Year 5 - Newsletter
Term 3, Week 3 and 4
Gold fever has continued to sweep through the Year 5 area and the students have relished in the excitement of this era. Some students are still hunting through our classrooms looking for undiscovered piles of gold coins. It’s such a wonderful, fun unit!
Our Gold Rush Reading Investigations have allowed students an opportunity to improve their comprehension strategies, while reflecting and forming opinions on what they have read. Each week, the students work with a partner to explore a new aspect of the Goldfields and the diverse collection of people that called it home. To date, the children have read about when and how the Gold Rush started. Over weeks 3 and 4, they are reading about how people from around the world raced to Australia's goldfields, what it was like when they arrived on Australian soil and how they travelled to the goldfields once here. Later in the term, students will investigate different mining methods, how law and order was (or wasn’t) kept, the impact of the Gold Rush on Aboriginal people and the Eureka Stockade. So with their growing knowledge of the Gold Rush, the students will contemplate…was the Gold Rush – good, bad or ugly?
Last week, we completed our division work, allowing us to move onto fractions, decimals and percentages. We will first focus on fractions. Building skills on representing fractional parts of objects and collections, ordering and comparing fractions, identifying equivalent fractions, mixed numerals and locating and representing fractions on a number line. At times, students can be intimidated by fractions and we endeavour to build their skills and confidence in this area!
We began our first whole-class novel study this term! While reading, Dirrarn by Carl Merrison and Hakea Hustler, students engage in daily reviews, where they practise word-level reading, explore morphology and vocabulary and have the opportunity to build their understanding of grammar. Through independent, choral and partner reading, students work on their fluency. Our text-level writing will focus on students producing well structured factual recounts linked with themes discussed in the novel, Dirrarn.
PETER PAN!! Rehearsals are in full swing and the energy is building as each class refines their performance for the up and coming production! We hope you have booked your tickets and are looking forward to the August 15th show!
We had a number of students head off to District Athletics on Tuesday this week. Congratulations to all who participated!
The Diamond Creek trail was alive with the children’s chants as they participated in the Walk-a-thon on Thursday! It is always wonderful to see each class's banner and to know we are working together to raise money for our school.
Looking ahead this term:
Week 4
PJ Day August 6 - Gold Coin Donations
Production rehearsals continue
Week 5
Production rehearsal at EHS followed by nighttime performance at 6:00pm August 15
Week6
Book Day Parade August 20
Week 7
Father’s Day Stall August 26
Week 9
Sovereign Hill Excursion September 10
Footy Day September 11
Week 10
Last Day September 20
Best wishes,
The Year 5 Team
(Michael, Claire, Sarah, Michelle, Alicia and Gemma)