Grade 5 News

Important Reminders

Sun Smart

As per our school's SunSmart policy, all students are required to wear hats till the end of April 2024.

Homework

Grade 5 students will begin homework in Week 5 (26th February). The homework week will run from Monday to Monday. During this time, students are required to:

*Read 4 nights and record their reading in their diary.

*Complete activities in Mathletics that equal, at least, 750 points.

Please see your child's teacher if you have any questions regarding homework.

Learning in Action

Literacy 

This fortnight in Reading grade five students have begun their class novel, with all classes reading War Horse by Michael Morpurgo. Throughout this novel, students will be analysing different aspects of the text each week. This fortnight students are focusing on different narration types in text, such as writing from first and third-person perspectives.

In Writing, students have been looking at adding greater details to their sentences. To assist with this, students have been introduced to Sentence Science cards. These cards are used to prompt students to add to details such as adverbial why, adverbial when, adverbial where, and adverbial how. For example: The energetic dog, sprinted towards the ball to fetch the ball for his owner. Students have also explored using appositives in their writing, an appositive is a noun or phrase that re-names or describes the noun which is next. For example, Dad, the amazing cook, went to the shops to pick out ingredients. 

Preview for Learning

Students will continue with their novel study of Warhorse, where they will be looking at the difference between round and flat characters. A round character develops throughout a narrative, developing and changing their qualities as they overcome challenges. While a flat character is usually a background character who doesn't have much depth to their character. 

In Writing, students will be working on improving their grammar and punctuation in their sentences. Planning and creating a narrative and continue to use the Sentence Science cards to improve the detail in their writing. 

Maths

This fortnight in Maths, grade students have begun focusing on their individual goals for Whole Number. Within these goals, students will practise in a variety of ways with a partner, independently, and with a teacher. 

Students have been learning about factors, including finding the HCF (highest common factor) and multiples including finding the LCM (lowest common multiple). Grade five students have also been looking at writing and reading digits of 6 digits and above correctly. 

Preview for Learning

Over the next fortnight, students will be looking at decomposing numbers. This is when you break a number up into different place values. 

For example: 1,328

Is 1 thousand, 3 hundreds, 2 tens and 8 ones OR 

1 thousand, 2 hundreds, 22 tens and 8 ones OR

0 thousands, 12 hundreds, 1 ten and 18 ones. 

Inquiry

For inquiry, students have been looking at different leadership styles and how they work. The three that were focused on were Democracy, Dictatorship, and Absolute Monarchies. Students explored the differences and similarities between each style. 

Leading on from this, students explored voting systems and how in particular we vote in Australia. We participated in a preferential vote, demonstrating how the votes are counted. 

Preview for Learning: 

Next fortnight, students will be learning about citizenship and in particular the process to become an Australian citizen, focusing on what qualities and attributes you need to be a good citizen. 

Wellbeing

Learning in Action:

This fortnight students have been following our Friendology program, focusing on being their own 'inner ninja'. Throughout these sessions, students have been asked to break down stereotypes, revise the qualities of being a good friend, and discuss ANTS (automatic negative thoughts) and how they can squash these thoughts in everyday life. 

Micro Mathematicians Extension Program

The University of Melbourne is offering a Primary School Outreach Program called Micro Mathematicians. These are online workshops offered to Grade 5 and 6 students in the school holidays that seek to extend and challenge their mathematical thinking and understanding in unique and interesting ways. 

If your child is interested in applying for the workshops, applications are now open for the first workshop on Tuesday, April 9th. For more information, please visit their website.

The Micro Mathematicians program is part of the Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Series, and is supported by the University of Melbourne School of Mathematics and Statistics and the Victorian Government.

From the Grade 5 Teachers

Karin Halstead, Ebony Waldron, Chloe McElroy and Zahra Harvey