Today we evaluated our boats, against the original design criteria, to decide which one was the best. Mandela is a democracy so we voted and the winners are .....
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![]() Key Stage Two normally have a small Christmas Carol Concert, but this year we decided to put on a much larger performance, with singers, narrators, poetry recitals and a dramatisation of the nativity. All the classes worked individually to practise their parts and it all came together brilliantly. Fantastic team work from all 120 children and teachers in KS2. Well done everyone! A special Well Done to Mr Harvey's Poetry Recital GroupPoetry Recital
An especially proud moment today was seeing the second group of six children perform their poems, not to the rest of the class, as we usually do, but to a room full of adults and children! In Mandela Class we are lucky enough to have Mr Harvey work with us to help a different group (each half term) to learn a poem off by heart and recite it to an audience. This is a skill, which is not only part of the Year 6 expectations for reading, but is also a life skill which prepares the children for High School and beyond. It always amazes me how all different types of children respond to the task and the change which occurs in their confidence and ability in just 6 weeks. Well done to this group who had the additional challenge of reforming to such a large audience! In Design Technology we have been working in groups to design and make our own viking longships.
Mrs Matthews gave us the brief - To make a viking longship which is historically accurate. It needed to be: watertight able to float balance hold 10 playmobil men attractive to look at with a sail, oars and shields. We researched real and model longships and came up with our own designs, considering the tools and materials we had available then as a group we decided on our final design. We spent several days working on our design and now they are finished. All we need to do is see if they meet the original design criteria. Fingers crossed that they float!! This half term our topic is Staying Alive and we are learning all about the life processes that are internal to the body, including all about the circulatory system.
The circulatory system is made up of the heart, the lungs, blood and the vessels it travels through. Its function is to transport nutrients, gases and wastes between the cells of the body and the digestive system, respiratory system and excretory system. It also carries hormones for internal communication and co-ordination, and white blood cells for fighting disease, as well as assisting in maintaining body temperature. Today we were learning about the heart. The heart is a huge muscle that never appears to rest. In fact it does rest – between each heart beat! It beats rhythmically, contracting two sets of chambers to act as a double pump to move blood around the body. It is about the size of a closed fist, and is protected by the ribs. The right side of the heart pumps deoxygenated (‘used’) blood through the pulmonary circuit to the lungs, where it picks up oxygen and where carbon dioxide is released. The blood is then returned to the left side of the heart, which is sufficiently muscular and powerful to pump the blood through the systemic circuit to all tissues of the body, including the kidneys for waste removal, and the liver for blood sugar regulation. Mrs Matthews brought in some pig's hearts for us to examine and try and identify the main parts. It was a really interesting lesson! ![]() Today we used our Editing Stations to improve our own work. We visited each state to help us improve the diary entries we wrote on Tuesday. We put ourselves into the shoes of Nelson Mandela, writing a diary entry from his time on Robben Island between 1964 and 1982. It really made us think about our work and ways to improve it! Tomorrow we will be writing up our diary entires using our own (paper based) leather diaries! We have been learning about BIDMAS and Algebra and, as it is again the end of the unit, we completed an end of unit task to show that we have mastered the concepts taught throughout the unit. This time the task was to create a poster or PowerPoint explaining how to use either BIDMAS (the order of operations) or Algebra. Yet again the results were brilliant, with everybody in class getting the chance to share their work with everyone.
In Art we have been exploring the work of the famous sculpturer and painter Alberto Giacometti, comparing his unique style with that of Henry Moore (who we looked at earlier on this term). We then made our own Giacometti style sculptures using garden wire and modroc.
Next week we will be painting the sculptures, so watch this space for the finished results! We are continuing with our Literacy work on Nelson Mandela. Our focus now is recount writing. We are focusing on the time in Mandela's life when he was held prison on the harsh prison island of Robben Island (between 1964 and 1982). We have been putting ourselves into Mandela's shoes, imagining what it was like to be him. We even have a cell marked out in the classroom to give us a visual idea of just how small his cell was! We will be writing diary entires, but firstly we have written poems and used role play to rehearse our ideas ready to write some amazing recounts.
This week we have been taking part in anti bullying week, or friendship week as we prefer to call it here at TSM. We have had visits from the NSPCC and talked about keeping ourselves safe and respecting others in PSHE. We worked in groups to make our own posters, some for Key Stage Two and some for Key Stage One. Hopefully you will spot the around the school!
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AuthorsWritten by Mrs Matthews & Mrs Hayter (proud class teachers) and their brilliant pupils (Mandela class). Archives
June 2024
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