Your half term challenge is to prepare a presentation in preparation for our ORACY assessment next term. You have already decided your groups and chosen your topics. You must now find information and prepare your presentation. Remember that everyone should have a speaking role. The more you have to say and the way in which you express your information is very important. Some of you have already written power points to help with your presentations. This is a great way in which to enhance your work. Props, artifacts and costumes may also help. Put in a really good effort please! These presentations will NOT be assessed, but the feed back I give you will certainly help you with your ultimate presentations.

Pontyclun Rappers

Today we took some of our finished posters, and put them up around the village.

We hope they will encourage villagers to pick up their dog's mess and bin it appropriately.

We went to Giles Gallery, the Charity Shop, Old School Surgery, the Vet's and the Library. Thanks to all concerned for letting us display our posters.

Can you spot our work around the village?

Today we were visited by The Marine Conservation Society. We were told a lot about sea creatures and their habitats and food chains. Some facts were very interesting. For example last year only 4 people were killed by sharks world wide, while six times as many were killed by falling coconuts and over 700 people were electricuted by toasters! Top tip - never try making toast under a palm tree!

There are some fun games and activities to be found on their website.

http://http//www.mcsuk.org/

Year 6 Fashion Show

Another brilliant day. ECO week has been great fun!

Today we held our recycling fashion show.

All the children (and some of the teachers) wore clothes made out of recyclable materials.

Mr Williams was the compare and did a fantastic job. We even laughed at a few of his jokes!

Our judges were:

Mr Llewellyn, dressed as a plant.

Mrs Reed, dressed as Cocco Chanelle.

Miss Spackman dressed as an Eco Warrior.

Miss Harwood in a very fetching black bin bag complete with accessories.



The children and their parents had put a lot of hard work into their costumes and there were some wonderful creations on display from all year groups.

Here are some pictures of the catwalk show.

A video of both classes WILL follow later, I promise.

Congratulations to our 4 semi-finalists, Harry and Alex from J7, and Louis and Jenna from J8.

An extra well done to Louis for making it to the final and coming 3rd overall, with Amelia in Y4 being placed second.



A huge well done to Pheobe Nock in Y4 who was our overall winner.

This afternoon we listened to a talk by members of the Rhondda Cynon Taff Environmental Team.
They talked about litter, fly tipping but most of all about dog mess!
I hope we are not getting a reputation in the county!

Later the team took some Y6 children around the village to put up official posters warning of £1000 fines to owners who do not pick up their dog's mess.

Can you identify where in the village we put up our official posters?

Our own hand made posters will go up next week.

Mrs Giles from Giles Pictures was very pleased to see us putting up posters outside her shop.

Today we welcomed the Rhys Cycle Team from Rhondda Cynon Taff Council. They gave us an informative talk about recycling and then introduced us to Rhys Cycle himself.

Look at his website for some fun games and activities about recycling.

http://http//rhyscycle.co.uk/

What an amazing day. We began by testing our ENTREPRENEURIAL skills by organizing our 'Bring and Buy' sale.

Each group had to set up their stall and used their MATHS SKILLS to price up their products. We then worked out what our maximum profits could be. We also worked out what our profits would be if we reduced our prices by 50% and 25%.

Children from Y3 and Y4 were invited to our sale (Y5 were on a trip). It was a very successful morning. J8 collected £135 and J7 collected £105. The rest of our 'stuff' will be available for sale tomorrow.

Look at how well organised Bethan's stall was. She even made posters using her IT skills.

Today J7 wrote our ECO raps. We spent the first part of the morning discussing what we have discovered about being a GLOBAL CITIZEN . In our groups we used our COMMUNICATION SKILLS to write a list of words that we could include in our raps.

Our SUCCESS CRITERIA was to include as many ideas as possible and present them in an organized fashion.

Then we wrote our raps and went into the yard to practice them.

Later, our raps were videoed and we then watched them back to see whether they matched our SUCCESS CRITERIA.

We were then given the opportunity to refine our performances before they were filmed for the final time.

MAD RAPPERS

'We performed it well,' said Gabriel.

'We need to move around more,' said Ellie.

RECYCLE RAPPERS

'We included some important points and made sure it rhymed,' said Josh.

'We should try to take less time on our ending,' said Daniel.

BEATBOXERS

'Our organization was good,' said Amy-Kate.

'We must try to remember the words,' said Will.

ECO WARRIORS

'We liked the chorus because the rhythm was catchy,' said James.

'We need to improve the timing,' said Mackensie.

THE 3R RAPPERS

'The chorus was catchy and we liked the pyramid at the end,' said Ben.

'We need to remember our actions,' said Menna.

Watch our final videos when Mrs Davies wrestles the computer off her daughter!

The Weird Taxi Driver

Pontyclun Spice Girls

Bob the Rapper

Rap Stars Junior

The ECO Team

Today we continued with our ECO raps. We began with a short practice, then we filmed our efforts so far. Back in class we watched the videos on the white board and APPRAISED our performances. We wanted to modify and improve our raps and found this a good tool.

Each group then gave themselves a name, discussed their performance and came up with one thing that they liked about it and one thing that could be improved.

Here are the groups and their appraisals:

BOB THE RAPPER
'We liked our ending it was explosive,' said Daniel.
'We need to practice the last two lines because we get lost,' said Morgan.

THE WEIRD TAXI DRIVER
'We had good timing,' said Jenna.
'We need to be louder,' said Shannon.

THE ECO TEAM
'We organised ourselves well,' said Corey.
'We could have more movement,' said Molly.

RAP STARS JUNIOR
'We worked hard on our words, our rap was very good,' said Mercedes.
'We could rap a bit more,' said Charlie.

PONTYCLUN SPICE GIRLS
'We were funny and we had good outfits,' said Frankie.
'We need to work on our diction,' said Frankie.

After watching our videos and appraising our performances we then set new SUCCESS CRITERIA. We went back into the yard to practice one last time. Then filmed our ultimate performances. View them here later on.

Today in P.E we attempted a group sequence. It was our best P.E session ever. We had to use our number skills to time our movements and shapes. We then had to communicate as a group at which speeds and levels we were going to perform our sequence. We must have been good because even our quality checker communicated to us through use of the digital camera that he was very happy.

Today in D.T we finally got to make our electric cars.

After weeks of designing and product analysis the mission was underway.

In our groups Freddy was everywhere. We were thinking, communicating and using a whole range of measuring skills. It was a difficult day and errors were made on the way, but the majority of cars achieved the success criteria (set by ourselves). J8 now have to make their cars and when all cars are complete ICT skills will then be used to computer manufacture the shells

We could even take it one step further using Go Software or our Learn and Go Boxes.

J8 will make their cars tomorrow while J7 complete their ECO raps. J8 are a bit concerned that Mr Williams will take them for their D.T session tomorrow following the dubious success of his cars last year compared to those of Mrs Davies class!

Make sure you play fair Mr Williams. Watch out for any skulduggery J8!!