Y6 Midlands
Updates
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Line of Fire
The children were really taken with Barroux’s illustrations, and each picked their favourite panels. They asked whether they could create their own pieces – this is using the text from p.76 and 77. They thought about the power of colour in order to add to the mood and atmosphere of the words.
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Submission by Griffydam Primary School
A Scene from The Thing about Jellyfish
Our gladiators performed a scene that they have written from 'The Thing About Jellyfish'. They decided to create a scene set before the action in the main story, which might give some indication of why the girls fell out and some answers to some of the most perplexing questions. We really hope you enjoy it.
Griffydam Gladiators
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Submission by St Joseph’s Catholic Primary, Derby
St. Joseph’s Reads – a newsletter dedicated to reading
The year 6 Reading Gladiators were set a challenge: to leave a reading legacy for the school. After much discussion, the children chose to plan and create a newsletter devoted exclusively to reading.
The children have given up their lunchtimes to interview staff and children, finding out which books and authors are currently popular in different year groups. They have been keen to share their own favourites, and have been paying close attention to what is happening in school in terms of reading.
Copies have been given to each class, are freely available to parents at the school office, and the newsletter has also been published on our blog and school Twitter feed.
The Reading Gladiators worked so hard in their planning of the newsletter, and have already presented ideas of what could be in the next newsletter to the current year 5 children - true dedication!
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Submission by St Matthew’s C of E Primary, Birmingham
St Matthew’s Year 6 Gladiators reading legacy
We wanted to leave behind a gift of new books for the library so that everyone at St Matthew's learns to love reading as much as us. The powerpoint explains how we raised money - and spent it!
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Oscar Wilde
We have fully enjoyed The Happy Prince compilation. For our final session, we all chose and presented a favourite story.
Here, we can see two of the gladiators presenting in different ways. One child loved the story of ‘The Fisherman and His Soul’, while another presented her thoughts on ‘The Nightingale and the Rose’.
Both girls explained the morals and messages behind each story, asking questions of their audience and making links to other stories.
We have been surprised at how much we’ve enjoyed Oscar Wilde’s stories as we were unsure initially. Now we are looking to explore a wider range of fairy tales, such as the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.
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The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
Sneha, one of our Y6 Reading Gladiators, was so inspired by Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry that she wrote this amazing piece herself.
This was shared across the school – lots of the teachers thought that it was written by Carol Ann Duffy herself!
Comments
28th Feb 2018, 2:37pm
Sneha, thank you for sharing such a wonderful poem. I particularly liked the line 'singing the song without the need of words'. It reminded me of how powerfully we can communicate with others, even if we don't share the same language: a smile, a tone of voice, a glimmer in the eyes28th Feb 2018, 4:15pmWhat a fantastic poem! Really great repetition and use of language - very impressive! -
Alphabest
Gladiator Chloe was inspired by the Carol Ann Duffy poem ‘The Alphabest’ to create her own version. We think it’s pretty amazing!
Comments
8th Feb 2018, 1:36pm Well done, Chloe. No wonder the other Gladiators are proud of your achievement. You have captured the mood of the original with your own unique variation.28th Feb 2018, 12:48pmHi Chloe, We really enjoyed reading your poem. It is full of humour and you must have worked hard to start each line with every letter of the alphabet. We loved Carol Ann Duffy's anthology - in one week, we secretly posted poetry in classrooms. None of the teachers knew who they were from but it made everyone talk and think about poems. We wonder if you could do the same with your own poetry :-) St. Joseph's Y6 Reading Gladiators -
Line of Fire Artistic Response
The children were really taken with Barroux’s illustrations, and each picked their favourite panels. They asked whether they could create their own pieces – this is using the text from p.76 and 77. They thought about the power of colour in order to add to the mood and atmosphere of the words.
Comments
5th Jan 2018, 11:56pm I really like the way you have been inspired by Barroux' illustrations but have innovated by adding the yellow. The colour choice is evocative of the gas that was used in the trenches and it works well because you have been economic with the application. Well done everyone.28th Feb 2018, 4:16pmThese pictures are wonderful - Barroux's illustrations are really evocative and so are these - fantastic, well done! -
In the Line of Fire
Although we missed the submission date, we were pleased to finish the mini-challenge as we can now share it with the rest of the school.
Comments
19th Dec 2017, 11:48pm Stunning artwork St Matthews Gladiators. The use of red for the poppies in an otherwise monochromatic picture is very effective. Thank you for sharing your work with us. -
Working on Line of Fire
The snow did its best to stop us completing the Line of Fire mini-challenge by the deadline … but we kept working on it anyway.
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The Thing About Jellyfish
So far, this has been our favourite book this year. We loved how it had lots of facts about jellyfish while also telling a story, and it had a mix of emotions throughout the text.
Tega – I just love it.
Josh – It reminds us that friends are important.
Andre – It teaches us how to teach other people.
Diana – It shows us how things can change.Daisy’s review: ‘The thing about Jellyfish’ is a great and interesting book, if I could read it again I definitely would. First of all, the main character in this book is called Suzanne (also called Suzy and Zu throughout the story) who is the perspective this book is written from. Additionally, Suzy meets her soon to be best friend at swimming guppies, Franny, their friendship carrying on till they go to middle school (a school in America ranging from students 9 – 13 years old).
Unfortunately, Franny apparently ‘drowns’ while on holiday after their last week of middle school. This leaves Suzy devasted, hurt and even guilty. While on a school trip to an aquarium, Zu begins to assume how this could’ve happened – Franny was a brilliant swimmer, what went wrong? That’s when she jumps to conclusions. Maybe a jellyfish stung her…
All in all, Ali Benjamin did great describing Zu’s emotions throughout the book. I’ve still left out a lot of details, maybe you could finish Zu’s story and find out what did kill Franny…
Rating: 9/10
Comments
29th Nov 2017, 12:56pm What a superb update. We love your thoughtful responses and the display. It should encourage other children to read it. Great work, everyone. -
The Mount Nod Team!
We are all looking forward to the challenge of Reading Gladiators and are enjoying our first book!
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26th Sep 2017, 4:12pm Hello Mount Nod Gladiators! You are in for some reading treats this year. Let us know what you think about the books. Happy Reading -
St Matthew’s Reading Gladiators
My group are loving the first book and are excited about our next discussion session. Go Gladiators!
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24th Sep 2017, 4:20pm Hi St Matthews Gladiators! A big wave from our barn in Essex to all of you in Birmingham. We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts about the first book. Happy Reading! -
Griffydam’s Y6 Gladiators
Our Griffydam Gladiators have been chosen and are ready to read! We’re all so excited to be a part of the project and are looking forward to the challenges ahead!
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4th Sep 2017, 10:04am Hello Year 6 Griffydam Gladiators. Lovely to see you all. We are looking forward to hearing your thoughts about the books that you are reading this year! -
2017 – 2018 Challenges
The 2016 – 17 challenges are now finished and we are enrolling schools for 2017-18. Why not join us?
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