What a Busy Term in P6/7!

It’s hard to believe we have reached the end of our first term already! P6/7 have packed so much learning into the past few weeks, and it has been lovely to see their confidence, enthusiasm and independence continue to grow.

Operation Atlas has continued to take us around the world! Since our last update, we have travelled to Japan, Morocco and Australia, learning about each country and making links to the UN Global Goals along the way. Each stop has given us a different purpose for our writing, and our recent writing focus has been on using adjectives to make our writing more interesting and descriptive. The class have absolutely smashed this and are becoming much more adventurous with their vocabulary!

In German, we have been learning greetings, numbers and colours. The class have also worked together to create a fantastic German display which we can use to support our learning in the classroom.

In Maths, we finished our work on data handling with a whole-school biodiversity survey. After collecting and interpreting the data, everyone used Canva to create their own data poster to show what they had discovered. We have since moved on to rounding and column addition, alongside continuing to build our multiplication skills.

Our Biodiversity topic has kept us busy too. We have explored food webs and life cycles, created biodiversity-inspired artwork and continued to think about the variety of living things around us.

In Health and Wellbeing, we became Thought Detectives, thinking about how our thoughts can affect our feelings and actions. We have also explored the body’s alarm system, learning to recognise some of the signals our bodies can give us and discussing strategies that can help us feel calm and ready to learn.

Our spelling work has continued with SpellCast, and it has been brilliant to see the progress being made. The children are becoming much more confident at noticing patterns, applying spelling strategies and transferring their learning into their writing.

We have continued our comprehension work through They Change, a story which has really captured the class’s attention! It has prompted lots of predictions, questions and fantastic discussions as we have looked closely for clues within the text.

In ICT, we have been putting our digital skills to good use by creating biodiversity stop-motion animations, as well as our Canva data posters.

In RME, we have continued our learning about Judaism. We have explored the synagogue and Jewish worship, learned about Shabbat, and investigated a range of important Jewish symbols and objects.

Famous Friday has also become a lovely part of our week. While practising our handwriting, we have learned about some fascinating people, including Dolly Parton, Sir David Attenborough, Roald Dahl and Malala Yousafzai. These sessions have become about much more than handwriting – they have sparked some brilliant questions, opinions and class discussions.

It has been a very busy first term, and P6/7 have certainly earned their October break! I am incredibly proud of how much they have achieved and of the enthusiasm they bring to our classroom each day.

Have a fantastic and well-earned October holiday, P6/7! 

Morning Mingle gives P6/7 time to settle into the day, connect with each other and explore different activities together.

This week, a simple idea with some connecting straws grew into something much bigger! The children worked together to create one enormous line of straws, eventually taking their construction out of the classroom and along the school corridor.

As their idea developed, so did the learning. They estimated how long it might be, measured their construction, solved problems and worked out how best to move and extend it. Communication became particularly important as the line grew so long that the children even decided to introduce walkie-talkies to help coordinate the team!

It was lovely to see how naturally the activity developed through their play and curiosity, bringing together numeracy, problem solving, creativity, communication and collaboration.

Sometimes a simple idea can lead to a lot of learning!

P6/7 Mid-Term Update

It’s hard to believe we are already halfway through our first term! The first few weeks have been busy as we’ve settled into P6/7, established new routines and structures, got to know one another and, of course, fitted in lots of learning along the way.

Maths 
We have been developing our understanding of place value, using our PACE approach to give us opportunities to prepare, apply, challenge and extend our learning. We’ve made maths meaningful by linking our learning to real-life contexts such as local populations and farming. Our data handling has linked closely with our Biodiversity topic – collecting data outdoors, classifying our findings and creating bar graphs and pie charts, both by hand and digitally.

Biodiversity 
Our topic work has taken us outdoors and around the world! We’ve explored what biodiversity means, developed our classification skills and investigated how animals have adapted to survive in the extreme conditions of Antarctica. We did this with some fun experiments.

Writing & Literacy 
Operation Atlas has taken our writing around the globe. Each destination begins with research before inspiring different writing challenges. So far, we’ve created tension and suspense during an Antarctic expedition and this week we used our senses to describe surviving a helicopter crash in the Amazon Rainforest.

We’ve also been predicting what might happen in the new Gruffalo Granny book – with plans to review it for our younger classes! There was great excitement when the new book arrived in class on Friday. We were all keen to find out if any of has gotten close with our predictions.

Alongside this, we are reading Kensuke’s Kingdom, tracking Michael’s journey across the world alongside our Operation Atlas travels. Our comprehension work uses They Change to explore a range of reading skills, supported by Story Blast, which has been a big hit both in school and at home.

Across the Curriculum 
In German, we can now greet one another, ask and answer names and use numbers from 0–10. In RME, we’ve begun exploring Judaism, learning about Jewish beliefs, traditions and practices. In ICT, we’ve worked on mouse control.

Our new spelling routines are becoming well established, while grammar games and practical activities are helping us strengthen our knowledge of parts of speech. Finally, Famous Friday combines handwriting practice with discovering interesting people from the past and present.

A very busy first half of Term 1 – and plenty more still to come!

We’ve got a busy and exciting term ahead in P6/7! Here’s a little look at some of the learning we’ll be exploring over the coming weeks, along with a few of the weekly routines that are already becoming part of life in our classroom.

There’s no need for extra homework, but there are lots of simple ways to bring our classroom learning into everyday life. Here are a few easy ideas for chatting about, noticing and sharing some of the things we’re currently working on in P6/7.

Term 1 – Click here to see in bigger print.

Welcome to P6/7!

What a brilliant first few days we have had in P6/7! This week has been all about getting to know one another, settling into our new classroom and thinking about how we can make P6/7 the best possible place to learn.

We started with some Getting to Know You Bingo and found out lots of interesting things about each other. The class also learned a few facts about Mrs Teale… although they had to remember them carefully, as their knowledge was put to the test in a Blooket quiz on Friday!

Our Classroom Recipe

One of our biggest jobs this week was creating our Class Charter. We talked about what a happy, safe and successful classroom should look and feel like, with lots of great discussion around kindness, respect and how we treat one another.

To help us think about this, we looked at a recipe for slime. We discovered that if an important ingredient is missing, the recipe doesn’t work properly – and decided our classroom is much the same! Everyone has a part to play in making P6/7 a great place to be.

Of course, after all that discussion, there was only one thing left to do… make the slime! This was definitely a highlight!

Looking After Our Brains

We have also been learning about cognitive load and what happens when our brains have too much to think about at once. We explored simple things that can help us be ready to learn, including keeping our desks uncluttered, getting enough sleep and rest, having fresh air and using movement and brain breaks sensibly.

We also talked about fidget tools and their purpose in the classroom. We learned that they are learning tools rather than toys. Some people may find them helpful for concentration or regulation, while others don’t need them. The important thing is that we use them when they help us to learn, rather than simply because they are there.

Play-Doh Punctuation

Our first grammar session was a little different! We investigated the different types of punctuation we already know and identified some that we will be learning more about as the year progresses.

Then came the fun part – writing some fantastic sentences on our desks and using Play-Doh to add the punctuation!

AIM HIGH!

We have been thinking about what we would like to achieve during P6/7 too. Everyone chose a goal for the year and added it to a paper aeroplane. These will soon be flying from the classroom ceiling as part of our Aim High display!

We’re All Unique

Wednesday afternoon involved biscuits! We looked at lots of different biscuits and noticed how unique they all were. We linked this to our class and talked about how we are all different and unique, with our own strengths and qualities.

We then created some fantastic biscuit characters which will be going up in our classroom.

Team Challenge!

On Friday, Mrs Teale put P6/7’s teamwork skills to the test! Working with straws, the class took on a series of challenges where they had to communicate, listen to one another, share ideas and work together to find solutions. There was lots of problem-solving, perseverance and some great teamwork along the way!

Flashlight Friday

We also had our very first Flashlight Friday – and it was a big hit! We darkened the classroom, grabbed our little flashlights, found cosy spots in our dens and settled down for some fantastic silent reading.

It was a lovely, calm way to finish a very busy first week, and we think Flashlight Friday might already be a P6/7 favourite!

What a start! We have laughed, created, experimented, worked together and done lots of learning along the way. P6/7 is officially up and running, and we can’t wait to see what the year ahead brings!