Happy New Year and Welcome Back
Happy New Year to everyone in Class 6. We hope you have had a fantastic holiday and a well deserved break. We have a very exciting and busy half term ahead.
Topic in Class 6
For the first half of the spring term, our topic is Crime and Punishment.
We will be learning all about crimes and their punishments through the ages – starting with the Ancient Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Tudors and Victorians. We will then be looking at the life of The Highwayman and deciding if his actions made him a hero or villain. For the second half of the spring term, our topic will be ‘The Vicious Vikings’. We will be reading about the adventures of Erik The Viking and even writing our own Viking Sagas!
Literacy.
In Class 6, we do a lot of reading! Children have already journeyed through some fantastic and inspirational books such as: The Breadwinner, Why The Whales Came, Skellig and The Boy At The Top of The Mountain. We are really developing a love of reading and the children can’t wait to get started on our next book ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar. The book centers around an unlucky teenage boy named Stanley Yelnats, who is sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile correction facility in a desert in Texas, after being falsely accused of theft. Children have made predictions about Stanley’s life and what dangerous and exciting things he will get up to at Camp Green Lake. Whilst reading the text, we will be working on our writing style, grammar and punctuation use.
Marvelous Maths!
In maths, we have been working hard to secure our knowledge of place value and the four operations. Children are now very confident with their work on fractions and this is a great position for us to start the new year. In January, we will be focusing on the topic of ‘Decimals’ before moving onto area, perimeter, shape and angles. I am so impressed with the mature attitude of all children in Class 6 – they are all becoming maths superstars – well done and keep up the hard work!
Here are some great online games where you can develop your knowledge of fractions and decimals:
Top Marks Maths Games and Skills
Science
In the first half term, we are learning about ‘Evolution and Inheritance’. Children have already enjoyed discussing and researching information about early human life and how evidence can be gathered from the study of fossils. We will continue our studies and learn more about the exploration of Charles Darwin. We will learn about Darwin’s ‘Theory of Evolution’ and discuss the evidence he provided.
As the weather turns warmer in the second half of spring term, we will be changing topics and learning about animals, including humans and other living things. We are keen to set up a ‘nature camera’ in school to see if we can identify animals that live in and around our school grounds. We will also be learning about how humans develop from birth to adulthood.
PE – Staying Active and Healthy
This half term, we are very lucky to have the Staindrop Coach to lead our PE lessons. We are taking part in a 6 week block of sessions to develop our High 5 Netball skills. We have already been learning about the different positions of netball players and we have practiced and developed our chest pass, overarm pass and bounce pass techniques. We have been playing ‘hoop ball’ to develop our attacking and defending skills and we are really looking forward to the Staindrop Competition at the end of the half term.
Children need to bring their Montalbo PE kit to school every Friday. They should also have suitable sports trainers and a water bottle. The weather is still very cold, so tracksuit bottoms and an extra fleece, hoodie or jumper is a good idea!
Art and Design and Technology
As we focused on DT in the Autumn term, we will now be focusing our creative sessions on our art skills. Children are in the process of writing information texts for a booklet all about the Butter Market. Our art work this half term will be linked to the illustrations of the booklet. After a visit to the Butter Market, children will use different medias (charcoal, watercolours and collage) to re-create art pieces of the Market Cross. I can wait to see what they produce!
Religious Education and French
In Class 6, we are really lucky to have Miss Bean as our RE and French leader. Miss Bean will be inspiring the children with our RE investigation: ‘How do religions care for the environment?’. This topic will help children to understand different cultures and see how we all have a duty to look after the world we live in. In French, Miss Bean will be teaching children about key vocabulary and helping them to use new language in conversation.