Learning News 5/6

Years 5/6

Welcome to Term 3!

A massive welcome back to all our wonderful young people in Stage 3. We have hit the ground running with a busy term of learning ahead of us. 

Literacy

This week we have continued our work around writing organised and clear Information Reports. We have had fun discovering the world of the circus and diving deeper into some of the parts of a circus; the Orb of Death, Acrobatics, Pantomimes and Clowns. It is wonderful to watch these young experts share their research with their peers with confidence and such enthusiasm for their chosen topics. It's great to see the work so organised and easy to read with excellent use of headings and sub headings. We look forward to hearing the remainder of these presentations over the next few lessons. Here are some snapshots of presentations from Oliver, Chasity and Angel-Lee.

A reminder to all our students to keep reading each night. This is the best way to improve our reading, comprehension, grammar and spelling knowledge. We encourage families to always check in with your young person to ask a few questions about what they are reading. Remember, we read to understand! 

Mathematics

In mathematics we have found ourselves currently in the middle of a three-week topic on multiplication. We are consolidating our learning of factors, products, prime and composite numbers. We are now working towards applying our strategies, including estimation, to longer word problems. We encourage parents to help by challenging them with some multiplication questions at home; don't be afraid to use 2 digit by 1 digit, or 2 digit by 2 digit numbers - our young people have a few strategies that they can choose from (might not be the one us adults used when we were at school!).

Religion

For the first half of this term we will be focusing on learning more about Mary as a disciple and a model of faith. We enjoyed exploring the different titles of Mary on Thursday and looking at how each one acknowledges a different area of her strength. We are learning to identify hints in Religious icons that may help us know which title is being displayed. 

Science

It seems that we have moved from Earth based learning last term, to outer space in a unit all about our Solar System. This term we will discover Earth's place in space and each student has been challenged to see if they can spot a planet amongst the starry night sky (hint: planets don't twinkle, only stars do!). Mars can be spotted in the evening sky; try looking in the northwest quadrant of the night sky. If you are early rises, Venus will be in the low part of the northeastern sky.  If you are lucky you will also be able to spot Jupiter!

Local Police Visit

We had a wonderful visit from Constable Parker who is a Youth Liaison Officer from Tamworth. Constable Parker provided an informative talk about online security, maintaining good relationships, being safe in the community and answering a whole lot of interesting questions. 

Excursion

Permission notes have gone home this week regarding the Canberra Excursion at the end of this year. If you have any questions or have misplaced your note, please let the school office know. Please return these notes as soon as you can to help in the organising of this key event. 

We look forward to seeing you all next week for our 3-way conferences.

Deb McDouall