Year Five News

Term Two in Grade 5

Welcome to Term 2! The Grade 5 team are excited to be back for a longer 11 week term. We have some fun and exciting things happening, including an incursion in week 3 and our Musical Futures concert in week 10.

Throughout the term, we will continue to provide opportunities to build on your child’s collaborative learning skills and work on incorporating our School Values, along with focusing on effort, having a growth mindset and building positive relationships with our peers.

Literacy

We have been implementing a block teaching approach to literacy this year. This means we are covering all areas of literacy across a larger period of time. This includes a Daily Review for literacy, oral reading fluency, spelling and morphology, language comprehension, dictation and writing:

During Term 2 students will:

• participate in reading activities that investigate different Waves of Migration to Australia and reflecting on people's experiences and the students own reflections
• engage in comprehensive novel studies using Carl Merrison and Hakea Hustler’s  "Black Cockatoo" to develop comprehension skills, such as visualisation, making connections, and cultural perspectives
• develop their ability to interpret information and make connections across a range of written and visual texts 
• investigate spelling rules and patterns such consonant digraphs and blends, synonyms and antonyms 
• follow the writing process to create information reports on various topics

Numeracy

We will be continuing to begin our lessons with the Daily Review. This is a short and sharp 10 minute slide presentation that consolidates our prior learning throughout the year. 

The areas of mathematics that will be covered this term are:

• addition and subtraction - applying a range of written strategies to solve problems
• geometry - exploring the properties of 2D shapes and 3D shapes and their nets
• measurement - calculating area, perimeter and volume of 2D and 3D shapes
• place value- revision of place value concepts and the introduction of decimal concepts 
• data - interpreting a range of data, gathering and recording data and creating data displays

Students will also begin to work in scaffolding groups this term for the chance to extend and apply their multiplicative thinking skills and apply this to real-life problem-solving situations. 

Units of Work

This term, our units of work will focus on the History of Immigration to Australia and adaptations of plants and animals in Biological Science. Students have the chance to develop an understanding of the following concepts:

• the timeline for migrant arrival in Australia and their impact on our culture and the land
• the migration of the First Peoples to Australia and their impact on the land
• investigate how plants and animals are perfectly adapted to survive in certain environments 

Wellbeing

The year level will continue to follow the Respectful Relationships and Body Safe lessons. We are also excited to begin our journey with the Berry Street Education model.

Through Berry Street, the students will also be learning:

• what stressors are and how they affect us
• strategies to de-escalate when feeling stressed, worried and angry
• how to use brain breaks to refocus
• the importance of morning routines and connecting with teachers and peers

In our Respectful Relationships and Body Safety lessons, students will be looking at:

• coping strategies including positive self talk 
• problem-solving 
• stress management
• safe and unsafe touch 
• body warning signs

Homework

Homework commenced in week one. We will continue to encourage student voice in choosing a country to read about and complete a reading task on each week. Please allocate some quiet time at home for your child to complete the homework. For students who will struggle to get work completed at home, some time in the library at lunchtime is designated for homework completion. 

Students are expected to:

• read for 30 minutes, 5 times per week and record this in their weekly reading log 
• complete 1x reading activity per week (about Geography this term!)
• complete 1x maths task (or more!) in Essential Assessment - My Numeracy and record the name of the maths task 

Intra-school Sport 

To accommodate for space in our school grounds, the Grade Five students will be participating separately from the Grade Six students in a weekly intra-school sports program developing skills for netball, tee-ball, football and soccer during the middle two sessions on a Wednesday. 

Key Events

We will have an incursion, in Week 3, where the students will meet the honourable Cuc Lam and have an opportunity to ask questions about her journey to Australia as a refugee from Vietnam and the incredible impact she’s had on the community since arriving in Australia and becoming the current Mayor of Maribyrnong Council.

Please refer to Compass and the newsletter for other upcoming events.

​​Additional

We would greatly appreciate donations of tissue boxes for your child’s classroom.

If you have questions or you would like to contact your child’s teacher, you can do this via Compass.

Kind regards, 

Tim, Ryan, Lee, Helena and Towela

The Grade 5 Team