Weiwei Year 6
Ai Weiwei
'A small act is worth a thousand thoughts."
Ai Weiwei
Wow, we are back!
I hope you have had a fantastic summer and are now ready for a fabulous year.
I am excited to be back and looking forward to working with you and growing together.
We have some fantastic things lined up throughout the year, so I guess now it is simply a case of getting started.
I imagine the first thing you have noticed is that our class name has changed.
“At different times I've worked in different mediums. For me, the variation is not an artistic judgment, but a necessary choice. It's just as normal to eat with chopsticks, as it is to eat with forks or hands. Different circumstances call for different tools. I try to express ideas with the most appropriate available materials and forms. Very often the medium comes first, and then my reasons for it. Sometimes, I work with a medium I don't like out of curiosity. It is an experiment to challenge my pre-existing concepts and tastes. I've taken hundreds and thousands of photographs, and it's not because I like the medium. I wanted something to parallel my daily activities, and photography is the most logical way of doing that. I filmed documentaries because the medium reflects real conditions the most completely. I don't think artists should only work with what is handiest and most familiar, because the unfamiliar provides a challenge, and it creates another language. It defines the condition for new possibilities.”
- Ai Weiwei
Over the course of the year, I am looking forward to finding out more about our chosen artist and I hope you are too.
Our Topics
Identity
Off with her Head
Ola Mexico
Allotment
Revolution
Fun at the Fair
Meet the Teacher Presentation
Meet the Teacher
Many of you I have met before, but it is always nice to meet again.
Our 'Meet the Teacher' is next Monday, 17th September, at 2.30pm. It would be great to see you, but I do of course understand if you cannot make it.
Let’s get reading.
I really enjoy a good book. I find a good book can keep me company, teach me things I never knew, introduce me to new people and take me places I have never been or hadn’t imagined.
Let reading be our thing this year!!!!
Let's get going and share what we learn from the amazing books and journeys we make.
Homework for 17th September 2018
We are exploring the topic ‘Identity’ in years 5 and 6 and we have two tasks for you.
Next week, we are hoping to look a little closer at inheritance, especially as it is Jeans for Genes Day on Friday. To do this, we would love if you could bring in a photo of a close family member. Perhaps, you would like to bring a photo of your immediate family. Please don’t bring one that is terribly precious and irreplaceable as we would hate for it to get lost.
Secondly, we would like you to collect ‘bits and bobs’ from home that reflect who you are so that you can be a part of our ’Hanger Installation’.
Please bring everything in for Monday 17th September and enjoy collecting!
I have included a copy of the homework that will need to be done by this Monday as I am aware that it involves much time to collect things sometimes.
Hopefully this is helpful.
Enabling Enterprise
What a fabulous week we have had!
We worked as a group to produce something to be proud of and now our art gallery looks fantastic, or so we believe.
As a class, we felt that aiming high, imagination and team work needed to be our focus skills. We realised that good team work needs great communication and everyone being ready to help and do something that adds to the group's efforts. We found that good communication helped us compromise and solve problems along the way.
We are very proud of all we achieved!
Homework
Over the break, please get busy learning those tables, especially the ones that aren't so secure- quite often, these tend to be x6,x7 and x8. It is really important to develop speed and accuracy. Once you learn them, they stay with you for life.
Get reading. I am so looking forward to reading my book, The Girl of Ink & Stars, by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and I have a couple more sitting, waiting to be read
A plan of a room in your house
It would be amazing if you could create a bird's eye view of a room in your house. We made one for Bradley's bedroom in class, but you can do any room you fancy. In class, we thought about proportions of things and furniture sizes. Drawing to scale would be a real challenge- rounding might be useful if you do this.
Enjoy!
(Don't forget spellings are in there too.)
Have a wonderful break. Have a really good rest. The weather looks like it is going to be good for this time of year, which always helps.
Enjoy!
Hello, I hope you are having a fabulous weekend!
What a great week we have had this week! We have explored so many new things from looking at the separation of dirt in water to how best to budget our money.
On Friday we were lucky enough to have Northern Trust visit us. They set up activities which involved us having to think about how best to spend/invest our money. What an important life skill this is!
Have a fab week!
Best Wishes
Mrs Leighton
The National Portrait Gallery
Yes, it was rainy and yes, it was a little blustery, but this has only served to make what has been a lovely day even more memorable.
We visited the Tudor Rooms at the gallery to learn about the Tudors through looking at the art from that era.
To say they were, ' The Kings of Bling' is probably true, at least if you were rich! We looked at many fine paintings, some by Hans Holbein, that portrayed many famous Tudors in a most favourable light.
We learnt, amongst other things, that Queen Elizabeth I was very good at managing her public image, so much so that people thought she was eternally youthful.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable and informative way to spend the day.
Thank you to everyone who came with us and helped to make this day possible.
A Big Thank You!
The parcels have been sent and I feel more confident that the decorations will arrive in one piece as a result of our testing of packaging.
This year I have bought my nephews and nieces different presents but I have also bought each of them a Christmas decoration. Unfortunately, I got carried away when buying them and bought some that were a little fragile. So, we carried out an experiment to test packaging. We tested our theories out on meringues instead of decorations and packaged them in everyday materials. To our surprise, we found that shredded paper was a good way of protecting the meringues. We were delighted with this as it also seems quite an eco-friendly method of packaging
The parcels have now been sent and I feel more confident that the decorations will arrive in one piece as a result of our testing of packaging- here's hoping!
Thank you for your help.
(Mrs. L.)
Year 5/6 Tudor Museum. A huge thank you to everyone who made something at home, together you have created a fantastic display. We are immensely proud and hope you are too.
NSPCC Number Day
Last Friday, we enjoyed exploring how we could display data in different ways. 'If the World were a Village' is an amazing book written by David. J Smith which encourages us to imagine the world as a village of one hundred people and then explores the facts and figures of that village. In our groups, we worked tirelessly to display the information in different ways. Yes, we made pictograms, bar charts and piecharts but we also used beads, counters, 10x10 squares, string and cylinders.
While we worked, we kept an eye on the world's population growth in real time and to be honest were astounded by the enormous and ever-changing figure.
A great day was had by one and all!
5th February 2019- A Very Important Day!
It is the start of Chinese New Year and the Spring Festival but also,
Safer Internet Day 2019 will be celebrated globally with the theme: Together for a better internet.
The internet is an amazing asset, but for certain, it is something we need to learn to use safely. If you feel you would like to find out more about how to do this, there is plenty of up-to-the-minute advice on the website www.saferinternet.org.uk.
Here though are some top tips to help you stay safe on line.
Staying Safe Online:
1) Don’t post any personal information online – like your address, email address or mobile number.
2) Think carefully before posting pictures or videos of yourself. Once you’ve put a picture of yourself online most people can see it and may be able to download it, it’s not just yours anymore.
3) Keep your privacy settings as high as possible
4) Never give out your passwords
5) Don’t befriend people you don’t know
6) Don’t meet up with people you’ve met online. Speak to your parent or carer about people suggesting you do
7) Remember that not everyone online is who they say they are
8) Think carefully about what you say before you post something online
9) Respect other people’s views, even if you don’t agree with someone else’s views doesn’t mean you need to be rude
10) If you see something online that makes you feel uncomfortable, unsafe or worried: leave the website, turn off your computer if you want to and tell a trusted adult immediately.
A Big and Sunny Welcome Back
It was so lovely to see everyone today and what an interesting day we had learning about light and shadows.
We plotted and charted the changes in our shadows throughout the day- the beautiful weather was very kind to us.
Watching the way the shadows moved and changed, led us to think about how sundials work and also, as to how effective they can be.
Afterwards, we used mirrors to help us see things that weren't in our vision path. We thought about when and how mirrors are used like this in real-life.
Then we got very busy trying to make our very own periscopes.
All in all, we had a very busy day learning about light, shadows, the anatomy of the eye, how light travels and how we can see things that are difficult to see.
We thought that lots went well today and are looking forward to what tomorrow might bring!