Year 5-6

Check out what we have been up to lately!

Religion:

Our Religion Unit, 'Living as Disciples' has guided us to through a range of social justice issues. We have learnt about the work Caritas has been doing to support those in need and what we can do to support Caritas. Students will also learn about the Beatitudes and Grade 6 students will soon begin preparing for the Stations of the Cross liturgy. 

Literacy: 

Over the past few weeks have been developing our understanding of persuasive writing . Students have shown that they understood the structure of a persuasive piece and have been focusing on improving their introductions to hook a readers attention and adding depth to their body paragraphs.

Our spelling focus for this week is the letters /or/ making the 'or' sound as in fork. He is a list of the spelling words below that you may like to work with your students on at home.

Numeracy

We have recently completed our "All About Me" unit of work for Maths.

We created individual time tables, bar graphs that show our birthdays and finished up with creating portraits using only polygons (closed 2D shapes that have straight lines).

We also learnt to play the math game, Chocolate Chip Cookie. A wonderful game that only needs a piece of paper, a dice and a partner. Here is a link to the amazing website that has a load of number games that you may like to play at home with your child.

A note from Mrs Buhler

Numeracy Support 

This year I am implementing the Extending Mathematical Understanding (EMU) program.

The EMU program was developed by Ann Gervasoni Of Monash University to assist students who have gaps in their mathematical learning or lack confidence within the classroom setting.

The program is based on the philosophy that children can learn successfully given time and opportunities to engage in high quality lessons designed to meet their particular learning needs. Students are given a ‘boost’ so that they can participate more fully in the regular classroom setting.

This term there are 16 students in years 5/6, and 16 students in years 3/4  participating in the program. Parents received a letter with more detailed information.

Inquiry

We have been exploring the concept of using data to inform our decisions. This began with students set a challenge to create a newspaper tower to hold a tennis ball, the tallest tower would be judge the winner. Initially, a lot of towers fell over due to a lack of support and strength at the base. Before they were set the challenge again, they needed to draw and write down improvements for when they built their next tower. This is how we went the second time around...

The Resilience Project.

This week our focus is Gratitude.

Working on gratitude helps us to be thankful and appreciate what we have in our lives, rather than focusing on what we don’t have or what we want. When we practise being grateful, we start to scan the world to look for positives – this only takes 21 days! Practising gratitude every day increases our levels of energy, and helps us to feel happier and more focused, determined and optimistic. It even helps us have better sleep, lowers levels of anxiety and depression and we are less likely to get sick. So many benefits – let’s all try to be grateful for the things and people in our lives every day!

Whole Family Activity:

Gratitude Scavenger Hunt

• As a family create a scavenger hunt list of things that make you happy or you are grateful for, you can make your own list or use the examples below:
• Something that makes you happy
• Something you love to smell
• Something you enjoy looking at
• Something that is your favourite colour
• Something you like in nature
• Something that is useful for you
• Each member of the family uses the list and has to find as many things as they can.
• You can hunt for things inside or outside, or both. You can hunt for real things, or you can also do this using magazines or pictures from the internet.
• After a set amount of time hunting, come back together, have a look at what each person collected and let them explain why they are grateful for each item.

Cake Raffle Volunteers

We would love students/parents/grandparents to be a part of our cake making team. Every assembly, we draw a raffle for a cake/slice/biscuits and children love being a part of the 

competition. If you would be interested in contributing, could you please send us an email and we can add you to a roster.

School Uniform, Water and Hats

Just a reminder about our school uniform policy. 

• The expectation is that ALL students have their own hat at school with their name on it. 
• Students need to wear green socks and black shoes when we do not have PE or Bluearth. 
• Earrings need to be studs or sleepers.
• No nail polish or necklaces.
• White socks and runners on PE and Bluearth days.
• Hair that reaches the collar needs to be tied back.
• Only water is to bought to school.

If this is unable to be achieved on a particular day, please write a note or email to your child's classroom teacher.

Weekly Timetable

Monday: Art

Tuesday: 

Wednesday: Japanese (5/6M), STEM (5/6F)

Thursday: PE (Both classes), STEM (5/6M), Japanese (5/6F).

Friday: Bluearth (Even weeks) Assembly (Odd weeks)

Each week we have specialist subjects. On Bluearth and PE days, students can wear their PE uniform.

Lou, Linc, Kerry and Lisa.