17 Jan 2020

Yr6 Curriculum Update – 17/01/20

Working together to achieve success for every child

The Year 6 Team

Welcome to the 8th edition of our Year 6 Curriculum Update.

Transdisciplinary Learning – It’s all connected!

In Inquiry, we started our new unit ‘Sharing the Planet’ by watching the climate change documentary ‘Before the Flood’.

Climate Change is happening. We felt a bit scared and feeling like we have to do something. We felt sorry for the people living in polluted areas and having to wear masks, just because of human activity. We felt like we had to help the world or else the world might die.

The Agents of Change NGO event gave us a big influence and inspired us to think about taking action.

We felt a bit guilty after hearing all the destruction that is happening to the Earth just because of human activity. We also felt bad for the refugees that didn’t have enough care while we are wealthy and sometimes not grateful for what we have.

NGO Day was a day filled with knowledge and the presenters always kept us interested. We felt angry about the way our planet is being trashed but then felt guilty as we realised that our everyday actions are contributing to the trashing of Earth. Listening to the NGOs gave us a sense of empowerment as we realised that it is within our power to change things and make a difference.

Some students visited the Zero Carbon Building in Kowloon Bay. The ZCB is a collaboration between the Construction Industry Council (CIC) and the HKSAR Government. Completed in June 2012, it is an exhibition, education and information centre for Low/Zero Carbon Park design and technologies, smart city technologies, and low carbon living. We learnt that there are alternatives to fossil fuels like solar energy and biofuels. It was fun because there were many little games including VR and motion detecting visual games to help us learn. We learnt many things about how climate change is approaching and that there are many things we could all do to offset the burning of fossil fuels.

In Reading, our teachers have continued reading aloud from the book “Music on the Bamboo Radio”. Some students have started reading a novel based on a future world where human action has eradicated most of the animal species.

In Writing, some classes have been taking notes, demonstrating some unique ways of note taking. Students have been mainly using the Cornell Note taking method to take notes from the NGO presentations, videos about the Global Goals and the visit to the Zero Carbon Building. Some students have incorporated sketch notes into their note taking on videos about Climate Change etc. Sketch notes are a useful way to record data using a combination of sketches and words.

In Mandarin, students have been learning about the weather like rain, snow, sunshine etc… They have been practising talking about the weather according to real life situations, just like a real news reporter. Whilst doing this, a few classes have been finishing off a role play about clothes and to top it off they’re creating the clothing with newspapers. Most classes have been engaged in completing online work, with the help of google classroom.

In Maths, some students have been completing assessments on Sumdog about converting percentages, fractions and decimals. They have also learnt more about mean, mode, median and range. In order to better understand fractions, decimals and percentages as well as mean, some students studied the tiling in the washroom to see if there is a pattern in the number of tiles of different shades used. They had to represent their findings as fractions, decimals and percentages. The next step is to find the mean of the different groups’ results to identify any patterns. Perhaps we could order these tiles and create a splashback for the DT room sinks!

In Music, the classes have been sharing their music to other classes to get positive and constructive feedback. There is a range of quality and styles and it’s nice for them to share their music style with the others and show what instruments they used. We have been working in groups of 6s and 5s to compose. Year 6 have been learning about chords which include piano chords and ukulele chords. They have been learning how to sing and play ‘Auld Lang Syne’ using four easy chords: C, G, A and F using the Boomwhackers and Xylophones.

In PE, we have continued to learn more about athletics! In this unit we are mainly learning about jumping, throwing and running. We are aiming at beating our score, but now we are focusing on each and every part of the athletics unit. Most of us are starting to also record our data and scores while others are still practising. Some classes have been collaborating and have been playing mini games, whilst others have been going through their “Sports Day Practice” sessions. Students have been exploring different techniques to improve, according to a range of physical skills such as running, throwing, jumping, etc…

Library News:

In the library, librarian Ms. Lau has been showing classes the artifacts of KJS, which include trophies, yearbooks, attendance books and so on. The students have been learning many things about K.J.S’s history. And 6E has convinced Mr. O’reilly to make a heritage room for K.J.S to inform kids about the history of K.J.S and it will contain some of the most important and old heritage from KJS.

Important dates