Grade 5 Community News
Hello Grade 5 families!
Weeks 7 and 8 have been filled with exciting learning opportunities and special events for our Grade 5 students. Throughout these weeks, students have continued to work hard in the classroom, demonstrating wonderful effort, teamwork and enthusiasm across all learning areas.
We also had an exciting Book Week, with plenty of enthusiasm and creativity across the Grade 5 cohort. It was wonderful to see students getting involved in the celebrations, sharing their love of books and enjoying the special activities throughout the week. We saw some fabulous costumes come out on Wednesday for our celebration day and our Grade 5 teachers all came as a “Silver Donkey” from our Term 2 English book.
As we look ahead, we are excited for our upcoming Elephant Ed incursion in Week 9, which will provide students with another engaging and valuable learning experience.
We look forward to another busy and rewarding few weeks ahead as students continue to learn, grow and challenge themselves throughout Term 3.
English
We have finished reading Dirrarn and have begun reading Once during Weeks 7 and 8. If you have not yet purchased a copy of Once we strongly encourage you to do this to support students' learning and understanding. Students have been exploring what life was like for Felix and developing a profile of his experiences growing up in an orphanage in Poland during World War II. Through our discussions and reading activities, students have been building their understanding of Felix’s character, experiences and the challenges he faced.
In Writing, students have been focusing on using relative clauses and adding appositives to their writing to provide extra information, engage their reader and make their sentences more interesting. We have also begun exploring the features and structure of an information report. Students will continue developing their understanding of information reports over the coming weeks, working towards creating their own well-structured and informative pieces of writing that showcase their learning.
Mathematics
In Mathematics, students have now finalised their decimals unit, consolidating their understanding of place value involving tenths, hundredths and thousandths. Throughout the unit, students learnt to read, represent, partition and rename decimal numbers, as well as round decimals to the nearest whole number, tenth and hundredth. They applied these skills using number lines, place value understanding and a range of problem-solving tasks.
We have now begun our Measurement unit, where students are developing their understanding of the metric units used to measure length, mass and capacity. Students will learn to select the most appropriate unit of measurement for different situations, compare equivalent measurements and develop their estimation skills. They will also explore how using smaller units can provide greater accuracy when measuring, before applying their knowledge to practical activities and real-world problem-solving tasks. The unit includes work with millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres for length; milligrams, grams and kilograms for mass; and millilitres, litres and kilolitres for capacity.
The recent Times Tables Rock Stars competitions have been a fantastic source of motivation for our students, and we have been extremely pleased with the tremendous effort and enthusiasm shown across the Grade 5 cohort. Next week, students will have another exciting opportunity to participate in the national “Oz Rocks” competition. We encourage families to get behind our Grade 5 students by motivating them to participate and practise regularly at home. Every contribution counts, and we would love to see Grade 5 put in another outstanding team effort.
Humanities
In Humanities, students have continued their journey along the Silk Road, building on their understanding of how this vast network of trade routes developed and connected different parts of the ancient world. More recently, our learning has focused on the effects of the Silk Road and how the movement of resources and people contributed to the growth of towns and cities. Students have explored key locations along the trade routes and investigated why settlements often developed near important resources, particularly reliable sources of freshwater.
Students have also investigated how trade encouraged migration and population growth along the Silk Road. They learnt that growing trading hubs created opportunities for shops, accommodation, food, entertainment, medical services, education and places of worship. Importantly, students have discovered that the Silk Road was not only used to exchange physical goods. The movement of people also resulted in the spread of cultures, languages, religions, knowledge and ideas across great distances. Students have been developing their understanding of cause and effect by considering both the positive and negative impacts of these connections, including cultural exchange, new opportunities and the spread of disease.
Reminders
- iPads charged for school everyday
If possible, please purchase the Term 4 text Once by Morris Gleitzman