Level 5: Connect

 Literacy

We have had a wonderful start to Term 3 in Literacy, launching our class novel study of "The Blue Cat"by Ursula Dubosarsky. Students have begun exploring the novel's cover, blurb, images and symbols to make predictions about its themes and genre, while developing thoughtful questions to guide their reading. 

As the story is set during World War II, students have also started building their background knowledge by learning about key historical events to deepen their understanding of the text.

This term, students have also created and begun using their Reader's Notebook and Writer's Notebook. In their Reader's Notebook, they are recording their thinking, making inferences, summarising key events and responding to the novel. In their Writer's Notebook, students are using "The Blue Cat" and other mentor texts to collect ideas, experiment with writing techniques and develop these "seeds" into original pieces of writing. 

It has been wonderful to see students collaborating, sharing their thinking and beginning the term with such enthusiasm as both readers and writers.

Reading Log 

A reminder that the Senior Learning Centre Reading Log Challenge is still going! Student reading logs are monitored each week to track which class is reading the most and showing the greatest consistency. The competition has sparked wonderful conversations about books and reading, and we encourage all students to keep up the fantastic effort.

Numeracy

We have started our new Mathematics unit on Fractional Thinking, with a focus on building students' understanding of how fractions are parts of whole numbers and can be representing in different ways. 

So far, students have been: 

• Reading and interpreting a fraction wall 🧱
• Exploring equivalent fractions 🟰
• Renaming improper fractions 🔁
• Connecting improper fractions with mixed numbers 💡
• Represent fractions visually using a model 🎂
• Using dice to create their own improper fractions before representing and converting them 🎲
• Partitioning number lines using fractions 📏

The hands-on, collaborative activities have encourages students to explain their thinking, compare strategies and make meaningful connections between different fraction representations. 

Each Maths lesson also begins with retrieval practice, where we revisit learned concepts to help move them into students long-term memories. Term 3 has started with a focus on using their place value understanding to round large numbers to the nearest thousand. 

Wellbeing - Respectful Relationships

Later this term, our Year 5 students will participate in the Moving into the Teen Years program, presented by Interrelate. This age-appropriate program supports students in developing an understanding of the physical, social and emotional changes that occur during puberty in a respectful and engaging way.

The program will be delivered at school across three sessions on:

Monday 31 August

Monday 7 September 

Monday 14 September.

Further information about the program, including session content and parent information, will be shared with families closer to the commencement of the program.

Inquiry

We have had a great start to our Inquiry unit exploring Economics and Business. Students have begun investigating the difference between needs and wants and are developing an understanding of how these influence the choices we make as consumers. They have also started exploring the different types of resources and how societies use them to meet people's needs and wants.

Throughout the term, students will continue to think like economists by examining how resources are used, why choices are necessary, and how informed decisions can help create a more sustainable future.

Warm regards,

The Level 5 Team - Michelle, Cazz and Katie