Monday 18th May

Date: 18th May 2020 @ 11:22am

Morning, Year 6!

Did you have a good weekend? I hope you had lots of time to relax and unwind from all the hard work you've been doing lately. If you looked at Mrs Hymers' newsletter, you may have seen some of your fantastic STEM challenge photographs. 

Before I tell you a little about your project for the week, I am just going to give you a little reminder. This Friday, we would have been breaking up for the Whit holidays. This means that, after Friday, I won't be blogging for 2 weeks. This week is your last week of work before having a well-earned 2 weeks off. Make the most of this week's project and work hard; you can have a rest once Friday is done! 

This week, we are going to have another themed week. It is National Mental Health week and I think it has come at a perfect time. Under the current circumstances, our mental health can be negatively impacted and it can make us feel low, frustrated or fed up. We have already looked at mental health in our PSHE lessons and we talked about how everyone has mental health and that it can be good or bad. I thought it would be nice to remind ourselves about mental health and how to take care of our own mental health by completing a project based on it this week. 

Each year, National Mental Health week has its own theme. The theme this year is KINDNESS. Again, it seems very fitting that we carry out a project on kindness during a time when it is needed. We show kindness in lots of different ways, sometimes without even knowing it. Kindness can be a friendly smile, a compliment, giving someone a gift, involving someone in your game or even just chatting to someone. This week, I want you to spread kindness as much as you can, whilst learning all about its effects on our mental health. 

Your project this week is going to be down to you: I am going to post a list of possible activities you could carry out and I would like you to pick 5 different activities to complete- one for each day of the school week. Those children who go above and beyond will get a special mention and possibly end up on our school newsletter again!

Below, I will post a list of activities: I want you to know that these are not set in stone- if you have a better idea, feel free to go with it. My only request is that you send me lots of photographs of your projects so I can see the learning you are completing. 

1. Keep a mental health journal, where you add an entry each day about how you have been feeling, if you have spread kindness or if someone has shown you kindness.

2. Write a poem all about kindness.

3. Research the effects of kindness on someone's mental health (this website might have some useful information for you: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/campaigns/mental-health-awareness-week)

4. Write a short story with a message all about being kind to others.

5. Produce a rap / song all about mental health and how to look after it.

6. Design a poster all about the benefits of kindness on someone's mental health.

7. Produce a piece of artwork demonstrating what kindness means to you.

8. Make a list of 30 ways someone can show kindness and try to complete as many as you can.

9. Be a secret kindness ninja- each day, try to complete one random act of kindness!

10. Come up with a list of rules on how to be kind for younger children.

11. Write a recount about a time someone showed kindness to you and how it made you feel.

12. Create a mental health mascot- draw a picture of him/ her, write their special powers and how they can help other people.

13. Create an information leaflet about mental health and how it can be good and bad.

14. Speak to the people in your family about their mental health and compile a list of ways they try to make sure they are mentally healthy. (Do they have hobbies that make them relax? How do they cope with things that upset them? What do they do when they are feeling sad or low?)

15. Take a survey every day- ask every member of your family to tell you on a scale of 1-10 how happy they are. Record your results and then analyse them at the end of the week. Was there a specific day that people were unhappy? Was everyone happy all of the time? Who was the happiest? Who was the least happy? What could you do to make them happier? (As an extra challenge, you could use 2graph on Purple Mash to record your results and see them in different ways). 

Like I said before, please don't feel obliged to choose things from my list: if you have any better ideas, do those instead. Please, please, please send me photographs and let me know how you are getting on with these tasks- it could be your act of kindness by sending them to me . It always makes me smile receiving emails from you!

Before I leave you to your projects, I have two special shout outs to give. The first one goes to Leah. She has been working incredibly hard at home and has been doing lots of exciting things, too. She's made posters to decorate the hospital where her mum works, made pizzas, kept up with her dancing and gymnastics and taken her lovely dog for a walk.

My next shout out goes to Ewan. He has been a very busy young man during STEM week! I received an email from him with a document attached. Ewan has written all about his STEM challenges, as well as adding photographs to it. What I loved about Ewan's work was that he tried again and again at the challenges. This is brilliant to see, Ewan! You adapted your work and made it better each time (I was particularly impressed to hear you made a paper chain that was 578cm long!) 

That's all from me for now. Don't forget you can check out the BBC Bitesize lessons every day. Today's lesson breakdown...

Maths - multiply and divide decimals by 10, 100 and 1000.

Literacy - using hyperbole, similes and metaphors.

History - who was King Henry VIII?

You could also take part in Joe Wicks' PE lessons, amongst other forms of exercise. 

Also, a gentle reminder that there are still lots of you who aren't accessing Times Tables Rockstars. Currently, 40% of the class are using it, which is excellent, but I would love us to get above 50% at least by next week. Come on, guys! Even if you know your times tables off by heart, it's still a fun game to play! I go on quite often to try and beat my time, as does Mrs Hymers. You can NEVER be too quick at answering a times table question! 

Speak to you lovely lot tomorrow,

Mrs Naylor 

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