This week we have been exploring how a variety of sentence structures can make our writing more engaging, add tension and establish detail.
We have also learnt about how to construct noun phrases that will convey a feeling or atmosphere within our writing.
Year Six have been exploring the stories of light in Greek legends. We started by listening to the tragic story of the titan Prometheus and his punishment. Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to humans. This was a noble gesture by the titan, but Zeus was not happy. The king of the gods punished Prometheus.
We explored why the light this fire provided was so important to the Greeks which lead us to investigate how light travels .
This week we have been asking questions about shadows and then testing our own hypotheses .
This week year 6 have begun by considering the story of Arachne and her most unfortunate end. We have explored why , for thousands of years,people have told stories leading us to consider the purpose of Arachne’s tale.
This then lead us on to a discussion about pride and its importance in the story.
What is pride to you?
This week, the year sixes have started to explore and experience the art of storytelling. We can learn so much about a culture from the stories that they tell; the ancient Greeks are no different.
We started by learning two Greek stories: the tragic tales of Arachne the weaver and Icarus the ambitious.
We created the right atmosphere for telling stories in the classroom by building storytelling dens that the we used to pass on these poignant tales to each other.
Next, we will explore why the Greeks told these stories and how they related to some of the key, classical Greek principles that defined their identity. For a clue, look for the words at Delphi.
This week in year 6 we have been learning about the place where the ancient Greeks lived – Greece!
We started by making geographical and historical inferences about the landscape of Greece and considered what this may tell us about how the ancient Greeks lived.
We made historical inferences about the ancient Greeks simply by looking at maps of where they lived.
We were then instructed by a disillusioned prince of a Greek city state to explore the landscape and find a location that would be ideal to found his own city.
We used topographical and satellite maps to find a site that may be a good place to build a new city. We then explored the advantages and disadvantages of the site and began to write a balanced report to the prince outlining the benefits and dangers of building his new city at this location.
Here is an overview of the maths that we will be completing in the next few weeks in Year 6 (click the link below to download)
This week Year 6 launched their new topic for the spring term: Wisdom begins wonder. Over the next term, Year 6 will be learning about the hugely influential and fascinating golden age of Ancient Greece.
We launched our topic by re-enacting the trial of Socrates, who was an Ancient Greek philosopher that had been been accused of ‘corrupting the youth’ and denying the the city gods.
Unfortunately, the citizens in our Heliaia (law court) followed the course of history and voted to have the old philosopher drink the hemlock.
Woman were not allowed to be jurors in the law courts of ancient Athens, so we had to ‘beard-up’ to make sure none had snuck in.