Grade 5 News 

Upcoming Dates – Term 2

Friday 29th May: Winter Round Robin Day 2

Important Reminders

• The Grade 5 maths curriculum assumes that all students know their multiplication tables. If your child is still working on this skill, we ask that you support them by finding some time to practise. If you would like suggestions about how to practise, please get in touch with your child's classroom teacher.
• Grade 6 Leaders sell icy poles each Monday and Tuesday at lunchtime for $1

Grade 5 Specialist Timetable

Learning in Action

Word Work

This fortnight students completed exploring the meanings of words derived from the Latin base duce/duct, meaning to lead. We also had short lessons on chron meaning time, photo meaning light and st-sist-sin meaning stand.

Preview for learning:

They will conclude the lessons of st-sist-sin meaning stand and explore trib, meaning pay/bestow.

Literature

Students concluded reading the first novel, 'Black Cockatoo,' by Carl Herrison and Hakea Hustler, about an Indigenous girl in outback Australia, and commenced reading 'Dirrarn,' the sequel. In this second novel, the main character, Mia, has moved from Country to boarding school in Perth. Students have been following along as Mia encounters bullying and homesickness along with friendships and dreams for the future. In Sentence Level Writing, the focus has been on writing statements, commands, questions and exclamations and using appositives and subordinating conjunctions to make it more interesting.

Preview for Learning: 

In the upcoming fortnight, students will work towards finishing reading the novel, and through supplementary reading, learn about Jandamarra, a legendary figure of the Bunuba people. They will use some of this knowledge to complete their factual recount.

➗ Maths

Students enjoyed learning about 3D objects such as spheres, cubes, cylinders and cones. They had hands-on opportunities to design nets for objects in the classroom. Using a ruler and pencil, students measured their chosen object before being tasked with creating the nets and constructing appropriate packaging for different items. Following this, we moved onto learning about decimals, more specifically, tenths, hundreds and thousandths. We learnt how to write them on a place value chart and represent them on a grid.

Preview for Learning:

In the upcoming fortnight, we will continue with our learning about decimals, representing on a grid, placing on number lines and comparing numbers up to three decimal places. 

Knowledge Rich

This term we have continued learning about Australia in the 1800s. We have learnt about the impacts of the Industrial Era resulting in job losses in the country, therefore causing overcrowding in the cities. The Industrial Era also impacted jobs in the cities, with machines replacing workers in the factories. With no government support, people turned to stealing to feed and support their families. As a result, prisons were filled to the brim, so prison ships took the overflow. Australia was proposed as a solution to this problem, with the advantage of creating a military presence in the Pacific Region. Hence, colonisation and the first of the penal settlements began. For the First Nations people, this meant dispossession of land, loss of hunting grounds, sacred sites, loss of culture and loss of life. In some cases, communication and collaboration instead of resistance, meant that language was taught, shared and documented for the future. We have been so pleased to see students taking on their own mini projects related to our learning and presenting them to their classmates', further enriching their own and the knowledge of others.  

Preview for Learning: 

In the upcoming fortnight we will be exploring key events in Victoria’s history including the gold rush and Eureka Stockade, along with improvements in technology and transport and further exploration of Australia. There will be further opportunities for mini projects and presentations. 

Wellbeing

Students have enjoyed a variety of wellbeing activities so far this term. Our Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships (RRRR) program’s key focus is Emotional Literacy. This will continue to run over several weeks, with students delving into what emotions look like, recognising positive, negative and mixed emotions, and dealing with intense emotions. We moved across the school and across year levels to meet in our Circles groups. Our Year 6 leaders run the sessions, with the main focus being on our current school value, which in week 4 was Respect.

Cross Country

Congratulations to those students who represented LPS at the recent cross country event.

Grade 5 Teachers

Karin Halstead, Peta Alexander, Susanne Stokol with Miss Bortoli, and Irene Chalmers