5/6 Super Stars

Classroom

Inquiry - States of Matter

Vinegar and bi carb rocket ships

Within this term's inquiry unit we have been looking into various states of matter - from liquid to solids and gas. We have been exploring each states properties and finally, whether we could form different states through a chemical reaction.

A highlight was our bi carb and vinegar rocket experiment where we created pressure via a chemical reaction of bicarb and vinegar. There were lots of variables but some launches were really exciting. Our hypotheis that a changed state could be created via a chemical reaction was confirmed with the creation of a gas to power the rocket.

Inquiry will now head into examining geography around the globe.

Literacy

Our class text centres on a book called 'The One and Only Ivan' which examines how animals are treated in captivity for human's entertainment.

Most of our Oral Reading Fluency, Grammar (including tense, literal v inferential questions, first v third person) has been driven by this text. The students have been exploring the various themes and writing devices of the author.

Mathematics

We have been working on our automatic recall mostly around our 7 and 8 tables. We have also been exploring tricks and approaches to working out other tables such as patterning, inverses and subitising.

There has been a deep dive into the relationship between fractions, decimals and percentage. We also looked more closely at fraction equivalence and being able to add and subtract fractions both proper and improper.

Currently we are examining 12 opposed to 24 hour time and being able to apply this knowledge in using timetables.

STEM

In week 3 we had two teams head to BlueScope for the ISAC Challenge. 

This is a STEM Challenge between schools. The challenge this year was to construct a tower using one deck of playing cards that could withstand the sideways force of an industrial fan.

Bittern had two teams - The Windy Wobblers (Gemma, Daisy, Luella and Hunter) plus the Skyscrapers (Kayden, Sheena, Rose and Indie). Indie was absent on the day so Skyscrapers went in one team member down.

Students had previously collaborated and researched design parameters and built a prototype to reconstruct on the day.

Windy Wobblers had it won with the tallest building but unfortunately saw a collapse in the last second of the fan being applied. The feedback from judges was that this was the best competition design but a small construction component miss possibly caused the collapse. Fantastic effort.

The Skyscrapers withstood the force and came in second which was a sensational result and earnt the school $300 in prizes.

We were very proud of the groups ability to learn and collaborate as a team to create some amazing structures.

Dates to Remember: