English Open Morning

On the 26th of October year 6 had their English Open Morning (EOM).

In the Owls class we had lots of activities like a punctuation board game, up-leveling, spelling, creating our own raps and commenting on the Al Yasmina blogs. We had a lot of fun while doing it.

By Skye, Charlotte, Talie and Sara

English open morning in Kestrels class.

English Open Morning:

We welcomed parents into our English classes this morning to take part in a carousel of activities.
It was fantastic having visitors in our class and we really hope they enjoyed being in class as much as we enjoyed hosting our guests. 

Random Acts of Kindness

This week we're celebrating Random Acts of Kindness in the Owls.

We talked about the idea of 'kindness' at our assembly last week with Miss Gale and were so motivated to have a positive impact within our class and the school that we decided to dedicate a week to doing exactly that.

What could you do to help spread kindness through year 6?  Through the school?

It doesn't have to cost any money - a kind word or action can make the difference in someone's day. 

What will you do?

Rap Battle!

In our end-of-the-week awards assembly, Year 6 were treated to an extremely special, one-off gig by internationally acclaimed rappers MC Yousuf, The Notorious Owens and Big Dawg Whitehouse. 

Their performance was a great example of how raps have shared lyrics, often contain alliteration and rhyme and are performed in time to a beat. 

This VIP performance has inspired all of Year 6 to have the confidence to perform their very own raps next week! Watch this space,..

Peace out. 

Mr Crowter's Crazy Class Rap!

YO! Check out Mr Crowter's English class performing their own version of the Alphabet Aerobics rap. It's jolly hip dudes!

Lung Capacity in the Owls

In science (over the past few weeks) we've been learning about the circulatory system.  Today it was time to put what we learnt into practice!

First we hypothesised how our different lungs might affect the air we can hold in.

We wondered...

“People with bigger lungs will blow bigger balloons because they have more oxygen.” - Emile

“I think it’s about how old you are because sometimes a part of you grows - maybe your lungs and body grow so you’ll blow bigger balloons” - Maitha

“It’s not about how big the lungs are but how strong the lungs are.” - Nina

Half of us thought that lung capacity was related to the size of the lungs and the other half thought it was related to the strength of the lungs.

To find out for sure, we took part in an experiment to test our lung capacity.  In one breath we had to blow up a balloon and then we measured the diameter of each balloon to compare our lung capacity.

These were our results:

Speaking Arabic

Today in maths we were talking in Arabic to explain to each other about measuring angles.  I (Ahmed) found it a little confusing but when Hamad explained it to me in Arabic it was much easier.

It makes it easier for us to understand our learning in our own language and we like to discuss our learning in Arabic on some occasions.

Do you feel comfortable in your own language?

By Hamad and Ahmed

Science in Action

Earlier in the week we had an exciting time dissecting a heart.  We all went up to the secondary science rooms where we worked with Post-16 students to learn about the heart.

We dissected a lamb's heart and also a chicken's heart and learnt that they were both similar.  The heart is a muscle that pumps blood around the whole body.  It has two atriums and also two ventricles - one is bigger than the other because one part pumps blood to the whole body and the other only goes to the lungs.

We used instruments to cut the hearts open and to see what was inside of them.  We got to see the aorta and the heart strings and got to feel the hearts as well.  When we put our fingers in them, some of us thought the hearts were slimy and soft!  The hearts were cold to help stop the blood from coming out of them.

Some of us felt a little bit uncomfortable and sick but everyone did a great job of listening to what we were being told.  Most of us enjoyed feeling the hearts and learning about them - we hope we do it again soon and that we inspire some of you to learn more about the heart.

If you are in year 6, what did you think about the dissection?

By Giulia and Zoya

Stretching Ourselves in Maths

Today in Mrs Chant's maths group we continued our learning all about division.  Some of us even stretched ourselves and did division with remainders and then turned them into fractions.

At the start, we thought it would be kind of hard but at the end I actually felt more confident doing dividing.  It was difficult at times and we got in the learning pit.

The learning pit is where you go when learning is really hard.  Sometimes you feel stressed and not very confident but that's ok - we need to get in the pit to make really good progress.

When it found it difficult today we helped each other (by being teachers), we asked Mrs Chant and we practiced our division skills on Khan Academy and MyMaths.

At the end of the session we felt confident and we were able to explain to others how we solved the problems.  We're feeling proud of ourselves for being so determined.

If you need any help with maths or division, then we're here to help you.  Just let us know by leaving us a comment on this post.

By Josef and Varun

Genius Hour

What would you do if you had the opportunity to learn what you wanted?  How would you ensure you pushed yourself in your learning if you were in charge?  How would you motivation look different?

Genius Hour is when we get to learn about what we are interested in.  Together we planned our learning using a Learning Process on Google Docs and now we are working through our learning.  It is really fun and we like that we get to find out things that we don't really know.  Eleanor and I have basically learnt a new language (Italian) and that makes us excited and proud.

By Poppy and Eleanor

Here are some of the things we are working on currently:

Natural Disasters - What's the Difference?

Last week we learnt a lot about different types of natural disasters and found out that there is a set way to categorise them.

We found out that each natural disaster is classified as either biological, meteorological or geological.

Below is video footage of an earthquake in Japan - what category would this fall into?

What have you learnt about natural disasters?  Can you remember some of the disaster types that we learned about and classify them in the Padlet below?

Stars of the Week!

A big congratulations to the amazing students awarded Star of the Week this week!

Mohamed, Jad, Suha, Elene and Sama.

I wonder, who will be recognised for their efforts next week?

Eagles in the Library!!

I have attached a few photos of our class library session yesterday. I was extremely impressed with the manner in which children chose books, queried the librarians and generally just went about their business! 

A conversation starter with your child to link to what they are reading should you need it.