Grade 6 News
Upcoming Dates
🏀 Summer Sports Round Robin
Thursday, August 28 and Friday, August 29
🎭 School Production
Tuesday, September 2, 2025 and Wednesday, September 3, 2025
Book Week
On Monday, our school celebrated Book Week by dressing up as our favourite characters from books we love. The theme for this year’s Book Week was “Book an Adventure”, and everyone really nailed the theme with their creative costumes. Some people dressed as explorers, others as magical characters, and there were even a few superheroes.
In the morning, we had a Book Week parade where every grade got to stand up and parade around the Thunderdome. The PR leaders, Roman, Jess, and Kaylee, spoke at the parade and introduced each grade before they showed off their costumes. It was so exciting to see the different characters walk past, and the crowd cheered for everyone.
The whole school had a lot of fun celebrating, and the parade made Book Week feel really special. Look below to see some pictures of us all enjoying the day and showing off our adventurous costumes!
Learning in Action
🧠 Word Work
This week, our morpheme focus has been DIC-DICT. We have been looking at words such as contradict, indicate, verdict, and adjudicate. We have been looking at the root and how understanding the root helps us understand the meaning of words. We have also reviewed our past topics, including SPEC-SPECT and homophones.
📖 Literature Unit
This term, we have been reading a book called The Last Bear. The story is told from the perspective of a girl named April, who is quite young and has a very special connection to nature and animals. She gets an amazing opportunity to travel with her dad to the Arctic, to a small place called Bear Island. When April arrives there, she notices that the island feels empty, but then something incredible happens, she spots a real polar bear.
While reading this book, we have also been learning about important issues like pollution, human activities, and how shipping materials can damage the Arctic environment. We have been exploring the big question of how people affect nature and what that means for animals like polar bears.
After we learn new facts, we take notes and then use the P.E.P.S paragraph template to write persuasive pieces about how we could reduce pollution, protect the Arctic, and save the polar bears.
🗣️ Vocabulary of the Week
Dispersed- To disperse things is to scatter them around
Attuned- If you are attuned to something, you can understand and appreciate it.
Pity- Deep sympathy for the suffering or sorrow of other people.
Abandoning- When you abandon something, you leave it and do not mean to come back for it.
🔍 Literacy Preview
We will continue to read "Last Bear" and learn facts about the Arctic and polar bears, which will enable us to deepen our persuasive writing skills. We will learn how to write a concluding paragraph as well edit our work, ensuring we are including a range of sentences and strong word choice such as connectives and upgraded nouns.
➗ Maths
Over the last two weeks, we have been continuing our work on fractions. We’ve been learning how to add and subtract fractions with both the same and different denominators. It has been a really good challenge for us because when the denominators are different, there are multiple steps we need to follow. For example, we have to find the lowest common multiple so that the denominators are the same before we can solve the problem.
At the same time, we have also been working on our maths project using protractors to find and measure all types of angles. We have learned about right angles, obtuse angles, reflex angles, and acute angles. For our project, we got to draw something we like and then measure all the angles in our drawing with a protractor. There are so many different angles hidden in our pictures, and it was fun trying to find them all.
Once we finish, our projects will be hung up in the senior school for everyone to see, which makes us feel really proud of our hard work.
📊 Mathematics Preview:
As of next week, our focus in Maths will change to decimals. We will connect our knowledge of fractions to decimals and learn to convert between them. We will also look at decimals on a number line, as well as adding decimals and multiplying decimals.
🌍 Knowledge-Rich Curriculum – World Deserts
This term, the Grade sixes have been learning all about deserts. So far, we’ve studied the Sahara, the Kalahari, the Outback, the Gobi, and the Arabian Peninsula. Each lesson, we focus on answering one big question that helps us think deeply about what makes each desert unique. For example, our big question this week was, “What is distinct about the Mojave Desert?”
Another activity we do is comparing one desert to another. This helps us notice the differences and similarities between places around the world. For instance, we have compared the Gobi Desert with the Arabian Peninsula Desert, looking at things like climate, plants, animals, and the people who live there. It has been interesting to see how each desert has its own special features, even though they all share the same name: desert.
📌 Knowledge-Rich Preview
Our focus going forward will be looking at Deserts in South America, with the leading question being "What are the key features of Patagonia Desert and Atacama Desert?" By the end of the lessons, we will be able to describe key features of the deserts in South America.
Thank you for reading our Grade 6 Newsletter, brought to you by the PL Leaders:
Roman, Jess & Kaylee
Grade 6 Team:
Mr Hicks, Miss Ibbotson, Mrs Adams, Mrs Findlay and Miss Fisher
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
Under the guidance of Mrs Stokol and Mrs Alexander, the Green Team met for the first time this week, and what a meeting it was! Across Years 3 to 5, we had nearly 50 excited and passionate students eager to do their part for the environment.
Whether it’s helping to keep the school free of rubbish, caring for and developing the gardens, or educating our community about sustainability, there was a real buzz in the air as students shared ideas and signed up for various roles.
A new initiative launched this term is the collection of 10c containers. Thanks to the special lunch day last term, we raised $21, a fantastic start! We’re now working to collect eligible containers daily to reduce landfill waste and turn recyclables into funds that will be reinvested into future Green Team projects.
Participation in the Green Team is inclusive and open to all. It’s not too late for your child to get involved; we’d love to have them on board!
Green Team Newsletter #2
The enthusiastic Green Team members from Years 3 to 6 continue to meet with Mrs Alexander and Mrs Stokol each Wednesday lunchtime. Meetings begin with a check-in on how the yard cleaning roster is going. Students report which areas are the cleanest, which need more attention, and share ideas for improvement.
Sustainability remains a key focus. Whether it’s managing waste, maintaining garden spaces, or spreading awareness, students have shown impressive initiative and creativity.
Our 10c container collection is going strong! We've raised over $30 in just a few weeks. Green Team members manage the collection bin outside the canteen on lunch order days, and also visit classrooms weekly to gather containers from specially labelled tubs. By collecting these items daily, we are preventing waste from going to landfill and turning it into cash to support our environmental efforts.
Be sure to check out the Sustainability Display in the gym over the coming weeks to see what we’ve been up to!
Did you know? You can support the Green Team by nominating Lysterfield Primary School (LPS) as your donation partner through Victoria’s Container Deposit Scheme.
Download the app or visit:🔗 Victoria's Container Deposit Scheme | Learn How To Donate
It’s planting season, and what’s better than free plants?
Help the Green Team — and Earn Free Plants!
Did you know that the Knox Environment Society (KES) offers free native plants as prizes through their Nature Discovery Passport program?
By playing an interactive game and collecting stamps at local reserves, participants can earn plant prizes, and what better way to use those plants than by donating them to our school for the Green Team to grow and maintain?
Explore one of the many beautiful reserves in Knox on the weekend, learn about your local ecology, collect stamps, and claim your prize. It’s a fun way to get outside, support the environment, and contribute to our school’s sustainability efforts.
And who says the fun is just for the kids? Families are welcome to join in too!
To learn more, visit:
🔗 Nature Discovery Passport – Knox Environment Society
🔗 Knox Environment Society Home Page
Thank you — every little bit helps!
Mrs Stokol and Mrs Alexander