Here is a copy of the autumn 1 curriculum overview, home learning and science knowledge organiser. We would love to see some of the home learning that you complete at home over the half term!

As we have begun learning about evolution and inheritance in science, why not test yourself by creating a quiz using the knowledge organiser vocabulary?

Hi Hazels! 

I just wanted to say how much I am missing you and hoping you are all well. We may be having some time apart now but I am always here for you. If you activate your Class Dojo account then we can communicate on there. I have been sending your activity ideas on Class Dojo and will constantly be updating it too.

Alternatively use Purple Mash 2email to get through to me and eachother. 

Stay safe and keep smiling! Miss Bulloss 

Current Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius

09.01.20

Learning Champion: Hamza For starting off the new year with 100% effort in all lessons, knowing where to start and asking for help when he needs it.

Jigsaw Genius: Beau for celebrating differences within our class, knowing that we are all different and how this is important to our school community.

Acres Attributes Champion: Iklavia for always being respectful to those around him, taking care of others and understanding their needs.   

Current Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius

28/11/19

Learning Champion: Awo for making excellent progress in all of her subjects, especially reading and maths!

Jigsaw Genius: Viki for always putting herself out there to solve problems, help others and improve herself. 

Acres Attributes Champion: Abs for ensuring justice is made within our classroom, all is fair and we are all treated equally. 

Current Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius

21/11/19

Learning Champion: Sebastian For settling in to year five, showing his potential and trying hard in all he does.

Jigsaw Genius: Ethar for using kind words to her peers and members of the class as a way to promote Anti-bullying week.

Acres Attributes Champion: Aliyah For always being responsible in her actions and using her initiative.

Current Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius

14/11/19

Learning Champion: Eva for having a massive smile on her face throughout forest schools, being imaginative and pushing herself out of her comfort zone.

Jigsaw Genius: Richard for celebrating differences by involving those who need support and including them in all he does.

Acres Attributes Champion: Finlay for being respectful and ensuring everyone has the right to speak. 

Current Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius

17/10/19

Learning Champion: Vanesa for becoming more positive in her learning and trying her very best to move forwards!

Jigsaw Genius: Elijah for always following the learning charter. 

Acres Attributes Champion: Beau for being reflective: self-awareness

Current Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius

10/10/19

Learning Champion: Iklavia for trying really hard in phonics and spelling, challenging himself and always making us smile!

Jigsaw Genius: Jana for becoming an independent learner. 

Acres Attributes Champion: Viktoria for being reflective: working well with others.

Current Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius

03/10/19

Learning Champion: Aliyah for making incredible progress in every lesson!

Jigsaw Genius: Richard for caring about other people's feelings. 

Acres Attributes Champion: Raiyan for being reflective: honesty.

Current Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius

26/09/19

Learning Champion: Ali for a fantastic character description!

Jigsaw Genius: Amani for ensuring everyone has the right to learn. 

Acres Attributes Champion: Fayyad for being reflective: questioning

Current Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius

19/09/19

Learning Champion: Shifayah for knowledge of modal verbs and using this to teach others 

Jigsaw Genius: Emma for making our school community a better place. 

Acres Attributes Champion: Leo for being reflective: self regulation 

Current Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius

12/09/19

Learning Champion: Raiyan for his 100% contribution and great progress in Maths. 

Jigsaw Genius:  Viki for helping others feel welcome

Acres Attributes Champion: Finlay for being reflective:learning from mistakes

GPS Starter! 

Every writing lesson, we start with a GPS starter that links in to the grammar required in our writing genre for the current week. We currently looking at leaflets to inform and we are thinking about the structure of our sentences and how the order can give a superficialities impact around the subject. In our starter today, children began writing a sentence then they got their learning partner to restructure the sentence thinking about different language, punctuation and how the order of the sentence could be changed. 

I am looking forward to seeing the impact in our leaflets next week! 

ICT - writing for different purposes 

This half term in ICT, we are looking at how we write for different purposes including things such as emails, CV’s and reviews. 

To start with, we are looking at how we write emails and making links back to our letter writing to help us understand why we write them. We looked at how quick it is to send and receive emails and why this is useful in today’s world. We are then going to write our own persuasive email to MI6 to persuade them to hire us as their new agents. 

Counting in Fractions 

As we continue our fractions focus, we have been looking at how we count up in fractions, solving a range of reasoning and problem solving activities to deepen our level of understanding around fractions. We are still loving our fractions learning! 

Fractions! 

This half term in maths we are looking at fractions and we love them! Because the children are working so hard on their multiplication knowledge, they are now confident to tackle more challenging fractions problems and it’s brilliant to see. Well done, Hazel! Here are some of the pictures from our fraction wall lessons.

Insulators and Conductors 

This half term in science, we have been looking at different insulators and conductors in electricity and today we investigated a range of different materials within our circuits. The children used their investigation to link back to their predictions, creating a written follow up of what they identified and why. 

Spellings - cian and tion

Oue spelling focus this week was looking at different words that have cian and tion suffixes. We had to look at the different spellings and split them up before we used the syllables of the words to help us spell them. 

Jigsaw - How do we deal with situations 

In our Jigsaw lesson this week, we were looking at different ways to deal with certain situations. We looked at what could be an effective way of dealing with certain situations so that we don’t get angry, upset or too disappointed. Here are some of the freeze frames from our role plays to demonstrate some our our kind actions for the different scenarios. 

Mulitplication and Partitioning 

This week we have been looking at partitioning numbers to help us with solving mulitplication problems. We used base 10 to help us see the links. 

Factor Pairs 

To check the children’s understanding of multiplication, today we looked at factor pairs and how these help us understand what makes up a number. Here are our factor rainbows to help us see the links. 

Arithmetic Friday 

Our arithmetic focus this week was addition and subtraction. Mr White asked for a huge favour from the children because he loves going on holiday. To consolidate our use of column addition and subtraction, the children had to work out different prices to send Mr White on holiday. I think the class just wanted to send me away for some peace and quiet...

ICT - Spreadsheets 

This week in our ICT lessons, we have been looking at different spreadsheets and when we would use these in real life. Firstly, we looked at different cells on the spreadsheet and how we can input data to give us a clear understanding of things such as money. Here are some pictures of us investigating with our spreadsheets at the beginning of the topic. 

Spelling Bingo 

In Hazel class we love our Friday spelling games. This week we played spelling bingo to help us learn specific Y3/4 spellings. 

Number bonds to 100 

Our arithmetic focus this week has been looking at number bonds to 100. We’ve been using our knowledge of number bonds to 10 to help us see specific links so that we can solve problems mentally, using efficient strategies. 

Multiply and Divide by 10 and 100.

Look at this fantastic way or supporting our understanding when multiplying and dividing by 10 and 100. We use Mr White’s second favourite song ‘cha cha slide’ to slide to the left or slide to the right. These laminate sheets help us visually understand what happens to our numbers when we use this skill. This has allowed us to really work hard on our reasoning understanding this week.

10 in 10

We love 10 in 10 at Acres Hill. Take a look at our questions this morning for Year 4 Hazel. We are really thinking about our methods and misconceptions now! 

Geography

in our geography lessons, we have been learning to understand how to use grid references to find different places in the world. 

Number Bonds of 100 

In our arithmetic lesson this week, we have been looking at number bonds to 100 using our number bonds of 10 To support us. We started to make links between what happens in the ones column and tens column and noticed that if we make 10 in the ones column, we only ever have to make 90 in our tens column. 

As you can see, we love to use resources to check our understanding. 

What would we say? 

To help us with our newspaper reports, Year 4 have been thinking about what type of quotes we would likely see after the event. Lila, the young daughter of Lachland has gone missing on her journey and we are hoping this newspaper report will help her dad in finding her. 

We thought carefully about what different people would say to Acres Hill News according to their relationship to with Lila. This will help with some very effective direct quotes. 

Super Spellers 

Year 4 Hazel are working so hard in every spelling lesson. We look at a range of different spelling rules and patterns using our knowledge from KS1 and year 3 to help us. Every week we take part in a different practical spelling activity and the children love it! 

Maths Reasoning 

At Acres Hill, we are working really hard to improve our maths reasoning skills making sure to explain our answers using key vocabulary and methods to explain how we solved problems. 

Year 4 Bonfire Celebrations 

Linking with our topic around Guy Fawkes and how the law has developed in the UK through the years, the children in year 4 held their own bonfire party with a little help from the local scout camp. Every child had created their own mini Guy Fawkes figure that would be placed on the bonfire before enjoying a lovely roasted marshmallow. 

RAP Poetry 

To celebrate our focus on poetry in school this week, Mr White led a RAP poetry session for every year group to get everyone to use their imagination and skills to create some fantastic pieces of poetry. We used some of our favourite lyrics from some of the best songs in the world and used them to generate a piece of poetry which we then all performed. 

Our Learning Champion - 12.10.18

LC - Well done to our learning champion this week, Raghad. You have been impressing me more and more each day and Mr Hingley is so proud of how far you have come already in 7 weeks. Well done! 

JG - Well done to Leo, our jigsaw genius. You continue to show a mature and sensible attitude to everything you do and you are a fantastic role model for everyone in Hazel class. You keep putting the feelings of others before yourself and this is why everyone loves sitting next to you to have your support. 

Adding 4 digit numbers 

This week, year 4 are looking at adding 4 digit numbers together with no exchanging before moving onto exchanging. We have been using a range of resources to help us solve missing digit problems and some reasoning questions. 

Verbs tenses

Year 4 have been looking at different verb forms and how we use these effectively in our writing. We used the different verb forms to create sentences and match the correct verb to the verb form. 

We love music!! 

Year 4 are very lucky to have music lessons every Monday afternoon where we are learning loads of fantastic skills and techniques that will help us play different instruments. This week we have been focusing on different beats and the pitch in our voices. As a class, we are getting much better at keeping to the same beat. 

We love our learning walls!! 

Year 4 have been discussing different ways to improve their stories this week and the children were so enthusiastic about using the learning walls which are filled with fantastic resources we have used throughout the skills lessons. It’s great to see these being used in our stories. Well done Year 4!! 

Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius - 5.10.18

Learning Champion - Fayyad for giving 100% in everything he does and always showing a positive attitude to wanting to improve his work. 

Jigsaw Genius - Hamza for gong out of his way to make others feel included. He is always showing what a kind, mature and caring young boy he is and is a fantastic member of Year 4 Hazel. 

Spelling 

In Hazel class we love Fridays. Every Friday we take part in our weekly arithmetic and spelling lesson. 

This week in our spellings we focused on different homophones and when to use the correct one. 

 Maths Reasoning 

In year 4 we have been thinking about how we can deepen our understanding of place value through reasoning and problem activities. We love taking part in ‘what went wrong?’ problems to prove Mr White wrong. 

Dialogue 

To support our story writing, we have been looking at how to use dialogue effectively to introduce our characters. 

Before we did this, we also had to look at how to punctuate our dialogue and think about different synonyms for the word said and when it would be appropriate to use these depending on what was happening. 

 Mount Cook 

Some of Year 4 enjoyed 3 days at Mount Cook where we took part in a variety of different activities that enabled us to work as a team and support each other in activities that some of us had never done before. 

I was so proud to witness every child attempt every activity with a positive mindset and just giving everything a go. Every memeber of Hazel class was a real credit to themselves and Acres Hill. 

4 Digit Numbers 

Year 4 have been focusing on their understanding of 4 digit numbers and how these can be made up. We started to look at what happens when we end up with 10 lots of tens, or 10 lots of hundreds and what this would look like. 

How would we feel?

To support us with our understanding of characters feelings and emotions in our stories, we started to look at the experiences our characters were going through and the impact this would have on them. 

Partitioning 

We have been looking at what makes up a number. To help us make the links and see exactly what numbers are made up with, we used our base 10 to show representations. 

Learning Champion and Jigsaw Genius 14.9.18

Learning Champion: Ali for showing a positive attitude towards all of his learning since we have returned to Hazel class. He is showing what a fantastic role model he is. Keep up the hard work, buddy! 

Jigsaw Genius: This week it goes to Halima for showing mature and sensible decision making when others are struggling to get along.