Year 6 - Animation, debates and penpals

After the excitement of the Year 6 disco and their half term break, the children have enjoyed a range of fun and challenging activities this week. Whether it was identifying the angles in Rousseau’s painting or building their own set to record stop frame animation videos, Year 6 children have impressed us with the diversity of their ideas for our Take One Picture project. The children are looking forward to sharing their work with parents and other visitors in our exhibition. We hope you will enjoy the event as much as we have enjoyed participating in the activities!

English Speaking Board (ESB) preparations are well underway. The children have come back from the half term holiday full of ideas and know what it is that they want to say. Now it is just a case of learning how to present their ideas with confidence. In addition to this work, the children are enjoying reading War Horse and using this as another way to understand more about WW1. They have put themselves in the shoes of a new recruit who is eager for adventure, although the reader knows that his hopes of a wonderful romp in the Pals Battalion will soon be replaced with the grim realities of life on the frontline. In English, Year 6 are also putting the finishing touches to their contribution to the Take One Picture exhibition. Following three excellently argued debates on whether zoos are ethical or not, they are preparing a display where visitors to the exhibition will see all their persuasive arguments and then cast their own votes.

Year 6 have been incorporating their ICT skills into their Design & Technology lessons in order to explore stop frame animation. The idea for this arose during our discussion of the Henri Rousseau painting ‘Surprised!’ for the Take One Picture project. The children wanted to animate the picture and explain why they think the tiger is surprised. They constructed animals using plasticine and miniature film sets from resources within the Art and DT classrooms. The children are now busy using the chromebooks to record and edit their stories.

Leading up to the half term holiday, Year 6 used French language to describe various jungle animals, as part of their ‘Take One Picture’ project work. Having written their descriptions in French around an image of their chosen animal, they are now recording video clips of the amazing animated illusion produced by their images. Be sure to look out for these amazing ‘moiré effect scanimations’ at next week’s TOP exhibition. In our forthcoming French lessons, we will be preparing and writing our second letter to our French penpals, telling them about our favourite school subjects and other various interests and hobbies. We will also be holding our popular annual ‘Francovision’ French song contest!