From the Year 6 Classroom

In Literacy, the students are moving towards the end of their Author Study unit on Tristan Bancks. The students have taken inspiration from his craft, tips and tricks and recreate this in their own fictional writing.

Year 6 are well on their way with term 4 Book clubs, reading from a collection of Tristan’s work. Titles include Scar Town, Two Wolves, The Fall and Detention.

In Numeracy, the students have completed a unit on Algebra, where they developed their knowledge on how to describe, continue and create patterns with fractions, decimals and whole numbers resulting from addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

In other news, the Year 6 students and teachers had a fantastic time on Year 6 camp in Melbourne last week.

There was an early start to school camp on Wednesday morning, the wind was blowing chilly air to wake up our tired body’s and show us just a glimpse of the day ahead. As we headed into Melbourne the breath taking sights of the city were overwhelming and a great start to our year six 2024 camp. Our first activities were the botanical gardens and Parliament House. The botanical gardens were beautiful and featured many incredible plants as well as sights, albeit it poured rain, and we spent much of our time enjoying the sheltered gazebos. Parliament was a great part of the afternoon, as we got to experience the thrill of the red and green rooms. We witnessed some bills being read and had the chance to chat to Tim McCurdy- our local member of Parliament. Not to mention the interesting immigration museum filled with surprising pieces of history.

Later that night we headed back to our CYC accommodation, already exhausted from what seemed like the longest day. We enjoyed homemade pasta with pavlova and raspberry coulis for dessert. With a full stomach, you would think we would go to bed, but the day was not concluded. We all marched the short walk to the Crown’s bowling facility. We were sorted into groups and spent an hour enjoying each other’s presence, laughter and making memorable moments to play over in our minds for the rest of the night. Coming back to our accommodation with a hot chocolate to settle down and put us all straight to sleep in our comfy long-awaited rooms.

The day started early with excitement around what was ahead. We began with breakfast and a packed lunch and headed over to the Royal Melbourne Zoo. In our classes, we experienced an educational workshop around the structural adaptations where we got to identify bone and teeth structures to try to identify the animals to which they belong. We were also fortunate to be the first to see four meerkats introduced into an enclosure. We spent 2 more hours exploring the wildlife form Australia and around the world as well as a visit to the gift shop.

Next stop was the MCG. This was a highlight for many of the campers. We visited the inner sanctum of the ground, got to touch the grass and take some photos. We had an expert guide to share stories of the history of the venue, the sporting greats who have competed there and behind the scenes insights into a match day. As well as a visit to the gift shop!

Dinner was served at 6pm and we enjoyed butter chicken. This was a new tasting experience for many of our kids but enjoyed by most. But the day was getting better, and we were not ready for sleep yet... we headed back down to South Bank where we each chose our own ice cream flavour in a cone or a cup. Only 2 kids lost their ice cream when the weight of it toppled off the cone. In true ‘let's make it work’ attitude, the kids picked up the ice cream and ate it.

Breakfast at 8 after packing our bags and loading them onto the trolleys ready to be packed onto the buses. We head over to the Melbourne Museum for the Dinosaur Walk. We explored how prehistoric animals lived by getting up close with their skeletons and giant extinct megafauna. We saw real dinosaur eggs; we touched replicas of dinosaur teeth and skulls and well as walk alongside a long-necked dinosaur and discovered what they looked like when they were alive.

We also had the chance to enjoy the Melbourne story gallery which presented a snapshot of the history of Melbourne from early contact between colonisers and First peoples, to the modern city of today. Our final stop for our whirlwind tour of Melbourne was Scienceworks. We spent some time in the Lightening Theatre exploring the different kinds of energy including light, sound, electricity and how they intertwined.

Our coach departed just after lunch, and we made our way back up the Hume Highway arriving back in Yarrawonga at 5.30pm. What a great camp and early to bed for all!

Please respond to the Year 6 Graduation Ceremony no later than Monday December 3rd, to assist with catering. The form was emailed to all Year 6 families last week or can be completed here. If you require assistance with the form please contact Sharon on 0357443339.