Grade 6

Reading

Students have completed reading Once by Morris Gleitzman. They have been developing their comprehension skills by exploring the characters and their experiences, making inferences from the text, and building their understanding of the historical events and context surrounding the story. Students have also discussed how the characters’ experiences, choices and relationships change throughout the novel and have used evidence from the text to support their ideas and responses.

Writing

Students have finished their research on Poland, exploring its flora and fauna, connection to Australia, people and culture, land and climate. They have used their research to create detailed information reports, focusing on organising information into clear sections, using appropriate text features and writing factual and engaging paragraphs. Students have been developing their understanding of how to structure an effective information report, including writing clear topic sentences to introduce each paragraph and concluding sentences to bring their ideas together. They have also worked on selecting relevant information, putting research into their own words and presenting their ideas in a clear and organised way.

Mathematics

Our learning has focused on multiplication and division strategies. Students have been building their confidence by using known multiplication and division facts to solve problems and applying these facts to more challenging calculations. They have also been learning to multiply and divide by powers of ten, developing their understanding of how numbers change when multiplying or dividing by 10, 100 and 1000. Students have been encouraged to choose efficient strategies, explain their thinking and check their answers. 

Humanities

We have continued our unit on the Australian Government and how decisions are made in a democratic system. Students are choosing a new rule they would like to introduce, researching and developing arguments to support their idea, and preparing to campaign for their rule as part of an upcoming class debate. They are considering different points of view, developing persuasive arguments and thinking about how they can convince others to support their proposed rule. This will culminate in students presenting their ideas and taking part in a class vote.