Year 5

As we move into the second-half of Term Four, please find below information of what the Year 5 students will be learning, important dates to diarise and a recount of an exciting excursion they attended.

Important Dates

Religion

Students will continue learning about the principles of Catholic Social Teaching and describe some local and global challenges in light of CST. To finish the term, students will learn about Advent and its significance to the Church and liturgical calendar.

English

Reading

During the second half of Term 4, students will explore the historical fantasy novel 'The Grandest Bookshop in the World' ( see image above) as our mentor text. Inspired by Melbourne's famous Cole’s Book Arcade, the novel follows two children on an exciting race-against-time adventure filled with mystery, magic and challenges. Through our study of the text, students will build their comprehension skills by discussing characters, themes, vocabulary and plot developments, while making predictions, asking questions, summarising key events and exploring the historical setting of the story.

Writing

Students will use this rich mentor text to support the creation of their own informative texts. They will learn how to organise information clearly, write effective paragraphs, and use a range of sentence structures and punctuation features to make their writing more engaging and precise. Students will practise combining ideas into more sophisticated sentences, using semi-colons and conjunctive adverbs, and applying punctuation such as apostrophes, colons and commas correctly.

Students will also continue expanding their vocabulary through the study of Greek and Latin word roots, helping them understand the meanings of unfamiliar words and strengthen their reading comprehension.

Mathematics

Students will continue developing their mathematical understanding through our unit on Fractions, Decimals and Percentages. They will learn to recognise that 100% represents the complete whole and use percentages to describe, represent and compare relative size, as well as connect familiar percentages to their decimal and fraction equivalents. Students will also revise other key Number and Place Value concepts, including decimals towards the end of the term. 

Humanities

In our Economics and Business unit, students will continue looking at the economic environment and explain its importance to people and communities. The students will identify and describe key environmental resources used by humans, and evaluate the impact of their use and exploitation and how human actions can affect the economy in positive and negative ways.

Science

In our Physical Sciences unit, students will make connections between light and shadows. They will identify sources of light, model different pathways of light, how shadows are formed, as well as conduct experiments to create and examine different shadows. 

Capabilities

Students will explain and reflect on their own and others’ performance in teams. They will continue to focus on strategies to help them understand points of view that differ from their own.This will include areas of discrimination. During this time, students will be encouraged to continue to be responsible for their own health and personal safety.

Highlight of the Week - Dare to Dream Production

On Wednesday the 28th of October, the Year 5 students went on an excursion to the St Peters Clyde North campus to watch a production. The second the students entered the auditorium they were fascinated with the amazing designs and colours on the walls.

The students were filled with excitement as the lights turned off. It started with Mickey Mouse performing magic. The play was filled with many iconic musical numbers, and amazing acting and singing performances.  The background dancers brought all the classic Disney characters to life. The stunning bright lights filled the room as the St Peter’s students recited every line. Each student portrayed the characters very well and the set props were very fitting to the vibe of each song.

The general favourite performance was the Hakuna Matana song which illustrated the ringmasters’ quirks and phrases to live by when following their dreams. The comedy was an amazing touch to the performance. At the end, everyone was talking all about how amazing the play was. It was a privilege to be invited to a high school performance and get a feel of how high school is.

Written by Aisha Hodgson and Dhyan (Yonatan) Rengha.