From the 5/6 Classrooms

Wow!  It is hard to believe that we are already 4 weeks into the school year.  We have been settling into the expectations of our new grade levels beautifully, and enjoying all the of the new responsibilities and opportunities available to us in grades 5 and 6. 

In our STEM lessons, we had a focus on the importance of leadership and teamwork.  This aligned with our Making Democracy inquiry (below) in which we are investigating the elements of community. 

For our first STEM task, students broke into teams, and were given 20 skewers and 5 marshmallows. 

They were tasked with the challenge of using these materials to make the tallest tower.  

Teams were given little instruction as to how to attempt this task as the goal was to see how they would all feel about leadership and following before, during and after the challenge. 

It was thrilling to see the room go from many overlapping voices, to just a few, as groups began to realise that they needed to collaborate and listen to each other.  There was a flow of wonderful ideas and a sharing of leadership throughout…not to mention many laughs! 

Amazingly, we got through the whole activity without any marshmallows being eaten! 

Even though we are looking at the wider community of Australia, we are making several links to our own BPPS community, and the similarities small communities share with larger ones. 

Students have also been attending an incursion about the Australian government and our parliamentary process. 

During this incursion, students examined the democratic process in Australia and learnt the roles of the three levels of government and how the Australian Federal Parliament relates to the Westminster system.

They engaged in an interactive federal election and learnt about preferential voting and absolute majorities – this came in handy when we had to do our JSC voting! 

Students also participated in a Federal Parliament role play, with costumes and props, to illustrate how bills become laws. 

Finally, they formed political parties and added their own opinions to the debate, allowing their creativity to flourish. 

Three cheers for democracy and for the 5/6 Team!