Classroom News - Year 6

Maths

Year Six have begun our unit on chance and data and can now explain the difference between frequency and probability. Students will be playing games of chance to help them the probability of different events occurring and then using the data they gather to create graphs representing the results.

English

We have continued our study of Stormboy and discussed how the creators used music to influence the audiences mood. This has included identifying the instruments used and even watching a short clip from Pirates of the Caribean with different music overlaid to  see what a dramatic difference this can make to our interpretation of the text.

Operetta practise is in full swing most students are able to recite their lines from memory and we are now focusing on our positioning on the stage and how the characters interact with one another.

Orienteering

On Friday, 26th of October 3-6 went to Sunnyside Travelling Stock Reserve for orienteering. There were 18 checkpoints and every team had to try and find them in 1 hour. Three of the teams in year six found all 18 checkpoints in the hour they were given. There are two ways you could do the Orienteering course, the line course which means you have to get the checkpoints in order or the score course which means you can find them in any order you want to. Every team from St Mary’s Armidale did the score course. Unfortunately at the end of the day Lilli Blake broke her arm in two places but it’s not orienteering unless someone gets hurt.

By Sophie Carson and Laura Seach

Brain Olympia

On Wednesday last week two teams of eight travelled to Inverell to compete in Brain Olympia. In Brain Olympia there are five rounds of general knowledge trivia. The subjects include HSIE, English, Current Affairs, Famous People and Places and Science. Both teams went really well in all subjects.

After trivia the teams were given a speech topic. This year the speech topic was “My Favourite Place”.  We had around 40 minutes to write our speech and to choose who was going to present it. For St Mary’s 1 Indiana Ramage presented, and for St Mary’s 2 Josephine O’Baoill.

After recess we were given five maths problems to solve. We had about 40 minutes to solve them all. Both teams did well, Armidale 1 got a great score of 23 out of 30 and Armidale 2  got 21. The Maths questions were very hard and required a lot of thinking but both teams were able to pull through.

After the maths problems were completed, Indi and Josie had to present the speeches. Both teams did really well, with Indi getting a special mention and Josie managing to get full marks and put St Mary’s 2 a long way ahead of all the other teams.

Next, we were given a drama topic. This year it was “Little Red Riding Hood.”

Armidale 1 called their skit “ Little Red Riding Hood, a more violent story”  and Armidale 2 did “Little Red Riding Hood and her Fairytale Friends”. We were given through lunch to practise, before presenting at 3.00pm. Both teams presented extremely well, but Armidale 2 came out with a win by 1 point in front of Armidale 1, with a score of 19 out of 20 for team 2.

After Drama, it was time for presentations, and to announce the winners. Barraba were the winners of the small school section, St Mary’s 2 came 1st with 80 points, and  St Mary’s 1 coming 3rd by one point, just missing out on going to Narrabri.

We would all like to thank the parents who came along to support us during the day, and a special thanks to Mrs Gollan who prepared us for the day, as well as driving some of us, and putting up with us all day. Thanks Mrs Gollan.

By the Year 6 Brain Olympia students

Gardening

Students have been working hard moving one of our garden beds so that we can use the cricket nets as a trellis for growing beans, peas and tomatoes.

We were also lucky to receive the left over plants from the fete and have been busy planting dahlia tubers, red silverbeet and sedums. 

Thanks to Josephine Ryan's mum who dropped off some more sheep manure which we mixed in while moving our tomato bed, planting our seedlings and in our compost. Mr Garraud is also collecting used coffee grounds from Seesaw coffee shop to add to our compost. If there are any Year Six family members that work at a coffee shop we would love to get your used coffee grounds for our compost.