Year Five/ Six

Communicating with the Year Five/Six Team

We look forward to partnering with you in 2022, and welcome your input:

Llewela Humphries (Class 56A) Llewela.Humphries@education.vic.gov.au

Melissa Woollard (Class 56B) Melissa.Woollard@education.vic.gov.au

Zoe Overdyk (Class 56C) Zoe.Overdyk@education.vic.gov.au

What will you find in this issue:

English Overview / Home Learning Update

English Overview Term Two

WRITING

During Term Two the Year Five and Six students have had a focus on two main text types: Persuasive and Information Reports. We covered Procedural texts during the week of NAPLAN as a bridge between the two writing styles.

Persuasive:

To begin the term the Year Five / Six students spent 3 weeks investigating how we write a clear and descriptive Persuasive text. Students were able to present their point of view on a number of different issues. They focused on the concept of the Magic 3 - 3 main persuasive ideas (arguments) and within each you provided 3 main reasons. By the end of a piece of text the students would have 9 reasons, which is plenty when you need to persuade a particular audience.

Information Reports:

For the remainder of the term, students have been focusing on Information Reports. The text structure, language conventions and topics have all had weekly priority as students need to continue revisiting these important features. Students will be developing three information reports which will develop a Non-Fiction book. These will all include a Front cover, Contents page, Information pages, Glossary, Index and Back cover. This will be the Portfolio task for all students and will be assessed using the Steps to Success format by the class teachers.

Below are a few photos showing the students researching for their reports and the attachments are of students information report.

Daniel - Sun information report.pdf

Ben - Sun Facts.pdf

Flynn - The Sun.pdf

Tess - The Sun.pdf

Procedures:

During the week of NAPLAN, we looked at the importance of writing a Procedural text and the specific language features that you will use and find. Students could chose what they wrote about and how they presented the actual steps for completion. In 5/6A, the students all made their own paper airplane and the recorded themselves using iPads, completing the steps. A partner had to view and follow the steps to see if they got the same result.

5/6A - Paper Airplane digital instructions:

READING

Term Two has seen our student moving from the Thinking Tracks comprehension tools to focusing on the reading comprehension skills taught through the Fountas and Pinnell program. This program investigates three main areas of text comprehension: Thinking Within the text, Thinking About the Text and Thinking Beyond the Text.

Comprehension skills taught during the term, include: monitor and correct, search for and use information, inference, critique, summarise, maintain fluency, predict, connection text to text /self / world.

SPEAKING & LISTENING

Tuning into the Speaking and Listening curriculum is regularly done through different avenues in the classroom. Students share thoughts, ideas and findings in class lessons, participate in class discussions, ask and respond to questions linked to current affairs (BTN sessions), offer and listen to feed forward from both the teacher and peers and participate in group activities.

During Week Six, students were given the opportunity to verbally present either their week five Natural Disasters homework, their Natural Disaster information report or their Natural Disaster Newspaper front cover. This was a great chance for students to tune in on public speaking skills such as tone, pace, expression and connections with the audience through eye contact and body position.

Home Learning:

This Term, your child will have started coming home with their weekly Home Learning tasks. Activities are linked to concepts covered the week prior during class time and are aimed to reinforce skills taught at school through revision. Home Learning is also a great opportunity for your child to practice building time management skills in preparations for high school. It will be sent home every Friday and is due back to your child's classroom teacher by the following Wednesday. This is to allow teachers sufficient time to mark the Home Learning before sending it home for the following week.

Over the past few weeks we have moved our focus on to Natural Disasters and Extreme weather conditions. Below are a few photos of the displays coming in for the Home Learning task: