Year 6 2021-22

On the last day of term, we decorated biscuits with icing. Which Christmas designs do you recognise? Can you find the Christmas Minion?!

We've been learning about different materials and how they are affected by reversible and irreversible changes. First, we investigated which material could insulate an ice cube the best, so it took the longest time to melt. We worked in partnership to investigate different materials. We concluded we needed more time, as not many of the ice cubes melted at all! Next, we observed what happens when vinegar and milk are mixed, which forms casein plastic. We observed that solid lumps started to form in the liquid (and the liquid smelled really bad)! Finally, we set up a long-term experiment to see how to separate a mixture of salt and water, using evaporation. We added food dye to make the salt easier to see.  After a week, we observed that some of the mixtures had separated much better than others - the purple one in particular seemed to work really well! We're going to leave this experiment going so we can observe...

Year 6 have been debugging and designing algorithms over the past few weeks, using the Bee Bots. We're designing our own maps of China, including features that we have learnt about over the term, and we'll then test our understanding of algorithms by programming the Bee Bots to move around the map! What would you include on your map?

It was our topic Wow Day this week! Years 5 and 6 wore red and spent the day working in partnership together exploring various aspects of Chinese culture and history. In the morning, children made spring rolls with Miss Matthews and Mr Shamsudin, made paper lanterns with Mr Town, and explored Chinese artefacts with Ms Tupman. In the afternoon, children played Chinese games with Mr Jade and Mrs Ahkter, made fans with Miss Matthews, and researched celebrities with Chinese heritage with Ms Tupman. At the end of the day, we tasted our spring rolls. Delicious!

Year 5 and 6 had an incredible treat today - we were visited by Tony, the  Director of West of England China Bureau and  Bristol China Partnership, and two Chinese university students, Manman and Xuejing.  We'd been looking forward to their visit for several weeks, and had come up with all sorts of questions to ask them about China! We had a fantastic morning, learning how to use chopsticks, how to count to 10 in Mandarin Chinese, some Kung Fu moves, and hearing about primary schools in China. We're hoping that they might visit us again later in the year, as we still have so many questions we want to ask them, and so much more we'd like to learn about. We're really enjoying learning about China! Thank you, Tony, Manman and Xuejing!