Platypus Classroom

Literacy

Our class are continuing to analyse the authority of texts during our Fake News Unit. This past week, students were very curious about topic of lab grown (cultured) meat. To explore this topic we looked at different sources of information and engaged in a 'socratic circle' where two students engaged in a deep discussion of the topic while the rest of the class observed. Congratulations to Grace and Cooper for leading and modelling a respectful and thoughtful discussion. Also this week, students have been using our Quick Write times to write reasons to support their opinions on lab-grown meat. They are reflecting on their writing each day using the discussed criteria. It is exciting to hear students reflect on their work using the learning criteria.

Mathematics

This fortnight, students in Years 3–5 have been developing their multiplicative thinking by practising efficient strategies to recall multiplication facts, recognising the inverse relationship between multiplication and division, and using factorisation to multiply two-digit numbers by one-digit numbers more efficiently.

Students in Year 6 have been using rate tables to solve real-world problems by recognising multiplicative patterns and finding missing values. They have also been applying grouping symbols and the order of operations to solve increasingly complex numerical expressions.

To build automaticity, we have introduced daily times table fluency practice. It has been fantastic to see students' confidence and speed improve, particularly with their 3× multiplication facts. Having mastered these, they are now moving on to the 6× tables.

We concluded our multiplication and division unit with several exciting rounds ofClosestto 1000. Students used strategy, multiplication and mental addition skills to create totals as close to 1000 as possible. It was wonderful to see the enthusiasm, teamwork and mathematical thinking on display—great fun and great learning!