Year 5/6 News

Intergenerational Garden 

This week, students from Clayton North Primary School visited the Alexander Aged Care, next door, to kickstart an exciting new project that brings together young students and senior citizens in an inspiring way.

As part of our school’s citizenship and sustainability program, we teamed up with residents at the aged care home to sow seeds in small pots. Each student created a personalized label for the pot, pairing it with their senior citizen partner’s name. These labels were made to help seniors remember their special connection with us as they care for the growing seeds.

Over the next few weeks, our new friends at Alexander Aged Care will nurture these plants, watching them grow just like the bond we’ve started building. Once the plants are strong enough, the senior citizens will visit us at Clayton North Primary School. Together, we’ll plant them in our Timeless Garden, the intergenerational garden to brings the community closer.

This activity isn’t just about gardening—it’s about building lasting relationships across generations, teaching us the importance of empathy, care, and respect. We’re learning that small acts, like planting a seed, can grow into something bigger and stronger with time and effort, much like our friendships with the seniors.

We cannot wait for the day when our new senior friends visit our school to see the garden flourish with the plants we started together! This project is a reminder that we all have a role to play in creating a strong and supportive community.

English

Year 5/6 Students Get Creative with Poetry!

This term, Year 5/6 at Clayton North Primary School has been diving into the world of poetry! We have been learning about different types of poems like haiku, tanka, and diamante, and it has been really fun!

A haiku is a short poem with three lines and a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. It’s usually about nature, like the seasons or animals. We also learned about tanka, which is a bit longer with five lines and a 5-7-5-7-7 pattern. Then we explored diamante poems, which are shaped like a diamond and compare two opposite ideas, like “day” and “night” or “fire” and “water.”

What makes our poetry even cooler is that we’ve been adding figurative language. This means using things like similes (comparing things using “like” or “as”), metaphors (saying something is something else), personification (making objects act like people), and alliteration (words starting with the same sound). For example, we wrote a haiku that said, “The wind whispers soft,” using personification to make the wind seem like it is talking!

We’re working on our very own Poetry Anthology, where we will put all our poems together in one book. 

Mathematics

Shopping with Percentages: Year 5/6 Maths in Action!

This term, we have been learning how to calculate percentages and use them in real-life situations, like working out discounts when shopping!

We started by looking at price tags and sales flyers to find the percentage discount, like 20% off or 50% off. Then we learned how to calculate the final price after applying the discount to the original price of an item. It’s been really fun because now we can figure out if we’re getting a good deal when we shop!

We also practiced comparing different sales to see which one gives the best value for money. Now, we know how to check if something is a bargain or not! This skill is going to be super useful next time we go shopping with our families!

We are feeling confident with percentages and can’t wait to use what we have learned in real life!

Garden update

Exciting News from the School Garden!

Our school garden is buzzing with excitement! The potatoes we planted last term are growing big and strong, and we will be harvesting them soon. We researched and found out that they can be harvested only after their leaves turn brown and papery.

But that’s not all, our broccoli has already been harvested, and our snow peas are ready to be picked too! It has been great watching all the hard work in the garden pay off.

Now, we are getting ready to start our multicultural garden with help from Bunnings, who were kind enough to donate 12 bags of soil. We all worked as a team and used this soil to prepare our garden beds with some fresh potting mix. We will be planting many different vegetables and plants from around the world, and we are super excited to see how it turns out.

Stay tuned for more updates from our amazing school garden!