Connect: Year 6

Happy Labour Day Holiday for Monday everybody!

Melbourne celebrates Labour Day with a public holiday on the second Monday of March every year. Labour Day has its origins in the eight hour day movement which advocated eight hours for work eight hours for recreation and eight hours for rest.  Labour Day is an annual holiday celebrated in Australia resulting from efforts of the labour union movement to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers.  https://www.onlymelbourne.com.au/labour-day-melbourne-history

Important Dates

*NAPLAN, 13th-25th of March (Year 5s)

*Friday 22nd March - Hot Chip Lunch

*Monday 25th March - Easter Hat Parade

*Thursday 28th March - House Athletics/Last day of Term One

*Monday 27th May (till Wed 29th) - Year 6 Camp to Waratah Beach

What's happening in the classrooms?

Literacy

Our small group Reading is going fantastically well where the students take turns to read a page aloud while the rest of the group follow along.  Each group is nearing the half way point of their novel and they are on track to finish reading, along with the accompanying study sheets, by the end of the term.

Which brings us to The Princess Bride!  We're hoping to finish the class reading of it by the end of the term too!  The book has more twists and turns than a cheap garden hose and our students are totally engrossed in problems that Buttercup and Westley face.  And that Prince Humperdink is a nasty piece of work!  The students are under strict instructions not to watch the movie before we finish the book and when we do finish, we'll be having a movie afternoon complete with popcorn and the works so we can compare the movie to the book.  It's been a lot of fun so far and who knows how it will finish?  (Well, me as I've read it about 20 times!)

We've been continuously working on our comprehension and keeping up to date with the latest in current affairs by reading articles on the Kidnews website and answering questions in our workbooks

We have also been writing our own narratives and we are into the drafting phase.  The students have created characters and settings and devised a plot that has a problem for our antagonist to overcome.  

In short, our Literacy sessions are full to the brim and the students' efforts have been admirable.  All of this is having an extremely positive effect on their learning.

Numeracy

We are working hard on improving our number skills and identifying patterns.  We do this learning our multiples and times tables.  This leads into learning how to successfully use the multiplication algorithm to correctly multiply by two digit numbers.  A lot of repetition is required here.  

We are looking at data representation and how to analyse what is presented to us through the media.  With the onset of footy season, it will be interesting how they will show evidence of just how much Geelong will win the Premiership by!

Inquiry

It has been an interesting unit of Ethics and Emotions where we have been weighing up and justifying why we have to make difficult choices at times by considering what is the more ethical thing to do.  Sometimes we are presented with an 'either, or' situation that neither decision is one that we want to make.  But by considering the pros and cons of each, we can know that we have done what is ethically right.

Wellbeing

We are Problem Solving in our Respectful Relationship sessions. (which goes nicely with our Inquiry Unit)  We devise strategies and plans to help with completing challenging tasks and we are identifying factors that influence the decisions that we make.  Conflict resolution is such an important life skill to learn and often we have to make compromises to move forward. 

Special Mentions....

The grade 6 kids are working amazingly well with their prep buddies, showing patience and kindness in guiding them through school activities. It's heart-warming to see how cute they all look walking hand in hand to assembly, forming adorable little pairs.

The students had a blast making apple pie in kitchen garden - forget math and science, pie-making should be a mandatory subject! Your children may have come home covered in flour and smelling like apples, but rest assured, the apple pie they made was worth it!

Here are 56C during their session. Sorry no pics of the pies, they were devoured quickly.

Have a great weekend,

Mrs. Kelly, Mr. Taberner & Mr. Keenan