Grade 5/6 | Update
What’s been happening in the 5/6 Unit!
Writing
For the past two weeks, the year 5 and 6’s have been working on Poetry during their hour-long writing sessions. After every two days, we start a new form of poetry. Usually, the classes have one day to draft their poems and one day to edit and publish them. At the start of every new type of poem, the teachers will explain how to write it. For instance, we go through the structure, the tone and an example of each poem. The class will write down a short summary of what that specific piece consists of, which altogether takes approximately 10-15 minutes. After that, we have about 45 minutes to write. So far, the three classes have covered Colour, Simile, Haiku, Limerick, Diamante and Cinquain poems. After publishing every type of poem, we print them off to stick into our student portfolios. Each student will then have a display of each of their work and different kinds of poetry.
Written by Aara Kim
Inquiry
This term in the 5/6 cohort, we have been focusing on the Olympics. We started by forming groups of around 5-6 people. We then chose a country and researched about a various Olympic sport in order to create inspiration to design our very own Dana Street Olympic sport. My group has chosen a sport called ‘Sepak Takraw’. It is basically Volleyball, but the net is lower, and you use your feet to kick it. This sport originated in Malaysia. We were all given a lesson proposal document via google classroom. We had to fill this out and show it to a teacher to get it approved.
On the 20th of September, we are teaching the little Foundation and 1/2 students our games.
This will be across a three-session period, where the students will rotate across various sports. From what I have heard everyone is very excited to teach their games.
Written by Cooper Johnson
Reading
In reading this term in the 5/6 cohort, we have been conducting our first Literature Circles cycle. This started with each student ranking four books that they read a chapter of each. Students were then organised into groups for each book, with everyone getting their first rating, except in cases where there were too many people per book.
There are 6 roles, Discussion Director (who facilitates group discussion and explains the book), Summariser (who, well… summarises), Plot Profiler (who steps out their likes and dislikes along with key plot moments), Quizmaster (who asks the group questions), Word Wizard (who explains the meanings of different words from the text), and Researcher (who researches).
There are 6 people in each group, who over 6 weeks read the section of the book, complete each role, and present their work at their group discussion. The discussions take the form of the Discussion Director explaining sections of the book and posing evaluative questions to group members. This is interspersed with the other members reading out their roles and discussing the text with each other.
I have quite enjoyed reading this term, and the book I have (Shadow on The Mountain) is superb, historical fiction in the best sense. I hope this has helped you understand more about our learning this term.
Written by Max Thomas
Mathematics
First, we began learning about coordinates and created an Olympic Village design using shapes that we can match in the coordinates. Then, we made the Olympic village by drawing nets and building them into 3D objects and then we decorated them and stuck them on the template, where everything would go. We did the matching the design we had drawn in our booklets on the coordinates page.
Example= Meeting centre, rectangular prism, (2,12) (2,17) (5,12) (5,17)
Next, we figured out the 3D object (shape of the building) and the measurement of the building (LxWxH) and calculated the volume of each building.
After that, we focused on probability and created probability spinners. We had to choose positive and negative variables that would contribute to an Athletes success in the Olympic 100 metre sprint. We wrote the percentages of the positive and negative variables we chose.
Example= spike shoes= 20% Missed start= -20%
To work out the probability of each athlete, we got dice and rolled it. If it landed on an even number, you would spin on the positive variable spinner. If you got an odd number, you would then spin on the negative variable spinner.
We had a chart of 8 lanes. Whatever even or odd number you rolled, and… let's say you got a -20%, you would roll 5 times and then calculate the end results.
Results example= Lane 3= +20%, -40%, +20%, +30%, -10% = 40% chance of winning
Written by Kenny and Jack