Emmaville Primary School

South America Year 6

Welcome to the South  America Year 6 Class Page.  Here, you can find out about everything that we've been doing this term.
Friday 7th February
 
Another busy but brilliant week here in South America! In English, we have been letter writing. We chose to link in our history topic the Victorians, and write a letter to a member of parliament about the dreadful working conditions children faced at this time. Honestly, the letters were fantastic! They all had a fantastic structure and used lots of evidence to support their arguments - please ask the children to tell you what they wrote about as I'm sure you will be as equally outraged as us.
 
In computing, we have been working on creating a PowerPoint presentation. There were three options as a topic for these: computing heroes, first computers or Bletchley Park. The children have been working for a number of weeks on these, with a focus on using transitions between their slides. They have all done a wonderful job and their presentations look very professional. Some of the groups chose to present to the class and did an awesome job; I was very proud of all of their work. 
 
A final mention to five members of our class who attended the Gateshead schools netball finals on Tuesday afternoon. We may not have won, but I was immensely proud of their sportsmanship, their improvement over the past few weeks and how much they enjoyed themselves when we were there. They did Emmaville extremely proud!
 
Hope you all have a fabulous weekend! 
Friday 31st January
 
Another fabulous week here in South America! We have been so busy all week with lots to tell you about. On Monday, those that wanted to take part began their rehearsals for the dance festival in March. Miss Rochester told me how hard they worked and I can't wait to see the final thing when it all comes together. 
 
In history, we spent some time looking at all of the wonderful inventions that were developed during the Victorian period, and comparing their technology to that of modern Britain. Many of the things we use today were initially created during the Victorian era, so we looked at how things have changed and just how many inventions were made during this time. I'm sure the children would like to tell you as many as they can remember.
 
In art, we made our final piece that we have been working on since the start of term. Our artwork this half term has been inspired by nature (specifically the ocean as it links to our geography work). We have had time to practice some initial ideas and on Tuesday, we created our final design. We used polystyrene tiles to carve into and creating a printing block. We used a roller and some blue paint to cover it and then print it onto paper. The final prints were really effective and look brilliant I'm sure you'll agree.
 
We have also been lucky enough to have another guest speaker in to talk about their career with us today. We would like to say a huge thank you to Mr Lancashire for inspiring us today, and showing us that we can choose if we work hard enough!
 
Have a fantastic weekend everyone!
Friday 24th January
 
Another lovely week in South America. We have been so busy this week and completed lots of fun tasks. In English, we have completed writing our story which was based on the novel 'Street Child'. We developed our own characters and tried to give lots of detail about them by showing the reader, not telling them. The children did this brilliantly and their stories have been so impressive. We even brought in some of our history lesson as the book is set in the Victorian era, we used what we have learnt about child labour and used that in our story. 
 
In geography we had a practical lesson where we looked at the affects of overfishing. We used skittles to be fish and tried to catch what we could to feed our village. However, we soon realised what happens when too many fish are taken out without time to reproduce; some groups had no fish left after the first year!
 
Finally, in science we have been looking at evolution and inheritance. Following on from our workshop at the Hancock museum last week, we were looking at how different plants and animals have adapter over time to be successful in their environment. I'm sure the children would like to tell you more about how this happens, and even one way in which humans have adapted over time.
 
An honourable mention to some of our class for their amazing efforts in their netball tournament last week. They played so well, and ended up coming in second place which secured them a place at the finals in a couple of weeks time! 
 
Have a fantastic weekend everyone!
Friday 17th January
 
A brilliant week here in South America. On Thursday, we had our school trip to the Great North museum and the day was excellent. The day had been organised for us by the museum, so we started the morning by exploring the ancient Greeks in The Shefton Gallery. We had to find and name certain artefacts, find out what material they were made out and some of us even had a go at designing our own mythical creature.
 
Next, we played the evolution game with one of the staff from the museum. This game linked to our current science topic and taught us how natural selection and evolution work over time. I'm sure the children will be able to tell you all about how the game worked and what science they learnt from it. As part of this, we also got to look close up and stroke at some taxidermy birds from the museum. 
 
After lunch, we had time to explore the rest of the exhibits and go into the planetarium where we learnt so much about our amazing universe. The children represent Emmaville so well and I am really proud of them all.
 
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Friday 10th January 
 
What a lovely first week back we have had here in South America. We have started new topics in our subjects including fractions in maths; street child in English and evolution and inheritance in science. In preparation for our upcoming trip, this week we introduced our science topic looking at inheritance and how offspring inherit characteristics from their parents. The children had lots of knowledge about this already and I was so impressed with what they shared in class. 
 
To try and show how characteristics were passed down within DNA to offspring, we tried to show this through designing our own Mr Men characters. Each child chose two, and then incorporated characteristics from both off these to decide what their offspring would look like. We had some brilliant results and I know the children really enjoyed this activity.
 
I hope you all have a lovely weekend!