Emmaville Primary School

North America Year 6

Welcome to the North America Year 6 Class Page.  Here, you can find out about everything that we've been doing this term.
Friday 7th February
 
The theme for this year's Children's Mental Health Week is 'know Yourself, Grow Yourself', so this week we have been thinking about our own positive characteristics.  This is easier said than done, and sometimes we need a little help to realise just how amazing we really are. We've always been a pretty supportive class, and have enjoyed each others' successes over the years, so when we were given the name of someone else in the class, it was great to be able to draw and write lots of positive things about them.  This was done anonymously on 'Cups of Positivity', and when we had filled them with great stuff and positive messages, we were able to give them to our classmates.  There were so many smiles as we read about ourselves.  As someone once said, "Always fill your own cup first, and allow the World to benefit from the overflow".
 
 
Friday 31st January
 
On Wednesday, we had a visit from local author Sarah Millington who came into school to talk to us about her book Demelza Rice is not Very Nice, which draws attention to the pressures on young people's mental health in a social media obsessed climate. She explored with us about what we were apprehensive about in regards to starting secondary school, as well as things we are looking forward to. We also explored the positives and negatives of social media, which led to some really interesting and eye opening discussions. A great session and we want to send a big thank you to Sarah for giving up her time to spend with us.
We also had a visit from Mr Lancashire, who talked to us about his varied career experiences, including some amazing years working for Disney World in Florida.  It was great to hear that you don't have to have one job for ever, or even know exactly what you want to do in life when you're younger, and that as long as you work hard and do your best, anything is possible.  
We've been working on some rhythmic dances in our Friday PE sessions.  We worked in groups to combine claps, stamps and slides in four separate 'phrases', which we then choreographed to create the dances.  It was great fun, and we really enjoyed performing to the rest of the class.
Friday 24th January
 
In our Guided Reading sessions, we have been studying the Lady of Shallot by Alfred Lord Tennyson. 
As this poem was written in 1832, we were aware that it may present us a number of challenges as we read, and picked out the meaning. Mrs Sanderson and I have been so impressed with how the children approached this, exploring the language, making links and using illustrations to help along the way. It has resulted in some amazing whole class discussions as we explored themes and dilemmas throughout the poem. Our final lesson resulted in some really interesting debate as we explored the following key ideas...
Friday 17th January
 
What an exciting week we have had in North America this week. On Wednesday, we had the pleasure of a music workshop from the Gateshead Music team. and this term's focus was on all things Pop! We talked about what pop music actually meant, and took a journey through the decades, looking at news and fashion from each era, as well as dancing and singing along to some classics! 
Then, on Thursday, Year 6 went on a visit to the Great North Museum. We took part in a workshop linked to our science unit, exploring adaptation and evolution. We had the opportunity to look at, and touch, some of the museum's exhibits and then played a game to show how the survival of the fittest theory worked in different species. After a very competitive game involving using sporks as bird's beaks (!) we saw how inheritance and variations could be both advantageous and disadvantageous. It was a great way to launch our new topic.  
After our workshop, we then visited the Ancient Greek gallery and used the gallery explorer kit, and carried out a scavenger hunt to learn about the exhibits and artefacts in the museum. We also had time to explore other areas of the museum, and also visited the planetarium. An incredibly busy day, and after 10,000 steps around the museum, we were tired but felt enriched with knowledge!