Year 6 Spring Learning overview 2016-17

Year 6 Spring 2017: The Amazing Americas

Literacy

Beginning in North America, we are using a text from the ‘humour’ genre to begin our learning this half term– Louis Sacher’s ‘There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom’.  We will be exploring the different character viewpoints and using the text as a stimulus for our own biased  newspaper reports and diary entries. In a few weeks, we will move our focus to South America to begin our work as biographers, researching the life of adventurer Steve Backshall– the star of BBC TV series ‘Lost Land of the Jaguar’.

Mathematics

After spending last term focusing on calculations, fractions and percentages, we are beginning this term by developing our shape knowledge. We will learn to calculate the size of missing angles in triangles,  quadrilaterals and around a point . We will also learn about Imperial measurements and learn how these correlate to Metric units of measure.  We will be learning about different ways of presenting data, including line graphs and pie charts.

Science

Building on our understanding of fossils, we will explore the link between fossils and evolution, considering some famous fossils and reflecting on what they tell us about the past. Moving our focus to today, we will explore how some plants and animals are able to adapt to their surroundings and how this leads to evolution. We will consider the findings of Charles Darwin and examine modern species for evidence of evolutionary changes and links to their  ancestors.

Humanities

Linked to our topic, ‘The Amazing Americas’, we will be comparing and contrasting the human and physical features of different countries in North and South America. We will consider the different ways land is used , identifying  patterns and evaluating the impact this has , both in the present day and the future.