Level 5: Connect

The following articles have been written by the students themselves, sharing their perspectives and experiences of our learning and activities. We hope you enjoy reading their account of life in the Senior Learning Centre!

Literacy - By Melissa H 5B 

📖 In Reading, we have been learning about threatened and extinct animals such as the Thylacine. We got to pick an animal on Zoo's Victoria and researched information about the animal of our choice. We answered questions such as Conservation status, cause of vulnerability and the positive and negative influences that humans have on the animal that is fighting extinction. 

Also each term we have a book we focus on, this term our book is called One Careless Night. Before we start reading our book, we make inferences of what we think is going to happen in the book. We make inferences based on the front cover, title, tagline and the blurb.

📝 In Writing, we are learning about structure of sentences, adverbial phrases, technical language and different types of clauses. We are mainly learning about the subject of a sentence, the predicate, the phrases, and the two different clauses. The Independent clause means it will make sense on its own, and the Dependent clause means it relies on the independent clause, and it won't make sense on its own. The sentence types that we have learned about are complete sentences, complex sentences, compound sentences, simple sentences and appositives. 

Here is a example of an appositive: Koalas, fluffy and cute animals, live in eucalyptus trees.

🔡 In Core Literacy, we have been sounding out words and blending them together to figure out the right pronunciation. We have also been working together enthusiastically to find the meaning of the words. We have been learning about prefixes, suffixes and the root words. We wrote the spelling of the words on our whiteboards, circled or underlined the different morphemes and tick or fix. 

Fix, if you misspelt the word you do a cross next to it and rewrite it correctly. 

Tick, if you get the word right you do a small tick next to the word.

That is what Level 5 has been doing for the past weeks. 

Numeracy - By Fletcher and Jimmy 5C

Mathematics - By Fletcher 

Last week, the Year 5 students were learning about percentages and if they are equal or not. Some classes have been doing a game of Four Corners. The second time they played the game they rigged the deck of cards by taking out some of the cards in some of the suits and also adding more cards to other suits. This meant that the chances were not fair in the game. At the start it was 25% chance each of getting a corner (which was fair), but then the chances changed. One suit had a 66% chance, then another time one had a 82% chance, then a 3% chance and then a 30% chance. These games were definitely not fair. We had to decide if each round was equal or not. 

After playing Four Corners, we made our own game of chance and then the other people in the class tested if it was fair or not (most were unfair). I think it was a good and fun way to learn about percentages.

Inquiry - by Margot S and Ellie M 5A

Hi, 

We are Margot and Ellie we want to share our learning in Inquiry. We have been learning about economics and developing our own business plans. We have upgraded old clothes and items into fashionable and wearable products. Margot has made a tote bag and beautiful shorts from old rags and fabric. Her busness is called "Margot Mer". Ellie and Chloe have made shorts, tops and stylish shoes from a ripped skirt, ribbons and old shoes from Level 5's camp to Sovereign Hill and the business is called "Economy".

Our business plans included making and using our persuading skills to help sell our products. We have stopped these old clothes from polluting the environment and ending up in landfill. By reducing that waste we are helping to stop climate change. When we started we got into groupd of 1-4 people to map out and make our business which included our logo and business name.

Our inspiration was Belinda from RCYCL who talked us through her experience making it. In conclusion we have had lots of fun making and designing our products and business plans. We are so gratefulfor all of our teachers and Belinda and we say "Thank You" on behalf of Level 5.

Cooking with Mr Marco by Franco F and Raff M 5A

We made a delicious pizza focaccia with Mr Marco. He has been teaching us how to chop some vegetables, how to spread the dough and have fun! Here are the most important steps of this meal:

1. First, we split up into groups of six, and half cut the toppings while the other three made the dough.

2. We baked the dough.

3. We put on the toppings.

4. And then we baked the pizzas, and finished!!!

5. But now for our favourite bit! We ate it, and it was so good! Raff's favourite was margherita, and Franco's was the lot!

THANKS FOR READING FRANCO AND RAFF'S COOKING NEWSLETTER!!!

Warm regards,

The Level 5 Team - 5A, 5B & 5C