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

Learning in Action

🧠 Word Work

This week, students have been exploring the morphemes SPEC–SPECT–SPIC. They read and discussed a range of words containing this root, such as spectate, specify, and conspicuous. They also examined how understanding these word parts can help with spelling and comprehension in context. Students will continue this focus into next week before shifting their attention to homophones.

📖 Literature Unit – The Last Bear

This term, students are reading The Last Bear by Hannah Gold, a powerful and emotional story about a girl named April who forms a unique bond with a polar bear stranded on a remote Arctic island. As students read, they explore meaningful themes such as friendship, bravery, isolation, and environmental care. The novel encourages empathy and highlights the impact humans can have on the natural world.

Students are already deeply engaged in April’s journey and eager to see what lies ahead. As they continue reading, they will strengthen their reading comprehension, build vocabulary, and develop both creative and persuasive writing skills.

✍️ Writing Focus

This week, our focus has been on sentence expansion, transforming short, simple sentences into rich, descriptive ones. Students have been learning to add detail by answering who, what, where, when, and how to bring their writing to life.

For example: Instead of “April sees the bear,” students might write:“As the cold wind whips through her hair, April spots the lonely bear wandering across the icy landscape.”

We’ve also worked on persuasive language, encouraging students to use precise and impactful vocabulary. For instance, students are learning to describe people who support an idea as advocates, proponents, or champions, and those who oppose as critics, opponents, or naysayers. These skills are preparing students to write persuasive letters in the coming weeks.

🗣️ Vocabulary of the Week

• Unkempt – Something untidy or not looked after carefully
• Dubiously – To feel uncertain or doubtful

🔍 Literacy Preview

Students will continue to practise sentence expansion and begin planning persuasive letters focused on the topic of polar bear protection. They will learn to identify key features of a persuasive letter, including:

• A clear introduction
• Logical, well-supported arguments
• Emotive language
• A strong conclusion

📐 Mathematics – Angles

This week in Maths, students have been developing their understanding of angles and their applications in geometry. They learned to identify and measure:

• Complementary angles (add to 90°)
• Supplementary angles (add to 180°)
• Adjacent angles (share a side and vertex)
• Vertically opposite angles (equal in value, opposite each other at an intersection)

Using protractors, diagrams, and hands-on activities, students practised measuring angles and solving for missing values. These foundational skills will support their Angle Art project in the coming weeks.

📊 Moving Forward: Fractions

Next, we’ll begin a Fractions unit. Students will learn to:

• Recognise and represent fractions of shapes, sets, and quantities
• Understand numerators and denominators
• Use visual tools like fraction bars and number lines
• Compare, order, and simplify fractions

🌍 Knowledge-Rich Curriculum – World Deserts

This week in our Knowledge-Rich unit, students explored the fascinating world of deserts and what defines these extreme environments. They discovered that deserts aren’t always hot, they are defined by low precipitation, which includes polar deserts like those in Antarctica and the Arctic.

Through vocabulary development and critical thinking, students explored concepts like:

• Evaporation
• Precipitation
• Desertification
• The meaning of parched, extremely dry soil unable to absorb water

They also learned how plants and animals adapt to survive in these harsh conditions and explored the Big Question:“How is modern human life sustained in deserts?”

Students discussed how technology, adaptation, and resource management help people live in the world’s driest places.

📌 Knowledge-Rich Preview

Next week, students will investigate two major deserts: the Sahara and the Kalahari. They will examine:

• Climate
• Geography
• Natural features
• Life and adaptation in each desert
• Similarities and differences between the two

From the Grade 6 Teachers

Mr Hicks, Miss Ibbotson, Mrs Adams, Mrs Findlay and Miss Fisher

Updates from around the school

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