Mrs Vitellaro
6 Falcon
Welcome to Life at KPS for Year 6
Mrs Nanda and Mrs Vitellaro warmly welcome you to Year 6.
The aim of this page is to highlight some of the fantastic learning that has been happening in Year 6, this page will be updated monthly, with photographs and information about the learning we have completed during the month.
We hope you enjoy looking through these updates and do discuss your child’s learning with them to celebrate their success. We look forward to any suggestions you may have to make your child’s learning a pleasant experience.
Mrs Nanda
6 Hawk
March 2021
Art
In design technology this month we have been studying textiles.
In Year Six, our focus has been on embroidery; we have each been given an embroidery hoop, needle, calico fabric and DMC thread. We started by learning the basic embroidery stiches: running stitch, backstitch and satin stitch. Once we were confident, we then learned more complicated stitches: split stich, stem stitch, lazy-daisy and even the pinwheel (rose) stitch.
After learning the techniques, we have started to design an embroidery hoop based on our topic of traditional tales. The children are incredibly talented at this – the patience and creativity they have shown is inspiring! We look forward to sharing our final pieces.
English
In English we are writing to entertain the reader with a focus on traditional tales. This is a whole school project but Year Six children have a twist – their fairy tales will be fractured.
So far we have taken part in lots of drama activities. This will help us to bring the characters in our traditional tales to life. We looked at intonation, gesture and vocabulary choice for different characters and situations including the evil witch being disappointed with the shop keeper where she purchased her magic mirror and the frog prince in disbelief at his predicament. We worked in partners and freeze-framed these scenarios before introducing a made-up, nonsense language (to prioritise tone) before finally considering the language each would use.
We look forward to sharing our own traditional tales with you next month!
Music
Being back at school has made a huge difference to our class music lessons
The children have been learning about music. The composer ‘Leonard Bernstein’ and the piece ‘Mambo’ from ‘West Side Story’
They have recognised the instrumentation and structure including call and response, ostinatos (repeated patterns) and syncopations (rhythms that fall between the main pulse beat)
In addition, the children have followed the staff notation when playing rhythms.
Being back at school has allowed them to hear everyone’s rhythms and play a whole piece changing dynamics and tempo together.
On the 25th March the children took part in a body percussion workshop.
Physical Education (PE)
This term, children have been taking 3 PE lessons a week! The children have taken part in fitness lessons, team building and sports/games.
The aim in our lessons this term has been to brush up on motor skills and get our fitness back up to scratch! Children have been pushing themselves to increase their stamina and strength after being away from their normal school life for such a long time. We have been going on daily walks, doing shuttle runs and lots of sprinting games.
We hope that the children will keep their fitness training going over the holidays so we can continue with many more sports and games when they return.
PSHE
In PSHE we have been focusing on our well-being – after such a long time apart from each other during remote learning, it is important that we remind ourselves of our five values: truth, humility, love, compassion and contentment.
We discussed how we have been feeling over the last year and how it is okay to have different feelings and ways that we can manage them.
We also read the story Badger’s Parting Gifts which follows a group of friends grieving for their friend who has sadly passed away. This gave us the opportunity to discuss bereavement and our feelings around this difficult topic.
Science
In science this month we have been focussing on gardening.
We have looked at how we can improve the aesthetics of our environment with plants and we each planted flowers around the front of the school.
We have also started a herb garden: we dug the soil. Planted the seeds carefully and have been ensuring they receive enough water and light. We discussed the different herb (such as fennel, mustard, garlic and basil) and when we would have tasted them before. We are looking forward to using them in our cooking!
Topic
We have really enjoyed using our food technology room again this month.
We worked as a team to make eggless chocolate cupcakes. We measured and weighed ingredients, mixed, beat and folded them and really enjoyed decorating and eating them!
We look forward to spending even more time in there!