Trip to The National Science and Media Museum
What a brilliant day! 5/6NK thoroughly enjoyed learning about how entertainment has changed through time. At the museum, we explored different galleries showcasing how television, computing and photography have evolved and developed over the past 100 years.
National Science and Media Museum Trip
As part of our Time Travel Big Topic, we visited the National Science and Media Museum to see how entertainment has changed.
Harvest Festival – a big thank you!
Thank you for all the kind donations to our Harvest Festival today. Henry, from the Salvation Army, was overwhelmed by the generosity of the families at Scholes. Thank you for each and every donation.
Basketball skills
Children in 5/6M have been practising their basketball skills. Last week, we focused on passing. This week, we looked at dribbling.
Ask your child about three different ways to pass the ball. Children coached each other on how to keep the ball when dribbling.
Living and learning – the 8 Rs
This week, year 5/6 debated the value of each of th 8 Rs for learning. They generated other words that might be added to the 8 Rs: respectful, relentless and being real. They used a diamond 9 to help select the most important R for learning and discussed the reason for their choice.
Y5 reading – Boudica or Boudica?
This week, in our Y5 reading sessions, we’ve been practising our reading skills using a semi-fictional text about Boudica the Iceni Queen and her battle against the Romans. This text links directly to our big topic: Time Travel. (We’ve also learnt about the Romans in our writing, maths and topic lessons.) There was quite a lot of text to read so to help us understand the text more clearly (learning about identifying significant events and characters) we made story maps.
The next day, we focused on using our inference skills to explore the dynamics of the relationships between the key characters. To help us organise our thoughts we used a relationship grid.
Help at home by encouraging your child to discuss the different relationships characters have in the book they’re reading or a programme they’re watching on TV.
Finally, we applied our inference skills again in a different context. This time, we used an emotions graph to explain how the characters felt at key points in the story.
Help at home by encouraging your child to think about the emotions a character may experience in different points of the book they’re reading or a programme they’re watching on TV.
We’ve loved our week of Roman reading and tomorrow we’ll enjoy our weekly love of reading session.
Roman chariots
This week in Year 5 and 6, we’ve been learning all about the Romans. This is part of our big topic: Time Travel. We’ve been busy learning lots but we’ve particularly enjoyed making our own miniature chariots. Now we’ve made them, we’re going to write a set of instructions in our writing lessons to help other people make them, too.
First, we did some research about what Roman chariots are.
Then, we sketched some ideas.
When we felt confident, we designed our miniature versions.
Then came the most exciting part – building!
Later in the week, we’ll add our axles and wheels and then review them against the design criteria we decided on.
Cross Country competition – resilience, determination and grit!
Some year 6 children took part in the area heat of the Leeds Cross Country competition today. They ran 1,800m and had to draw on their Living and Learning skills; being ready, determination and resilience. They all enjoyed the experience and finished the race. Well done!
Living & Learning – Remembering
As part of our weekly Living & Learning session, we focused on our final R of the 8Rs for learning: remembering.
To help us improve our memory skills, we were shown 12 items. After we had been shown all 12, we had to write down as many as we could. It was really tricky but some of us managed to remember all 12.
Once we’d revealed the answers, we discussed our methods for remembering the items. Some of us turned them into a song, others turned them into a silly story, a few of us just tried saying them over and over again (though we agreed this was probably the least effective method). Then, we discussed the Loci system for remembering information.
We spent time creating our route (that was familiar to us) and had another go at a similar memory test. It was interesting that most of improved our scores by 2 or 3 items.
Short-term memory is super important for us as learners and, luckily, it is something we can improve. Help at home by completing similar activities with your child – maybe on a rainy day!
Reading – Refugee by Brian Bilston
This week, Year 5 have been focusing on poetry during our reading sessions. We have been using the poem ‘Refugee‘ by Brian Bilston as our stimulus.
The poem is super interesting as you can read it forwards and backwards – this is called a palindrome poem.
First, we read it forwards and recorded our feelings. We were outraged by what we had read:
“We should let people into our country if theirs isn’t safe!” Emme
“I don’t like it because it’s offensive!” Molly
“It is offensive. It is rude. And, that’s not how people should be!” Spencer
“The poet obviously hasn’t read the poem No Problem by Benjamin Zephaniah [a poem we have also learnt about this year]!” Kieran
Then, we read it backwards and noticed that our views on the poem had completely changed.
In the next lesson, we compared this video of the poem against this video of the poem being performed. We picked out what we liked and created our own version.
Ask your child how reading the poem forwards and backwards was different.