Year 6 – Temples of Doom! (+ Important Bikeability Information!)

Glyphs, Sacrifices and Pok-a-Tok: discovering the Maya way of life!

On Monday, the children were hooked into our exciting new topic – Temples of Doom! We began by watching a short video which introduced the Maya civilisation. Throughout the afternoon, our enthusiastic children took part in three different activities to immerse themselves in the Maya lifestyle.

To be accurate historians, we needed to identify where the Maya civilisation lay on a timeline of world history. They compared the length of the Maya civilisation with others such as the Ancient Greeks, Ancient Egyptians and Victorians. They also used the timeline to judge which historical groups coincided around the world e.g. they had to deduce that Emperor Claudius was alive in Rome at the same time Maya rulers occupied modern day Mexico but it was impossible for Queen Victoria to have met a Maya ruler.

Did you know the Maya developed one of most sophisticated number systems ever developed in the Americas? They invented the notation of ‘zero’ as a place holder. We had a taster of becoming Maya mathematicians once we had solved what the dots and lines represented.

Amazingly, the Maya hieroglyphic script was the only fully-fledged writing system in the Americas. We discovered some of the glyphs they used which consisted of either ‘logograms’ (pictures representing whole words) or ‘syllabograms’ (sounds put together to create words). With difficulty for some of us. we then attempted to create our names using these glyphs!

Come and visit our Maya Museum!

We would love to invite you to our parent project outcome on Thursday 2nd April at 9am. As historians, and Maya experts, we can’t wait to share all of our learning with you as we treat you to a morning in our ‘Maya Museum’.

Bikeability – Important Information!

Next week, the children will take part in their ‘Bikeability’ training, which aims to develop their skills and confidence when riding a bike. Hopefully, it will enable the children to make a short journey on a road in a safer manner and become more aware of road safety issues.

Bikes and Helmets

If your child needs to borrow a bike or helmet, and you haven’t already informed us using the consent form that you returned, please let us know as soon as possible. Ideally, any children who own their own bike and helmet will bring them to school each morning and take them home each afternoon. It is advised that they also bring a bike lock to ensure their bike is kept safe during the day whilst not in use. Please ensure that they also bring the bike lock key too!

If for any reason, your child is unable to take home their bike and helmet each day, they can leave it in the classroom overnight. They must be responsible for bringing it in safely at the end of the day, and taking it back outside each morning. We hope you understand that we do not have the space to accommodate every child’s bike overnight and so we encourage those who can take them home each day to please do so.

Clothing

Children are required to wear non-baggy trousers (leggings or joggers that are tight at the ankle are fine) and trainers during their Bikeability session. They will need to be in normal school uniform throughout the rest of the day. On Thursday 5^th March, which is World Book Day, the children will still be required to change into suitable clothing for their session if their outfit is not appropriate.

Lunches

Although the children’s lunchtime may vary each day during Bikeability week, school dinners will still be available for any child who requires one.

Please contact us if you have any questions about Bikeability week.