Year 6 Curriculum Newsletter

Reading:

During Term Three, students in Year 6 will be undertaking a novel study based on the text ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar. Students will be unpacking language features such as simile, metaphor, repetition, alliteration, and symbolism. There will also be opportunities for students to identify themes, summarise the text and discover interesting and new vocabulary. Together with the teacher, they will set individual reading goals and have the opportunity and support to practise applying specific strategies in their independent and small group reading tasks. Students will also build on their reading comprehension and fluency during individual conferences.

Writing:

Throughout Term Two, students will be creating a biography on a person of their choice, and a text response essay based on our novel study of ‘Holes’. Students will develop a biography by learning integral aspects of biography writing such as dates of importance, achievements of the individual, a variety of research techniques and the inclusion of a bibliography to validate their research. In partnership with our novel study, students will also create a text response essay. Students will learn the vital aspects of the TEEL Paragraph structure (Topic Sentence, Evidence, Explanation, Link) in preparation for success to write at Secondary School. Together we will work to collect evidence in the form of quotes from the text, and embed them into our writing pieces as evidence of our thoughts about important themes such as belonging, friendship and resilience.

Maths:

The Grade 6 students will undertake a unit on fractions and their relationship with decimals and percentages. There is a focus on equivalent fractions, real world examples and application of fractions in context. Students will also be continuing to work in a project based approach, where they are supported with explicit teaching of skills that they can apply to their work. In Statistics and Probability, students will describe probabilities using fractions, decimals and percentages. They will also discuss variation by increasing the number of trials that take place and construct their own experiments to test probability theories.

Inquiry:

The Year 5 and Year 6 students will be participating in two different inquiry topics this term: Global Horizons: Discovering Culture and Connections around the world, and Needs and Wants in the World of Business. During our Global Horizons unit, students will explore the diversity of different countries as well as Australia’s connection to them. They will investigate the geographical diversity of the Asia region and the location of its major countries in relation to Australia, explore the differences in the economic, demographic and social characteristics between countries across the world and investigate Australia’s connections with other countries and how these change people and places. Within the Needs and Wants unit, Students will develop an understanding about allocation of society's needs and wants. They will learn how businesses provide goods and services and the effect of consumer and financial decisions on individuals, the community and environment.

Wellbeing:

Grade 6 students are looking forward to continuing to enhance wellbeing in partnership with The Resilience Project. Students will explore the importance of gratitude, empathy and mindfulness through a series of carefully planned and targeted learning experiences. There is a focus on how students can recognise their own feelings and the feelings of others to improve mental health outcomes. Students will also be investigating useful ways in which they can regulate their own emotions, and establish a sense of mindfulness in preparation for Secondary School.

In Grades 6 PE classes, students will further develop their physical abilities through challenging activities and sports. In preparation for inter-school competitions students will learn, practise and master different game specific skills. Students will continue to refine their skills in different sports such as cricket, rugby league, lacrosse and frisbee golf. They will refine techniques and strategies whilst developing sportsmanship, leadership, and teamwork to best represent Kismet Park against other schools.

Japanese

This term in Japanese, the Grade 6 students are developing their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills through the theme of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Students will learn vocabulary including sports, countries, food and family members. They will create a presentation on a chosen athlete and include in their name, age, country, sport, favourite food and family members. The presentation will be a bilingual presentation with Japanese and English. Students will learn to type in Japanese on their ipads to support their presentation. They will also continue to be explicitly taught how to read and write hiragana which will help them with learning new vocabulary.

Visual Arts

This term students in Year 6 will continue to explore new techniques and materials when creating their art. They will continue to complete last term’s projects as well as creating new artworks. Students will explore threads and textiles, as they learn how to sew a range of stitches. This project will further develop their ability to show courage and persistence as they experience how an idea can develop into a finished project. This term students will encounter how exciting it is to share their artworks with their family and community at our well anticipated show.

Performing Arts

This Term in Performing Arts, Grade Six students will be experimenting with digital media skills when taking a series of ‘Forced Perspective’ photography. Students will work collaboratively when taking photos of each other using a variety of props such as mirrors and frames. Students will learn about the basic principles of photography and experiment with manipulating the foreground and background to change the perspective of their shots and create visual illusions. These photos will be showcased at our upcoming Art Show!