Year 6 News
Reading
This fortnight, Year 6 students have been developing their reading skills through our new class novel, I Am Malala, which we will be reading throughout the term. Students have been focusing on making predictions and identifying the author’s purpose, using clues from the text and their background knowledge to support their thinking. Through class discussions, students explored key themes such as education, equality, courage and standing up for what is right. They have begun to consider how Malala’s experiences shape her message and why the author’s story is important to share with a global audience.
“Malala is a very interesting novel and enjoy using Author’s Purpose to understand characters” - Senuli 6B
“Malala is a very inspiring story and I really feel for her and her life” - Mahrosh 6A
“We found out a lot about where Malala lived as a child and we have been making predictions about the next chapters” - Ibrahim 6A
“ I found Malala interesting because we get to see how her life is.” -6B Maddison
“Learning about the things Malala had to face in our class novel was inspirational” - Katrina 6C
“It is good to learn new words and make our vocabulary bigger” - Riley 6C
Writing
Year 6 students have been setting up their writers notebooks as an important writing tool to use to brainstorm and explore different writing genres this year. This will help students to:
- Keep all ideas and thoughts in one place
- Never loose an idea and be able to continue writing
- List new words and vocabulary
- Go back and grow thoughts and ideas over time
We can not wait to read and share some of the amazing writing pieces the Year 6 students create this year.
“I've liked learning about suffixes, as it's helped me learn new words” - Ivan 6A
“It’s been really interesting learning new words and what they mean.” - Paige 6B
“I liked that we are working with partners in vocabulary to find new words from our novel in the dictionary” - Riyansh 6C
Maths
This fortnight in Maths, Year 6 students have begun to recognise and use rules that generate visually growing patterns and number patterns involving rational numbers. They have been investigating patterns such as the number of tiles in a geometric pattern, or the number of shapes in successive repeats of a strip or border pattern, looking for patterns in a way the numbers increase or decrease.
“I really like patterns and working out what the patterns are. I loved the challenge of figuring them out” - Hriday 6A
“I enjoyed learning about algebraic patterns and how they can grow” - Brody 6B
“I liked learning about algebraic thinking because it is challenging but then we figured it out. I also liked learning about BODMAS, it's like solving a puzzle.” - Prish 6C
“We are learning about patterns and terms in algebra, it was hard when we had to use an equation to find the next term in the pattern.” - Kaynen 6C
Inquiry
This fortnight in Inquiry, Year 6 students have begun exploring historical questions and examining different types of historical sources. Students learned to identify and compare primary and secondary sources and discussed how these sources help us understand the past. They then turned their focus to Australia before 1800, learning about the rich diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples prior to British colonisation. Students explored how different Nations lived across the land, their cultures, traditions and strong connections to Country, building an understanding that Australia has a long and complex history that began well before European arrival.
“It is interesting to learn about Australia's history and what it was like living here prior to 1800. I’m looking forward to learning more about our history”- Holly 6A
“ I am excited to learn more about Australia before the 1800s!” - Zander 6B
“A primary source is something that happened at that time, it is clear evidence from that time” - Devirm 6C
“A secondary source is a source that comes from someone not at that time or after, like a biography about a person’s life” - Christine 6C
Social and Emotional Learning
Over the past fortnight, students have been focusing on building a positive and supportive classroom community. We discussed what a happy classroom looks like, sounds like and feels like, and worked together to create our class motto and mission statement. Students also explored what it means to be a good numeracy learner by practising teamwork through a range of cooperative games and challenges.
We have been learning and practising classroom routines such as silent reading, alternate weather timetable expectations, and morning and afternoon processes. It has been a great start to the term as students build friendships, confidence and responsibility within our classroom community.
“I really enjoyed making the puzzle pieces and showing that we are apart of CPS” - Ibrahim 6A
“Some of the team building games are fun! I liked creating my puzzle!” - Jhavier 6B
“It was fun working in teams and groups to play games because we got know each other and work together” - 6C
Buddies
The Year 6 students have been enjoying spending time with their buddies, often visiting to eat lunch together and getting to know each other. The Year 6’s have been helping their buddies understand the importance of packing up before we go outside, keeping our belongings tidy and lining up with our hats on before leaving the classroom. We are looking forward to many more fun adventures with our buddies.
“ Eating lunch together has been a great way to get to know our buddies” - Jack 6B
“Swimming was really fun, as we had to do lots of laps, the best part was playing games in the last 10 minutes” - Yousif 6A
“We played Marco Polo in swimming! It was really fun!” - Kirat 6B
“I loved playing with my buddy and getting to know her better!” - Zach 6C
“Swimming was really good and we did a lot of fun games” - Artaaz 6C
Swimming
Year 6 students participated in a one week program at State Swim. Students were placed in groups and learnt freestyle, backstroke and survival breastroke. These are vital skills for our students to learn as they grow and develop into teenagers. Students thoroughly enjoyed their lessons, had fun and learnt some new swimming skills.
