Monthly Archives: November 2017

Poo by Nicola Davies


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Posted in Book Blog, Book reviews, pupils, Year 6 | 2 Comments

The Secret Seven by Enid Blyton


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The Famous Five by Enid Blyton


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Portrait by Eagle5

One of our homework challenge choices was to create a portrait of someone special and explain why this person was important. Eagle5 has kindly agreed to share this fantastic portrait of her Dad. Screen Shot 2017-11-16 at 19.19.17

Posted in Art and Design, Homework, pupils, Year 6 | 3 Comments

The 128-year-old man, A ghost story by Mongoose29

Tonight’s ghost story to enjoy is by Mongoose29. Remember to read something calming before bed…!

 

My name is Zack. I am 128. Now I know you’re thinking that’s impossible but it’s not and I will tell you how…

The loud fair music meant you couldn’t hear anything – even the cries coming from Zack. He was lost and was wandering towards the harbour… In the background, the music dimmed and you could only hear the sound of the calm waves receding onto the beach. Zack sat in a cold stone corner weeping when an old crackling voice came from behind him.
“What this matter?” the mysterious figure groaned. He obviously couldn’t speak properly.
“What this matter?” the man said again — louder this time. Zack looked up, tears running down his saddened face.
“I – I lost my family,” Zack stuttered.
“Come withit me,” the old wrinkled man said. “I can helpen you.”

Their feet crunched on the crumbling gravel path. The man was strange, Zack thought. He wore a long maroon robe with bright yellow stars on covering long  fingernails that had dirt concealed tightly under them. All of a sudden, the man stopped. A large green boat sat proudly in the water but it didn’t look real: it had a luminous ghostly effect; no sails; and a tall, thin, transparent man perched on the deck. Could it be a ghost ship? Zack would have to find out…

Slowly, the strange man held up his glowing lantern and pointed to the boat.
“Mis comes yup edry year,” he grumbled. “I b’live ghosts live thon sit,” he said. “I’ll help ye find tor parentes if ye clum on this with me.” Zack quickly agreed and they walked to where the boats were docked.

Carefully, the man clambered onto a small fishing boat that looked cracked and old.
“Get thon,” he beckoned to the boy so Zack climbed happily on. “Call I Fredrick,” the old man said joyfully.

Silently, the small boat glided towards the moon-lit ship as Fred chatted to Zack about the ghosts he believed lived on it. With force, the small boat collided against the ship, causing it to crack in two. Luckily, Fredrick and Zack had already taken hold of the ladder and climbed it to the top. Suddenly a booming voice echoed around the ship,
“GIVE ME YOUR SOULS NOW!”
In fear, Fredrick and Zack ran into the ship’s library.
“THERE IS NO ESCAPE!” the voice boomed again.

They froze as a pale white figure entered the room. Without making a sound, Fredrick and Zack crouched down desperate to hide.
“I SEE YOU!” the voice yelled in a taunting tone. “GIVE ME ALL YOUR SOULS!”

Slowly, the figure approached them and grabbed them both.
“I will make a deal with you,” the thing said quietly. “If one of you gives your soul, I will let the other go,” he whispered like before.
“Ith will,” Fredrick announced bravely.
“The deal has been made,” the voice said.
All of a sudden, Zack was back at the harbour — but he was alone. The boat was gone…

 

Many years later, Zack set out on a journey to find his old friend Fredrick. He had managed to find his family after the boat incident and he was determined to find Fredrick, or his soul and body, so he could bring him back to life. Zack ran down to the harbour; the ship was there! Quickly, he grabbed a small boat and set off towards the ship. The remains of the fishing boat still floated in the water and, on the ship, lay Fredrick’s skeleton…

Zack threw the old tattered skeleton onto the boat. All he had to do now was the destroy the ship and get Fredrick’s soul. The captain was asleep for Zack could hear his deep snores coming from the bedroom. Quietly, he snatched Fredrick’s soul off the shelf. Suddenly, he had the perfect idea: he would ram the boat into the harbour destroying the captain. When he reached the steering wheel, he turned it without thinking and took out a chunk of the boat.

Zack could hear the deep roar echoing around the boat again,
“WHO IS HERE?”
Zack rammed the boat again, breaking it in two but, at the same time, a cold, wet hand grabbed him and put his soul in a jar… Soon, Zack’s family found two skeletons and buried them in their garden. They were Zack’s and Fredrick’s.
120 years later, a young boy was playing football by the harbour and found two glass jars with bright blue glowing balls in them. He brought them home and, pretending it was magic, he played with them outside and accidentally dropped them. But he didn’t know one of the souls belonged to Fredrick and the other soul belonged to Zack. As well as that, the boy’s house was Zack’s old house where he and Fredrick had been buried.

Ready to be reunited with their bodies, the souls floated up in the air whilst the skeletons lifted up out of the ground. The blue glowing balls lowered into the bodies. Next, the skin started covering the skeletons like a machine building toys. Finally, Zack and Fredrick awoke, lying on the grass.

So that is my story of how I’m 128. At the moment, I live with Fredrick and the boy (Joe).

Posted in Ghost stories, Literacy, pupils, Year 6 | 1 Comment

Fraction madness!

We’ve been trying out some practical fractions challenges where we had to work out the fractions of different shapes when we had limited information. We investigated the shapes to discover which ones fitted exactly inside other ones. Then we used this information to work out the fraction each of the shapes were as a fraction of the blue square (the largest shape). Only the orange, red and yellow triangles fitted exactly inside the blue square. The other shapes we had to work out by comparing them to the triangles. We eventually discovered that the other shapes were the following fractions of the blue square:
Green square = 1/2                     Orange triangle = 1/4
Red triangle = red square = pink triangle = 1/8
Yellow triangle = 1/32

picture 4Then we set ourselves some more challenges. We had to make some patterns using the different shapes and then work out the fractions of the whole shape each colour represented. The pictures below show some of our challenges. e.g. On this one, there are 10 yellow triangles so we know that yellow is 10/32 = 5/16 of the square. But, the yellow covers some of the red, so we need to work out the red base and then subtract the yellow to find the fraction that is red in the final shape. Then we could finally work out the fraction that is blue… Not as easy as it sounds!

These were tricky for different reasons but some of them are especially tricky because the pattern makes us think we have one fraction for a colour whereas the calculations show something different…. We found out that we always needed to check that the fractions of all the parts added up to make one whole one…

maths fractions

Using the information above, we worked out the fractions of all the colours in this ‘rainbow’ square made by laying other shapes on top of each other on top of the blue square..

 

 

fractions picture 3This was another tricky one: We needed to check the information we started with very carefully to solve this one…

 

 

Fractions picture 2This one was especially tricky as the layout suggests that there are only three colours in the shape, but we discovered that there were, in fact, four… We ended up finding the fraction of the (almost) hidden colour too…

 

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The Devious Dangerous Devil Returns, a ghost story by Flamingo17

Tonight’s scary story!… You have been warned!!

Last creepy Halloween night, an old spooky man in a long black coat was walking towards a box. It wasn’t an ordinary box; it had the devil in it. But how, you ask, did a young man, who was ten years old, trap the devil in the box? He was an angel and his name was Alec. Stupidly, the old man opened the box. He released an unstoppable force before him and signed a deal. The deal was that he would collect all the children in the world every Halloween so he did or else he would be forever alone.

Next Halloween, the frightening man went with 15,000 children with him to the haunted boat. It had ripped sails because of all the fights he had with them. But the devil was still not happy: he wanted the child who had trapped him — Alec — because he wanted to take his soul so that he wouldn’t be able to trap him again.

The dark-hearted Devil threw the poor ancient man into the freezing water than yelled, “Come back when you have found the child!”

“Never then,” muttered the man in anger, swimming to shore.

As angry as the man was, he still searched for the meddling angel (Alec). Although Alec didn’t know that the Devil had escaped, he did notice that children were disappearing by the second. So, Alec decided to go to the docks to investigate. The man caught his eye because he had children with him. Curiously, he followed the strange man onto the haunted ship. A green mist swirled around the ship; strange substances dripped off the sails and slithered through the creaking floorboards. He noticed a large cannon pointing straight at him; he knew something was wrong…

Before he knew it, he got shot out of the sky like a sack of potatoes.

“Brilliant!” screeched the Captain in joy. Everything went pitch black.

Alec awoke, thinking it was all a dream, but sadly for him it wasn’t. He was tied up with freezing chains holding his wings back so that he couldn’t fly away and warn all the other children. Before him, he saw a strange figure: it was the mysterious man from the docks. He leant down and whispered, “Sorry!”. He was so close to his face that all Alec could smell was the stench of his breath. He handed him the box and silently started to unchain his wings. Alec stretched with confusion.

Curiously, he asked, “Why are you helping me?”

The man answered, “I’m sick and tired of him bossing me about all the time so I have chosen you to help me to stop him from achieving his devilish plans.” Pausing for what seemed an eternity, he seemed to be in a trance. “I know you don’t trust me but please, help me save the world from this evil spirit upon us.” Alec, feeling very confused, replied cautiously, “I will help but this must be our secret. Only we have to know about this.”
They agreed to help each other. After a long time thinking and planning, they agreed on a very sly plan to take down the devil so he would never cause any harm again.

The man collected as many children as he could with Alec in the middle of the crowd. They quietly entered the ship. From the depths of the ship, the devil shouted, “I know you are on board my ship but where is Alec?” The man cowardly replied, “He is here waiting for you.”

The devil eerily appeared out of nowhere and laughed an evil cackle. Alec silently flew up like a graceful bird. They flew at each other, stopped suddenly and bowed, then battle commenced. It was a crazy tournament between the two great leaders, the good and the bad. As they tired, the Devil’s powers weakened. Alec knew that this was his opportunity to open the box, to trap the devil once and for all. Alec effortlessly opened the box in one giant swoop, like a bird and its prey. As the box lid closed, the Devil shouted, “I will return! Alec, beware!”

Alec flew off with the box in hand and threw the box into the distance. But he didn’t notice something: the ancient old box was cracked and a tail of red mist had escaped …

Posted in Ghost stories, Literacy, pupils, Year 6 | 2 Comments

The tales of Olga da Polga by Michael Bond


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Memories of Coventry Blitz by Mongoose29

Screen Shot 2017-11-14 at 22.33.14It was a very calm night. I could see the full moon out of the window. The children were in bed and I was playing cards with my co-workers. Half the time, we were called out to cities like London because we had to make sure no-one got hurt when the Germans were bombing. All of a sudden, the deafening sound of the air raid siren echoed around the city…

My friends rushed to their houses to put on their uniforms and I dashed upstairs. As quickly as possible, I put on my navy warden uniform and went to wake the children up. When they were safely in the shelter, I directed lots of people to there too. Then I saw a small German plane lit up in the spotlight…

The planes were dropping things but not bombs; they were dropping flares. They were lighting the city up. We all were crowded together in the small shelter. I felt like a mole under the ground with humans stomping above us and all you could smell was death and smoke. We all just sat there hoping the next bomb you heard didn’t come through the roof; luckily, none did. The whole entire city was in flames so the next wave of German bombers could see exactly where to go. The worst part about it was we were standing in water — some of it from people’s tears but most of it from the burst copper pipes. It was so hard to see; the only light was coming from my small lamp. Lots of people were bumping into each other and falling into the thick layer of water.

Happy to be alive, we all left the shelter. The first sounds I heard were crying and gasping: the whole city was falling apart. Dust covered everything and there was no colour; the water was flowing down the roads and the ancient cathedral was destroyed. Even the parts that still stood were boiling hot…

Posted in News, pupils, Topic (History and Geography), Year 6 | 1 Comment

Memories of Moonlight Sonata by Marmoset29

Screen Shot 2017-11-14 at 21.10.21The cold winter’s evening of the 14th November 1940 is one one would never forget. It was a full moon that night and, for a change, the sky was clear — there was no mist for miles around. If it hadn’t been for the bombing, it would have been a perfect night.

When our clock read 18:00, we could make out the gentle hum of the diesel-powered planes coming from the east. In reality, it was actually 19:00 but we had never got round to putting our clock forward and it looked like we never would. Anyway, I was in my fire-warden uniform, ready for any flares. Well, I was physically ready but inside I felt as timid as a new-born rabbit.

Minutes later, I was out there, on the streets I knew and loved. As a child, I had drawn, with chalk, all over them and once I had even scratched lopsided pictures into the pavement, some of which were still visible. Near tears, I reached for a hose — I would do everything in my power to prevent my home from obliterating into pieces…

Posted in pupils, Topic (History and Geography), Year 6 | 1 Comment