Grade 5/6

Literacy

Last week in literacy, the 5/6s finished reading our mentor text ‘Black Cockatoo’ 

Black Cockatoo is a vignette that follows Mia, a young Aboriginal girl as she explores the fragile connections of family and culture. Mia is a 13-year-old girl from a remote community in the Kimberley. She is saddened by the loss of her brother as he distances himself from the family.

We learnt how to analysis a character based on description, illustrations, actions and language. It was amazing to hear the deep conversations that were had throughout this unit to develop our understanding and knowledge of different types of texts. 

This week, we have started our next mentor text ‘Dirrarn’ which follows on from ‘Black Cockatoo’ we will read about how the main character Mia navigates her way through culture, Country and family ties when she moves to a boarding school in Perth. At the end of this unit we will be writing a factual recount about Jandamarra, an Aboriginal Leader. We can’t wait to see the amazing writing pieces the students come up with. 

Numeracy

Big Idea 6 - PROPERTIES: For a given set of numbers there are relationships that are always true, and these are the rules that govern arithmetic and algebra. 

This stage of our numeracy, our students are focusing on different properties and how they are linked in a certain way. There will be a heavy focus on multiplication, partitioning and solving step by step equations which leads into arithmetic and algebraic equations and problems. 

They will formulate algebraic equations using all operations, squared numbers and equivalent number sentences using BODMAS. 

Integrated Studies

We have wrapped up our final lessons of our topic, Australia and our Asian Neighbours. 

Students will learn about different aspects of Australia, including the people who live here, extreme weather and disasters, food production and the landscapes and landforms around the country. They will have opportunities to analyse different data types, looking for trends and patterns, including migration data from the Australian Census. Students will learn about life in Asian countries and select a country to research. 

We have just learnt about what landscapes are and famous/popular landmarks in Australia. Students created a PowerPoint about an Australian Landmark. Uluru, The Three Sisters and The Great Barrier Reef being very popular choices.

Now, our students have chosen their groups and been given an Asian country to which their final project will be based off. Students have plenty to research about that country and are going to create a "Postcards" type of video, persuading you to visit this country due to all its great things to see and do. Students will create a video with audio, pictures, videos etc to help them convince you. Once this is completed, we will share this via our newsletter.