Y6 LONDON BOROUGHS 2019/20
Welcome to the 2019-20 Reading Gladiators™ challenges. Let the reading begin!
There are schools in this group:
- Cherry Lane Primary School
- Keir Hardie Primary School
- Hallsville Primary School
- St Matthias School
- Archbishop Sumner C of E Primary School
- Scott Wilkie Primary School
- Dallow Primary School
- Whitchurch Primary School & Nursery, Stanmore
- Rosetta Primary School
- Lathom Junior School
- William Davies Primary School, Newham
- Grove Primary School
- Knockhall Primary School
- Peareswood Primary School
- Willow Bank Primary School
- Northumberland Heath Primary School
- Muswell Hill Primary School
- Just Imagine
- Springwell School
- The Brent Primary School
- Brampton Primary School – East Ham
Updates
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Book Cover Design
I challenged our Year 6 RG to create a book cover for one of their favourite books. I really like the contrast between the black and yellow pencil on this one and the artwork is great!
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Home Learning
I have been setting weekly challenges for our Year 6 RG to complete using books they have at home. This week’s task was to redesign a front cover for one of their favourite books. I was really impressed with this RG, as she has decided to not only redesign the front cover, but also re-write the story in her own way! I thought the description of the potato-like monster here was really creative. The inspiration for the story was ‘Eyeball Soup’ by Ian MacDonald.
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Iliad Challenge
Rosetta’s Year 6 Reading Gladiators have had great fun preparing for their mini challenge and illustrating a passage from the Iliad. They worked extremely well as a team to produce this phenomenal piece of art.
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Iliad Challenge
Rosetta’s Year 6 Reading Gladiators have had great fun preparing for their mini challenge and illustrating a passage from the Iliad. They worked extremely well as a team to produce this phenomenal piece of art.
Comments
20th Mar 2020, 2:49pm
Wow - what an amazing piece of art. It's put a smile on all our faces. -
Submission by St Matthias School
The Iliad: Battle Scene by Yr6RG@St Matthias School
The group decided immediately that they wanted to do the battle scene. They discussed the different styles of drawing within the book. They practiced the different styles independently and then worked together to produce this illustration. We hope that you enjoy their work.
Comments
2nd Mar 2020, 10:36am This is an incredibly detailed illustration and we love the way you have worked together to create a piece of art to be proud of. Well done!5th Mar 2020, 4:26pmThank you. We really enjoyed the book. The illustrations were amazing and we had so much fun trying to recreate the style. -
Submission by Scott Wilkie Primary School
Greeks on the Run
We explored the term 'war-cries' and came up with some that we thought were suitable for this battle.
We also discussed why an army would use a war-cry and how this would help them.
In particular, we studied the ancient Greek word 'Alala' - the name of the daughter of the ancient Greek demon of war (Polemos). Ancient Greek soldiers would shout out this chant as they entered battle and attacked their enemy.We also explored the beautiful illustrations by Neil Packer and attempted to replicate his drawings of soldiers on a deep, vivid background.
Comments
2nd Mar 2020, 10:27am Your additional research is really impressive and has added to the originality and quality of your piece of art. This is a very striking illustration and your use of colour is wonderful. Well done! -
Submission by Northumberland Heath Primary School
Greeks on the Run
We focused on the reflection of the red of the sunrise in the earth running red with the blood of the armies, as we thought that this was a very powerful image. We split up into groups and drew the Trojan gates, chariots and background. Luckily, one of our RG is very good at drawing faces in Neil Packer’s style, so she drew a Greek Warrior and a Trojan warrior and we copied lots of them so that you can see how chaotic and busy the battle would have been. We think that our finished piece is very bright and colourful, but also somber when you realise that the ground is red because of the blood.
Comments
27th Feb 2020, 2:18pm
What fantastic and thoughtful work, Northumberland Heath. You have really captured the atmosphere of battle. -
Performance
Our Year 6 Reading Gladiators had a fantastic lesson performing their favourite section from our current book Rebound. They confidently remembered all the facets of performance poetry and embedded it into their performances!
Comments
11th Feb 2020, 11:10am What a wonderfully joyous photograph! It really captures your enjoyment and I'm sure your performances were fabulous. -
Readers’ Theatre
Our YR 6 RG had a great session this morning. Readers’ Theatre is definitely their favourite activity, as it really helps them get under the skin of the characters and bring them to life! Here, we have Achilles explaining vehemently to Odysseus and Ajax why he will NOT lead his men back into battle.
Comments
24th Jan 2020, 6:05am This is such a great photograph and I think vehemently is the perfect word to describe your expression. I'm glad you love using readers theatre - it's such a powerful way to dig deeper and really inhabit the characters. Fantastic work Northumberland Heath. -
Circle Map and Summaries
Today, we have learnt that we know very little about Greek Mythology! There are some very challenging names in The Iliad that we have spent the morning getting to grips with. We all managed to write a clear summary of chapter 1 and addressed any misconceptions as a group afterwards, when we reread the chapter independently.
Comments
16th Jan 2020, 1:19pm We are so glad you are expanding your knowledge, Northumberland Heath, and hope you enjoy The Iliad! -
Freeze Frame
We had 3 Dads to show the progression from his chest hurting, through him collapsing and then to him on the floor. This was the idea of one of our RG and it really adds a sense of movement to the image, even though it’s a freeze frame! We also had 3 shocked Charlies to reflect that. Our other 2 RG represented the pan and grilled cheese sandwich that had been dropped on the floor by Dad.
Comments
9th Jan 2020, 11:46am What an effective idea! We love how you've thought about how best to show this scene. And great support work by the pan and grilled cheese! -
Role on the Wall
Our year 6 RG are really enjoying Rebound. They managed to get inside Charlie’s head to complete his role on the wall. It was so big, I couldn’t get it all in one picture!
Comments
19th Dec 2019, 6:22am This is fantastic work and shows a really deep understanding of Charlie. Well done.19th Dec 2019, 4:04pmThat's amazing work! What is your favourite part and why? From RG@St Matthias6th Jan 2020, 9:04amThis is definitely our favourite book so far! We have really connected with Charlie’s character and have loved it all. Our favourite part of the role on the wall is where we had to put that Charlie was ‘skinny in shape’, just in case people got confused and thought that we were saying Charlie was also the character Skinny 😂 -
Readers Theatre
The two Charlies got right into character (lounging in bed) while arguing with Mum. Our Mums also did a great job of channeling their inner parent and disagreeing with Charlie.
Comments
19th Dec 2019, 6:19am Fantastic work! -
Thank you!! We love our prizes!!
Thank you so much for choosing us as the mini-challenge winners for ‘The Way Past Winter’. We absolutely love our badges and are excited to have won some great books for the Book Barn that we can share with the whole of ks2.
Comments
19th Dec 2019, 6:18am What a wonderful picture! We are so glad that your new books have such a beautiful home. Happy reading! -
Submission by St Matthias School
Fans of Mila and Rune @St Matthias!
We decided as a group that the section (p223-225) shows the change in Mila and Rune's friendship. We feel that at this moment they clearly show that they care about each other. It shows that how the change in their friendship has been subtle so far and it is here they demonstrate their concern and regard. It also shows how Rune's character has changed and how Mila's opinion of him as also changed. We think this is an important point in the story because Rune is willing to put himself in danger for his friends.
Comments
16th Dec 2019, 6:16am Compelling reasons for your choice St Matthius. -
Heart Tree Group Sculpture
We enjoyed putting together our group sculpture. We used our blonde hair to represent the gold cord wrapped around the tree, our arms as branches, our bodies as the trunk and two of us next to the trunk representing the trapped boys.
Comments
6th Dec 2019, 2:47pm Love the way you have brought this to life! -
Heart Tree Visualisation
We love the visualisation activities, as they really give us a chance to unpick the language used and widen our vocabularies. It’s also really interesting to see other people’s interpretation of the same passage. Some of us really took the description of the tree ‘arrowing upwards’ very literally!
Comments
6th Dec 2019, 2:49pm Visualisation is such a powerful tool isn't it. Great to see you using it so well! -
Heart Tree Verbs
We came up with some excellent verbs to describe what the boys are doing when they are released from the tree. The lack of suitable verbs for when the boys are part of the tree highlights how inanimate they are and how tree-like they have actually become.
Comments
6th Dec 2019, 2:45pm Amazing words! -
Bear’s Cave
It’s interesting how we all drew a very similar shape for our caves, but the mood captured within varies greatly!
Comments
21st Nov 2019, 11:24am How atmospheric! -
Readers’ Theatre
Yr6 RG enjoyed their readers’ theatre today. I managed to capture Pipa part way up the oak tree and Pipa’s face definitely captures her playful nature.
Comments
21st Nov 2019, 11:23am We really enjoyed seeing you using this fabulous drama technique to get deeper into the story! Well done Northumberland Heath! -
Conscience alley
Just finished a mind-blowing session with our Year 6 RG! They absolutely thrived during conscience alley and very decisively convinced Mila to take Pipa with her on the journey. They have already asked to use this technique again as they all found it so enjoyable.
Comments
15th Nov 2019, 8:40am We are so glad to hear that you have found this technique so powerful. It's such a great way to get inside the head of characters! -
Submission by Northumberland Heath Primary School
A Wrinkle in Time storyboard
Our Year 6 RG group produced a great storyboard for their movie trailer. They picked the key themes of family, friendship, mental health and accepting differences. They added in a little question at the end to really make the potential viewer wonder what might happen and really want to find out.
Comments
8th Nov 2019, 1:27pm We agree - this is a great trailer! We particularly like the questions at the end and think they will really intrigue readers and make them want to pick up the book. -
Quick book review!
Yr6 have really enjoyed this book! They wanted to share some of their thoughts about this book! One child said that they didn’t expect to enjoy the book as much as they did.
Comments
21st Oct 2019, 2:30pm I love the way you have summarised your thoughts so concisely. It's interesting to hear that one of the group members enjoyed it more than they expected - that's one of the things we love about Reading Gladiators! -
Persuasive Leaders
In session 3, we talked about the rescue party’s arrival on Camazotz , and the eerie effect it has on the reader. We split into teams and tried our best to convince prospective new residents to settle on our planet.
Finally we discussed statements linked to the text which we found did not really have a right/wrong answer, it depended on how you viewed the question and the links to the wider world.
This led us to a final question which we finished the session with:
Is it alright if you have to do something bad, to allow good to happen?Comments
21st Oct 2019, 2:35pm We are so impressed with your thinking and your question gives us real food for thought! -
Reading Gladiators: A Fifth Dimension?
Today, we shared our visualisations of the tesseract and discussed the effects that it might have on the narrative. We looked at mentions of the term in literature and popular culture and thought about how this might have originated from, or linked to, the book.
Discussion about a fifth dimension proved very popular!Comments
21st Oct 2019, 2:36pm Great to see you looking further afield for connections here. It's so interesting to see your visualisations of the tesseract too. -
Map of ‘A Wrinkle in Time’
Our Yr 6 RG’s map of the planetary settings is great! I particularly like the representations of the 2d planet and Ixchel.
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Ixchel Role Play
Our year 6 gladiators had so much fun role playing as Meg and Aunt Beast. They came up with such imaginative ways of representing the aliens and captured perfectly the change in Meg from fearful to comfortable.
Comments
9th Oct 2019, 11:41am You look completely immersed which is great to see!10th Oct 2019, 3:10pm What a brilliant photo! I'd love to come and join in! -
Tesseract
Our year 6 Gladiators’ tesseracts are all so similar, I wonder if IT is controlling their minds?!?
Comments
7th Oct 2019, 10:39am Ooh yes! It could be a tesseract takeover! -
Let the Challenge Begin!
Welcome year 6 Gladiators. The 2019-20 challenge is about to begin. We can’t wait to hear what you think about your new books.
Comments