Year Five
Dear Year Five Families,
Welcome back to Term 4! We hope you had a restful break. We are so excited to be back at school for our last term of Year Five together, it's going to be fun, exciting and very busy.
Dreamcity
What a wonderful way to start our first week back with our Dreamcity incursion! The teachers had as much fun as the students cycling through different activities. These activities were Virtual Reality (VR), Electrical Engineering, Sports Science and creating an artwork based on lead light windows. But don't worry, it was educational as well as entertaining. The Electrical Engineering tied in with our next Unit of Inquiry, students analysed their data in Sports Science, we brainstormed the different ways VR can be used in every day life and there was a lot of problem solving during the lead light activity. It was a great, hands on learning experience!
Mindfulness in the Classroom
As part of our continued focus on supporting our students with the skills they will need for their futures, we are excited to trial Mindfulness in the Classroom this term in Year Five. Embedding mindfulness into our daily practice can help to create a calm, connected, and emotionally aware learning environment. To support this, Regina from Namaste Yogis has conducted a Professional Development session with our team to introduce us to practical strategies to promote focus, wellbeing, and self-regulation in our classrooms.
Regina has also made an appearance in our classrooms to lead the students through a series of breath work.
Literacy and Inquiry
Have you noticed your child/ren using effective persuasive techniques to convince you to do something or to buy something for them? Sorry, this has been our focus in Literacy. We have listened to speeches, read mentor texts where authors have used persuasive devices/techniques such as, rhetorical questioning, hyperbole, the power of three and alliteration.
A useful acronym 'AFOREST' helps students to remember these devices. We have identified the devices used and discussed how these were used to persuade the reader, listener or the characters within the story. We have then experimented using these same devices in our writing to create persuasive texts, for example 'Dear Mum and Dad' letters. This has been integrated throughout our current Unit of Inquiry. We have unpacked how products are marketed to us, using these same persuasive devices, and by further appealing to us by using celebrities to endorse particular products. The students will have an opportunity to showcase their learning by persuading teachers in the upcoming mock Shark Tank presentations. The students are working collaboratively in groups to develop a product, along with slogans, jingles, advertisements and PowerPoints to be used as props to enhance their mock sales pitches to the teachers.
Numeracy
We have started the term focussing on Measurement and Geometry; specifically capacity and converting between different measurements (for example; metres to kilometres).
We also explored which unit of measurement was the most practical for what was being measured. We have also been working on worded problems around area and perimeter. Students have been learning how to solve real-life measurement problems. They identified important information in word problems, used reasoning to find missing dimensions, and calculated both perimeter and area in practical contexts. Through these activities, students developed their problem-solving skills and applied their understanding of measurement to everyday situations.
As with all of our learning tasks, these maths tasks are differentiated to cater for the range of leaning needs in our classrooms.
Important Reminders
Upcoming events/Payments: Life Ed and Beach Program. Permission forms and payments due on 7 November through XUNO.
Student led three way conferences - Tuesday 28 October, booking slots are open through XUNO. Conferences run for 10 minutes and are an opportunity for your child to showcase their work.
No Hat No Play: Students are reminded to wear their bucket hats (not caps) when outside the class at recess and lunch times.
MacBooks: MacBooks must be brought to school every dayfully charged.
Mobile Phones: If brought to school, mobile phones must be handed in to the classroom teacher at the start of the day and collected at the end of the day.
Uniform: Students must wear full academic uniform every day On days with sports or PE, they can wear their PE uniform. Long hair should be tied back.
Late Arrivals: Students arriving at school from 8:40 am must sign in at the office before going to class.
Absences: Absences must be logged on Xuno as early as possible to avoid messages home for unexplained absences.
Kind regards,
The Year Five Team.