Grade 5 News
Suns Smart School Program - Hats are required from Monday 25th of August 2025
Upcoming Dates – Term 3
🏀 Thursday, August 28
Summer Sports Round Robin – Day 1
⚽ Friday, August 29
Summer Sports Round Robin – Day 2
🎭 Monday, September 1
Production Dress Rehearsal
🎭 Tuesday, September 2 & Wednesday, September 3
School Production
🏕️ Monday, September 8 – Wednesday, September 10
Grade 5 Anglesea Camp
Learning in Action
During weeks 1-4, 5HA had a preservice teacher, Miss Bailey. A preservice teacher is someone who is studying to be a teacher. Miss Bailey was a fabulous addition to the Grade 5 team. At some point during her placement she was able to work with students from all three grades.
As part of her placement, she is required to identify ways to interact with parents and the community. We suggested that she could share her experiences as a preservice teacher through our level newsletter. So this level's newsletter has been written by Miss Bailey.
My name is Miss Bailey, and I have had the pleasure of being with your children for the last four weeks as a student teacher. I have had the most incredible time learning the curriculum and being able to teach your children. However my time has come to an end, but I wanted to share some of the amazing experiences that I have had with the Grade 5 students.
📖 Literacy
Word Work
Students complete Word Work every morning where they are introduced to morphemes, which form the base meaning of the word. This week we have been looking at words that relate to hearing therefore having the ‘aud’ morpheme. We also look at prefixes and suffixes along with their meaning, allowing the students to know which prefix and suffix to use in their writing. Students can use this understanding of morphology to help decipher the meaning of a word, along with helping them in their writing to help sound out the word they are spelling.
Literature
I have really enjoyed this subject of Literature and I can see that the students have enjoyed it too. We have begun reading the book ‘Hatchet’ by Gary Paulsen. During this subject we have been learning specific words known as tier 2 and tier 3 vocabulary, that related to the novel, as well as using visualising landmarks from the text to draw a map. This has allowed so much discussion and creativity.
Sentence Level Writing
Sentence Level Writing has been so fascinating to watch, as it was a subject that I had never seen taught in this explicit direct instruction manner, known as Sentence Level Writing. During this subject, students are explicitly taught about certain areas of sentence grammar such as direct and indirect speech, consistent tenses in paragraphs and singular and plural apostrophes. Students have been very capable of this and some have even tried implementing these skills in their own creative writing pieces.
Handwriting
Students have been engaging in a task where they are learning touch typing. The students have a cloth put on their hands so that they can’t see the keys of the computer and they type out letters and sentences given to them. Many students enjoyed this task without the cloth, but once a cloth was put on their hands, it became a challenge, and students gave up quickly. As we continue this each week, students have become more confident in their skills therefore a little more engaged, which helps to build their stamina.
Preview for Learning
We will be continuing to read Hatchet and explore the themes within the book. During word work we will continue to look at words containing 'mote, mob(e) and move'.
➗ Maths
My favourite subject has always been mathematics, so I was thrilled to be teaching this. The last four weeks, we have been learning about fractions, and it has been amazing to see students understand the content. Their faces when they finally comprehend and get
the confidence was so rewarding to see. Within our fractions unit we have learnt how to add and subtract fractions with the same and different denominators, we have learnt how to find equivalent fractions and how to make fractions into mixed fractions from improper fractions and vice versa.
Preview for Learning
We will be learning about decimals, including identifying, ordering and comparing them.
Book Week
The Book Week parade on Monday was a fantastic event, with all students enthusiastically taking part. The variety of creative and imaginative costumes was truly impressive – great job, everyone!
Grade 5 Teachers
Karin Halstead, Peta Alexander, Rachel Manning, Craig McKenzie
Updates from around the school
Garden Working Bee – Friday 12th September
We are calling on our wonderful school community to help us freshen up the gardens at the front of the school. On Friday 12th September, from 11.30am to 3.30pm, we will be holding a garden maintenance afternoon and would love your support.
The work will include:
- Removing old plants
- Weeding garden beds
- Planting new plants to brighten up the entrance to our school
If you can spare some time, whether it’s for the whole afternoon or just an hour, your help will make a big difference. Please bring along gardening gloves, tools if you have them, and plenty of energy!
To assist with planning, we kindly ask that you confirm your attendance by emailing the school office at lysterfield.ps@education.vic.gov.au.
Together, we can make the front of our school a welcoming and beautiful space for our students, families, and community.
Green Team News
The Green Team has raised over $80 thanks to students putting their juice, milk and water containers into the 10 cent collection tubs, instead of landfill bins. That's a lot of money but more importantly that's a lot of rubbish kept out of landfill.
