This week Year 6 have begun our new literacy unit based on Rose Blanche, a young girl growing up in Germany during the start of World War 2. Using our existing knowledge of the war, the children have produced some fantastic writing describing the cobbled alleyways, flowing fountains, and simpler times of life before the war in Germany. This has linked with our topic 'Children of war' where we have been learning about another young girl during WW2, Anne Frank. We learnt about her life, her story, and her premature death. We looked at how her life changed when war was declared and discussed how she would have lived whilst in hiding. The children then had a chance to create a butterfly inspired by the poem by Pavel Friedmann, a Jewish Czechoslovak poet, about seeing the last butterfly whilst in Auschwitz concentration camp. Year 6 created their butterflies to remember the 1.5 million Jewish children that died in the Holocaust, including Anne Frank, known as The Butterfly Project.  

Year 6 have been busy doing lots of fun practical activities over the last week: we have learnt how to draw a phoenix to link with our story Journey by Aaron Becker, we have conducted a science investigation to see how natural selection works using a variety of seed types and beaks, and we have begun cutting wood and cams for our automata toy designs. In addition to this we have been working hard to learn a poem to perform for you titled Refugees. Watch this space!

It has been a great 1st week back in year 6. We have been very impressed with the focus and resilience shown this week - especially when making origami birds. We have introduced a new writing scheme, which is really showing off the children's writing and vocabulary choices and we have had some deep and thought-provoking conversations around our class text The Arrival by Shaun Tan. Well done to all of Year 6 who have made it such a great week back. 

On Friday, Year 6 took part in a 'Love your Heart' Workshop.

Year 6 took part in a first aid session this week where they learnt what to do in a range of scenarios. They then took turns to get their partners into the recovery position, use an inflatable dummy to practise chest compressions and finally had a discussion about a defibrillator and how to use one. The Year 6s were very attentive and asked lots of useful questions. Many thanks to the company who came in to run the session.

On Tuesday Year 6 started the day with an E-safety assembly and task, followed by a road safety awareness workshop and finally finished the day off with our Fantastic Finish to parents.

Road Safety

We were joined by Barbara and Chris who work with the council to keep the roads safe. First we listened to a scenario about a road hazards and we discussed where should put different crossings. The council only gets a certain amount of money a year for different crossings so in the scenario we had a budget of £200,000. We had to think about how much money we were using and where to put the different road safety features. For example puffin crossing was £54,000 and we had to think about how many we used and their location.

E-Safety

For e-safety day we were read a story titled #Goldilocks. We then had a go at making our own #fairy tale story. We were given the story of Jack and the Beanstalk to make up a funny piece of writing to go along with two designed pictures. In our story, the main character, Jack, posted things they weren’t supposed to and got into trouble for his actions with the giant.

Fantastic Finish

This doesn’t mean that we have finished our topic. In this period of time we read out a poem written by Wilfred Owen titled Dulce et Decorum est. this poem was accompanied by an emotive drama performed by 10 members of the class. Afterwards we sang a wartime song called “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag”. We sounded pretty amazing if you ask me. Next we did a bit of cooking with our parents and made carrot buns using only the food that was available in war time as a result of rationing. We used a small amount of each item: sugar self-rising flour; sultanas, grated carrots, milk and eggs. We were given a wooden mixing spoon and a plastic bowl. The results wee delicious!

On Wednesday 29^th of January the whole of KS2 took part in a virtual reality experience. Year 6’s topic was World War 1&2.

In this experience we witnessed the horror that heroic worriers had gone through in the time period of 1914-1918 & 1939-1945 altogether 10 years of horrifying sights and deaths were seen. Our first virtual picture was about one of the more higher standard trenches made from wood we found out they do not last long because wood lice ate their way through using the opening of bullet holes.

Our second virtual image was all to do with a how hard medics had to work and how busy their job would be in the World Wars.

The third image was all about the weapons that they used to attack and defend: snipers; grenades and machine guns.

Our fourth and final image wasn’t about world wars but it was about a topic that we will cover next term. We learnt a bit about the Mayan temples and how they are now a sight-seeing tourist attraction.