Safer Internet Day
This week at school has been our online safety week and lots of our learning has linked to being safe online.
Reading
Exploring vocabulary was the focus of our reading lessons this week. We read a text about the Islamic Golden Age and identified lots of facts that we previously didn’t know. We then went on to identify unknown words within the text. Using dictionaries and iPads, we identified the definitions of these words and also searched for antonyms and synonyms. We were able to use these words in our own sentences to show our understanding.
Science: we are chemists
Science this week has led to the children investigating which materials make the best thermal insulators. Thermal insulators don’t let heat pass through easily or quickly. They planned their enquiry and tested bubble wrap, tin foil and fabric. Which one would keep the water hottest for longest?
The children used thermometers to measure the temperature every five minutes and they recorded their results. Next week we will analyse the results to see which was the best insulator.
Vikings: primary and secondary sources
In this week’s history learning, we learnt about primary and secondary sources of historical evidence and how to judge their reliability when learning about the past.
primary source: a source of information created at the time (artefacts, newspaper articles)
secondary source: a source of information created after the event (drawings, reconstructions)
Help at home: See if your child can tell you what happened at Lindisfarne in 793AD.
Living and learning: I know that some drugs can be harmful.
We were lucky enough to have D:side visiting us this week. The children got to learn about the different types of drugs including legal, illegal and medical – they learnt about the impact these have on our bodies. Caffeine was even talked about and that this is in the energy drinks that children often consume. They also contain a huge amount of sugar. Smoking and vapes were identified as very harmful and the children now understand the harmful chemicals that are in just one cigarette – there are 4,000.
This was an incredibly informative session and the children engaged brilliantly. They recalled previous learning well and asked some great questions to deepen their knowledge. Some children even applied their learning about peer pressure from our living and learning lesson last week.
Living and Learning: drug education
In this week’s and last week’s Living and Learning sessions, we have been learning about drugs.
We’ve learnt the difference between medical and non medical drugs. Within non-medical drugs, we also learnt about legal and illegal drugs.
A drug is a substance that changes the way the body or the mind works.
We learnt that medicines are drugs that can be prescribed and given to us to help us feel better – for example, Calpol, which contains paracetamol.
We’ve also learnt about being safe and only using the specified amount of a medicine and only when supervised by a trusted adult.
This week, we had a visitor from d:side and we learnt more about legal, non-medical drugs such as nicotine, alcohol and caffeine.
Did you know that an energy drink such as Monster contains around four times as much caffeine than a single shot of espresso? It also contains the equivalent of 13 teaspoons of sugar!
Help at home: See if your child can remember how to safely use medicine.
Well done, Y5 & 6!
Science
We are being chemists this half term. We are investigating different materials and their properties. The children were introduced to their new vocabulary which they will be learning. 
We investigated which materials were electrical conductors and insulators. The children made circuits and inserted different materials to see if they let electricity flow through them – if they did, they were a conductor. we were ably to use the skill of comparing, classifying, grouping and predicting.
Help at home: Can you help your child learn the new vocabulary?
Living and learning: I know what a drug is
Our living and learning statement this week has allowed the children to explore the idea of peer pressure. They began by discussing the influences that might make someone try drugs such as social media and friends. They ranked them in order of the biggest influence. We discussed strategies that could get the children out of a situation where they felt pressured. These included coming up with an excuse and leaving the situation or being more assertive and explaining why they don’t want to try something.
Help at home: How confident does your child feel about resisting peer pressure? Ask them what strategies they’d use.
Exhibiting our sculptures
This half term, we have created our own sculptures inspired by Barbara Hepworth’s The Family of Man (1970) – a sculpture we saw on our trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
https://ysp.org.uk/art-outdoors/the-family-of-man
We were able to mix colour effectively to create the effect of patina found on The Family of Man (this is the green or brown colour created on bronze and other metals after weathering over time).
We were inspired by her use of negative space and included this in our artwork, too!
Help at home: See if your child can remember the following pieces of vocabulary from our topic and what they mean: negative space, sculpture, modern art and classical art.
Art: creating patina
Inspired by the work of Barbara Hepworth, Year 5/6 have been creating sculptures and thinking about how to add texture through the use of patina.
Help at home: Take a look at some more pieces of art from Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Which ones inspire you? How could you use some household items to create a project in the style of a favoured artist?
