Mrs Greer’s Class

Mrs Greer’s Class Update

Dear parents and carers,
I can’t believe how hard the children have been working to answer their Victorian research questions! We have learnt so many new things. Did you know the Victorians used a pig’s bladder to make footballs? Or that boys wore dresses until they were seven? Or that Isambard Kingdom Brunel narrowly avoided drowning after part of a tunnel he was working in flooded in 1828? We are really hoping you can come and visit our Great Exhibition on Wednesday 30th November, 1.15-2.45pm in the school hall. Please invite other family members and friends who may be interested. It is a great opportunity for the children to showcase all of their hard work.

This weekend, I would like the children to make sure their dividers are up to date so that they can organise their folders early next week. They can use relevant pictures from the Internet to illustrate them if they wish to. Many of the children have been using their lunch times already to make sure they do not have too much to do.

Children have been working in history teams based on their chosen topics and have all decided on one thing they would like to create or make individually to contribute towards their team’s display. We have spoken to all of the children individually to discuss their ideas and have asked them to share them with you to see if you agree. We are willing to sort out resources and open up the classrooms in the lunch hours to help them with any ongoing projects but this will also take the place of all homework for the next two weeks so we would be grateful if they could spend some time on it at home too. Final products need to be brought into school on Monday 28th November.

The children have also been invited to dress up for the day but we have told them that they do not need to buy anything new. They have been shown lots of pictures to give them ideas and we have offered to help with any bits they made need. Please let us know if we can help in any way. The children may want to bring in some costumes for filming next week depending on the focus of their movie.

We are in the process of finishing off our research so will be moving onto writing scripts for our iMovies early next week which will also been shown at the Great Exhibition. The children will be using a variety of apps such as morpho, green screen, tellagami and I can Animate to bring all of their learning to life. Teams will then be editing and improving their work to make an iMovie using the iMacs. As you can imagine, they are very excited!

Please do not hesitate to contact me for any further information.
Thank-you for your continued support,

Mrs Greer

Mrs Greer’s class

Wow! I was so proud of everyone for performing in our class assembly on Friday and was impressed how they carried on when the memory balls decided to roll across the stage mid-performance… A fantastic effort from everyone. Thank you for your help in practising lines and the song and providing costumes/props.

It is lovely to see the children so enthused about their history projects. Please can you ensure that your child has a ring binder folder to put their work into. The children have already worked with their teams and have created fantastic mind maps full of interesting questions which they will be trying to answer over the next few weeks. These will also be put on the class display so the children can tick off questions when they have been answered.

This week, we will be learning how to make effective notes when researching. The children will be immersed in information about their chosen topics. They have been shown how to note where they found the information from – this is in case they want to cross reference anything. Their homework is to find out about an area of their topic and make notes. They are welcome to borrow any resources from school if they ask but will also have access to a variety of websites accessible through Google Drive. I have given the children a username and password to access these. Ideally, we would like the children to spend at least 40 minutes on this homework. Homework club is on a Monday lunchtime but I have also told the children that the classroom will be open every lunchtime 12-12.30 if they would like some help with their research.

Our reading bookshelves are looking super and the vast majority of children have risen to the challenge of reading a whole book in a fortnight. Children should be finishing off their fourth read this week, ready to start their fifth book next week.

In literacy this week, we have identified the key structure and language features of a biography. We have had lots of interesting discussions about what is a fact and what is an opinion! This week, we shall be looking at key notes about a Victorian celebrity and then using these to write our own biographies. The history homework takes the place of literacy homework this week.

In numeracy this week, we have done written methods in division and some practical measuring activities. Homework is mixed word problems to be handed in on Tuesday. Please find a copy below.

Word Problem Homework

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like any further information.

Thank-you for your continued support.

Update Mrs Holmes, Miss Golland and Mrs Greer

Update 16.10.16 for Mrs Holmes’, Mrs Greer’s and Miss Golland’s classes.

Literacy homework this week is to complete an activity from the front of the Reading Journal.

There is no maths homework this week as the children have history homework to complete. The children should still be practising their rainbow maths targets and using mathletics too. We are really looking forward to seeing the children’s sources of evidence work tomorrow.

Following our Victorian focus visits last week, we would like the children to carefully consider which area of Victorian life they would like to study after half term. Once decided, it would be great if they could try to find some resources to support their learning- maybe visiting the libraries, finding some useful websites (they had training this week from Mr Lane on how to see how reliable a website is) or maybe going to the Guernsey Folk Museum again to take some photos. Please do not let them do any specific research as we will be doing this in class but encourage them to choose an area which really interests them. In literacy this week, we shall be writing recounts of our trip to the Folk Museum- these will be sent as thank-you letters to Mr Morris. We learnt so many things and realised how different life was for the Victorians.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you require any further information,

Year 6 team

Mrs Greer’s Class – Swimming next week

As we have missed a couple of swimming sessions due to the Red Cross and Harvest service, we will be having swimming on Monday so the children will need their swimming kits and PE kits. Also, if you are able to help with swimming on Friday next week from 9:50am to 10:40am, please let me know (Ellen. Greer@stmartins.sch.gg).

Thank you