Welcome to our Primary 6 class page! We hope you enjoy looking at all the great work and activities we get up to throughout the year. All the more recent items are at the top but feel free to scroll down to look back on the year! Enjoy :)

Class trip to the Palace Stables Armagh

The boys and girls had a great time on their WW2 trip and were able to share lots of their learning from their topic. They got into the character of evacuee children from 1943 and got to experience an air raid shelter, meet an American GI and discuss lots of artefacts from the time. It was a great day!!

P6/7 Residential 2018

We are back!! What a fantastic time we all had on our 3 day residential. Have a peek at some of the pictures (there are lots more to follow). We had such a mix of activities from sky walking in Funtasia to exploring New Grange Monument and St. Oliver Plunket's relics in Drogheda to name a few!

We are all in need of some R&R this weekend to be back ready to learn (and chat all about the fun we had) on Monday...

Up, up and away... 

We are taking off into our new topic on the mystery of flight. All our planning is in place and we have lots of things we wish to find out about flight in preparation for our presentation at the University of Ulster’s Young Innovator’s day in June. Keep your eyes peeled for our exciting work on this topic....

May is the month of Our Lady 

We have set up our beautiful May Altar in honour of Mary and have been contributing some items of our own including flowers, rosary beads and statues. We have also created some beautiful art work in her honour and have had discussions about the important role of Mary in our faith and about the special places Mary has appeared and the message she gave us all. We discussed the Rosary and learned how to say it. Watch out for a picture of how our Altar looks after all our hard work. What a lovely way to honour such an important role model of our faith. 

PSNI Visit 

This week we had two PSNI officers in to speak to us about internet safety. This was an extremely important talk which helped us see all the dangers that are out there and how we can stay safe once we are aware of the ‘dos and don’ts’. They were really impressed with how well all the boys and girls listened and contributed. Well done 👍 

Group work on our weekly target sound 

We are always trying to find new and fun ways to work on our weekly target sound in phonics and enhance our reading and spelling of ‘P6’ vocabulary through this work. This week, we carried out ‘sound Hunts’ in our reading groups. We used our thinking skills of Self management and Working with others to locate our target sound and create a word bank using the sounds located in each group. Great work! 

The MAKE A DIFFERENCE CHALLENGE

Primary 6 and 7 have been selected to participate in this new programme which aims to empower the youth in our communities to identify things that they want to change and give them a means of doing just that. P6 had the task of thinking of an issue in our community or wider are that they feel strongly about and they had to present their cause to the P6 & 7 boys and girls in the hope of persuading them to choose their cause to work on for the project. All the presentations were extremely informative and it will be challenging to select just one for this years project. We are alllooking forward to seeing the chosen cause and indeed, the action plan they come up with to ‘make a difference’ to this situation. 

Multiplication... let me count the ways! 

We have been working hard in mathematics and numeracy, focusing particularly on the various methods of multiplying for larger calculations such as 2 digit numbers multiplied by 2 digit numbers. Some of the ways include rounding and estimating, long multiplication, partitioning, using factors and the grid method. We discovered that although there are lots of different ways, you will always get the same answer and we each have a method that we prefer to use... that’s what makes maths more enjoyable.. finding the method you like best and being able to use it. There was lots of great paired and group work for this topic and P6 even challenged Mrs Sloan to an extremely LONG multiplication sum (she got it right ofcourse) :)

An amazing end to an amazing topic!

Everyone in the school are extremely impressed and proud of the P6s having seen their amazing WW2 projects that they created as a way to sum up al their learning in their topic work(WAU). The boys and girls were inspired, having watched the P7 pupils present their projects on volcanoes and worked exceptionally hard on their own projects which they then presented to the class and the P7s. The children used their Self management thinking skills to plan and choose their own outcome and set goals to get the work completed within the given time. There was such creativity and variety in the projects which is a great way to see not only the learning but the individual strengths of each pupil. All the projects are on display in the entrance hall. Well done P6

Structural fun

We may have a few engineers in the making in P6... the girls used some of their free time to create some amazing structures and were very keen to showcase their achievement. Well done girls... great team work too! 

What is a kilometre... in real life? 

In measures we have been looking at a kilometre and were learning about how to convert between metres and kilometres after finding out there is 1000m in a kilometre BUT what does this really mean? How far is a kilometre and when would we be using it? 

These were the type of questions we were investigating in numeracy this week so in groups the children got the various measuring equipment out and set off to find out how far it really is and once we discovered that we were able to realise when and how it would be appropriate to measure in Km. Great active work in the real world. 

Problem Solving.. it’s a tricky old business! 

Our theme in problem solving this term is ‘finding all the possibilities’ 

These problems are different in that there isn’t just one set answer that we are working towards, there may in fact be many various solutions that apply to the same problem. We worked in our groups to approach these problems and thought of different strategies to try and find all the possibilities without leaving any out. We found this to be a real challenge.. some prefer problems with just one answer, others liked the freedom of lots of options and some loved to find a method or system that they could use to help make finding all the options much easier. It definitely is a challenge but one that everyone worked really well on! Keep it up P6... 

Off the cuff...

This year in school we have been focusing on giving all our budding writers the opportunity to write without restrictions through our 'Off the Cuff' writing time. This writing hasn't got the usual restrictions... it is very rough and is never corrected, instead it is all about getting down our creative ideas on paper as part of a drafting and editing process. Sometimes we use a starter to get us going. Recently we had the starter 'If I were President...' Primary 6 wrote some very imaginative pieces about what they would do and some were to be applauded for their 'kind' messages. This is lovely to see.

Easter Bunnies!!

While we were focusing in 'Grow in Love' on the important message of Holy Week, the suffering and death of Jesus leading to his glorious resurrection, we also made time for some Easter fun!

The boys and girls made some Easter bunny sock friends. This was great fun and it was so lovey to see everyone working together to help one another with the tricky parts. The bunnies are very cool!! Have a look at their finished products below.

Working with RECOUNT texts

We have started our familiarisation with the recount genre of writing and worked in groups to find out all the features and then presented our responses to the class. We discovered that we already knew lots of forms of recounts and were able to pick out key features such as chronological order and an orientation!! Great work!

Green Day

We had a fantastic day celebrating St. Patrick's day and putting on an assembly for our whole school. Have a look at our rehearsal clips.

WORLD BOOK DAY AND READ ON FUN!!

On Friday we finally had our World book Day celebrations after the disruption of the 'Beast from the East'! It was a great day and everyone made such an effort to dress up as their favourite book characters. The primary 6 boys and girls had pledged to do an hour read for 'ReadOn', the Cancer fund for children's most recent fundraiser. They concentrated and red so contently all for a good cause... and enjoyment too!! Well Done P6... we are so Proud :)

Propaganda Posters WW2

In WAU art this week we looked at the role of propaganda posters to get important messages across during WW2. We designed some of our own posters for some of the common phrases/slogans. On Monday we got to work in groups to create a poster on the Computer. We has to be creative, work well with each other and listen to one another's ideas. We also had to follow instructions to be able to use word art, insert pictures and print our work. We then evaluated the task.  

STEM fun!

We had a fantastic visit from Sentinus representative Cathy this week, to introduce our new topic 'Flight'. We got to make model helicopters, planes and rockets and the best bit was getting to launch them. Have a look at the pictures and videos!

LI: we were learning about accuracy in measuring and the use of the millimetre (MM)

we linked this to our topic on WW2 and had to follow instructions to accurately measure out the net of a gas mask box in mm. We had to reflect on our past learning about 3D shape nets. When we were finished we were able to stick on the instructions for our gas masks. It was tricky but great fun. We also helped each other which was great to see! 

LI: we were learning about the different types of lines.

To apply our learing after we did an 'I spy' search in the class we got creative and wrote our names in block letters. We then created a key to hiuhglight the different types of lines e.g. perpendicular, parallel, oblique, diagonal horizontal and vertical.

PANCAKE FUN AND VALENTINE CARDS!!

We had such a lovely afternoon in P6 today! As our midterm means we will miss Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Tuesday) and Valentine's day we decided to get a little preparation in early!

The boys and girls had great fun putting their weight skills to the test, measuring out the ingredients to make our pancakes. We used imperial units as the recipe is an old favourite of Mrs Sloan's. We had been discussing all these old measures when we were learning about weight. I'm sure everyone will agree, the best part about making the pancakes... is eating them!! yum yum!

The recipe we used was;

10oz Soda Flour

2oz Caster Sugar

2 eggs

1/2 pint of butter milk

• Mix the flour and sugar in a bowl
• create a well in the middle of the mix
• in a separate container or jus beat the eggs into the buttermilk
• pour this mixture into the 'well' in the mixing bowl
• gradually mix the flour and sugar into the well
• leave to sit for 1/2 hour
• pour onto a heated pan, flip when it starts to bubble
• add your toppings and ENJOY!!

Working with Fractions

We have been extending our knowledge of fractions to exploring equivalent fractions and simplifying fractions using the highest common denominator. This has been tricky and we have relied on our great knowledge of our timetables and factors. We learned the rule 'What you do to the bottom, you must do to the top'

We worked on our new knowledge in group using lots of fun games to help us apply and remember our learning!

Summarising Comprehension Strategy

This half-term we have been developing the comprehension skill of summarising. We worked in our groups to read a variety of texts and discuss the key, vital information and the parts of the text that are redundant. We used mind-maps and brainstorming to help us remember the key information before writing really good focused-summaries. Have a look at us in action!!

Catholic School's Week

We explored the theme of Catholic School's week which was 'Catholic Schools: a family of families'. We looked at the parable of the Good Samaritan and how that message of caring for others relates to us at home and in school and in the wider community of the Parish. We realised that the message of LOVE which Jesus taught us applies to everyone. Look at the beautiful collage letters we created for our catholic school's week display. We are all part of the tapestry that is school life.

We had some of our Grannies in to help us make St Brigid's crosses with the P7 class. This was great fun. We gave them out at our Grandparent's mass.

A new year and a new term!!

We are back settled in to life in P6 and working very hard. We have gotten off to a great start with our new topic WW2 which the children voted on themselves. Our topic library is in place and already the boys and girls are finding out lots of interesting information about World War 2. We have completed the planning stages of our topic and are KWL board is well underway!

In Literacy we have made a start on our focus text genre 'Explanation texts'. We were able to identify lots of the features of these texts and have worked on indexes, contents and glossaries as a result.

This half term in Numeracy we are moving onto 'all the possibilities' problems... These are fun but tricky... there are so many possible answers!!

A very busy, festive week this week in Primary 6.

The boys and girls worked so hard on the last rehearsals for the Christmas Story production which took place on Tuesday night and what a show it was!! They all did their parts so well and sang beautifully!!

The weather has been very frosty and cold so unfortunately the boys and girls have been inside during break and lunch... however the P6 pupils put this time to very good use. They created a card together as a class... such a thoughtful thing to do and it is just fabulous... it has been given pride of place on the wall!!

In Literacy the children are in their independent writing week. They followed instructions to carry out a task that they used a planning sheet to make notes on. These notes have then been used to help them write a really clear instructional text so that others can carry out the same task.

The children created the success criteria, thinking of all the things they have learned about good instructional writing and have used these as a checklist for their writing.

We have really enjoyed sharing our 'Topic Time' PowerPoint presentations which summarised what we have learned about the Rainforests throughout the course of our topic. Have a look at some of the presentations we have seen so far... There are more to come!

Well done to the boys and girls... great work on the computers :)

It is officially the 1st of December.... although we have been feeling quite festive in our class all week!! We have been rehearsing for our Nativity production as well as decorating our classroom.

In Literacy we used our focus on Instructional texts to make beautiful snowflake decorations for the Christmas tree which is in the Fisherman's Mission Christmas Tree Show in Kilkeel. We used the activity as a basis to plan and make notes in preparation for writing a really clear instructional text... perhaps you can try out our instructions and make a snowflake of your own!!

In Numeracy we focused on measures, especially in relation to Time and Length. We discovered that time is always approximate as so many things effect its accuracy including the device and even the person!

We also continued our problem solving and really focused on the Managing information skill of planning how to complete a task.

We were extra lucky this week as we had the first of our three visits to Kilkeel Library. It was so much fun and we learned a lot about how to find books of interest. Some of us have been using the library to complete our Topic Time PowerPoint's, which will appear here next week.

What a week!!

This week has been a lot of fun!! We have started our Christmas play, with fabulous auditions from P6 and P7... Remember P6 will take all the lead roles next year. We are really looking forward to all the rehearsals in the coming weeks.

In numeracy we started to extend our knowledge of 2D shape properties by learning about parallel lines, perpendicular lines and the different angles. In 3D shape we looked at how a prism and pyramid differ which was very interesting. We were also working on negative number addition and subtraction.

We our continuing our focus on problem solving by working on visual/diagram problems. This week it was Pentominoes. We really enjoyed this!!

Anti-Bullying Drama in P6

The Primary 6 class focused on creating a script and acting out a drama showing how bullying is wrong and how telling someone is the best way to get a resolution. Their drama videos are in the 'Anti-bullying' section of the website.

We're back....

Welcome back everyone after the lovely Halloween break!

We are back hard at work this week in P6.

In Literacy we began work on our focus text-type for this half term which is instructional/Procedural text. We have been familiarising ourselves with the features of these texts and have been investigating the importance of clear, precise instructions.

We did this in paired work, giving and listening to instructions from our partner. We found out it is not as easy as it seems to give clear instructions.

We also did an experiment in our groups, following an instructional text. This was great fun!

Numeracy

In Numeracy we started to look at negative numbers. We had a great discussion about what these are and where we use them in real life.

We looked at negative temperatures... lets hope we don't have any minus 20 degree temperatures any time soon!! We also discussed below sea and ground level being described using negative numbers and perhaps the most interesting aspect of negative number for the boys and girls was when we use negative numbers in banking.... DEBT! They loved discussing this and are encouraged to find examples of minus/negative numbers used in the World around us!!

The negative number line below is a great talking point to look at this further!!

Potty about Potter....

What a day we had to celebrate the end of our class novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone!!

We received our letter and ticket on Thursday evening and met Mrs Mc Gonagle at the front of the school on Friday morning to guide us through platform 9 3/4. 

When we arrived at Hogwarts we all had a turn getting put into our houses with the sorting hat. Then we had potions class.... our potions had some weird and wonderful reactions. It was such fun! 

We carried out lots of activities and finally had a party!! 

What a day for our first year wizards and witches!! 

Rousseau-Inspired Art work

Our beautiful Rousseau-inspired rainforest paintings are truly lighting up the school corridor. Have a look at the wonderful details in the paintings... you may just spot some rainforest animals lurking amid the trees!

Well done to all the P6 boys and girls who put so much hard work and creativity into their paintings. We are so proud of the display :)

We're Back!!!!!

It is great to be back working hard after an unexpected 2 day holiday. We have managed to squeeze a lot into our short week. In literacy we continued to work on the skill of visualising... thinking of how stories build images in our heads that help develop our understanding.

We are nearing the end of our class novel... Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone. We are so excited to mark the end of this fantastic book with our Harry Potter themed fun day next week.

Why do plants need water?

We did an experiment to find our why plants need water... this is to help explain why so many plants and trees survive in the Rainforest.

It was great fun!

Rounding and adjusting in mental addition calculations

Remember the rule... whatever we do when rounding e.g. add 4, we do the opposite at the end to adjust our calculation to give us the actual answer. We used lots of fun activities to learn this strategy this week!

Fantasy Narrative Writing

We have started looking at the Fantasy form of story writing in preparation for our own independent narrative writing. This week we have been doing a shared writing focus on fantasy stories. As part of this we have looked at how fantasy stories make a link between the real world and a fantasy/magical world using 'triggers' which are sometimes everyday objects (such as the wall in platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter).

To inspire our own writing we watched some animations of 'triggers' which take story characters to another world. You can watch them by following the links below. We then worked in groups to think of other examples we knew and even some great ideas of our own which may appear in our stories.

Rainforest Art

We looked closely at the work of Henri Rousseau. He was a French Artist who loved to paint using the tropical rainforests as his inspiration. We looked at the composition, colour and style of his work and used all our discoveries to create our own 'Rousseau inspired' pieces. They are almost complete... watch this space for our art gallery!!

Measuring accurately

We were working on how to measure objects accurately, estimating what we think they might weigh and using this to help us decide which equipment we would be best using.

European Language's Day

We had such a fun day in P6 celebrating the diversity of cultures and languages throughout Europe!! We all made a huge effort to dress up and participated in fun activities throughout the day such as writing to a Pen Pal, learning words in different languages and best of all... Our own European Banquet!! It was such fun to try new foods.

Numeracy- Rounding

We have been looking at the rules for rounding numbers (to the nearest 10, 100, 1000 and even 10000). We came up with some 'top tips' to help us remember how to do this. Here are some pictures of us practising using these tips! It was great fun.  

Literacy- Story Openings

This week in Literacy we have been learning about the four main features of really good story openings (action, characters, setting and dialogue). We got the chance to explore lots of story openings and find these features for ourselves. It was great to see how our favourite authors use this to get us interested or 'hooked' into the story!

Our planning wall is well underway. We have come up with lots of great ideas of activities to do linked to our topic and things we would love to find out. Our topic library is helping us in our work and we already know lots of weird and wonderful things about tropical rainforests!

Ask your child...

• where in the world we find rainforests
• what do words such as equator, tropics, continents and species mean?
• why do the rainforests get so much rain?

We are really enjoying using more active approaches to reinforce our learning. This week we created numbers with our partner in numeracy, up to 6 digits and then had to work on ordering them. The winner was the person who got the most points. This was great fun!

Watch this space for our amazing whole class layers of the rainforest display... we are working hard to complete it... hopefully everyone will learn about the layers of the rainforest when they come to see it!