Year 5/6

Hello! It has been a wonderful few weeks in 5/6! Here are a few topics that we have been investigating recently: 

Reading:

We have just started reading 'Black Cockatoo' as a class, which we will use to generate in-depth discussion, as well as diving into the grammatical and structural features of this realistic fiction text. The students are eager to read aloud to the class, and have already made some insightful comments on the author's purpose and inferences within the text. Previous to this, we learnt about the varying purposes authors may have for writing a text; including as to entertain, persuade or inform. We used newspaper articles and our classroom texts to support our understanding.

Writing:

We have just completed our unit on factual recounts; whereby the students wrote a draft. second draft and final copy of their recounts of a 'snapshot' moment in their life. This task required students to carefully consider the who, what, when, where and why of this moment, and describe it in great detail. The results were beautiful. Well done 5/6! 

Maths:

We are just wrapping up our unit on fractions. The students have been learning about how to add fractions, how to convert mixed numeral fractions to improper fractions, and identifying equivalent fractions. Fractions always provides a great opportunity to get hands-on with our numeracy learning, which we were able to do through creating our own fraction walls, chopping 'pizza' and many more! 

Inquiry:

This term in Inquiry, the 5/6 students have been investigating the roles and responsibilities of the Australian government. This has included learning about the Prime Minister, members of Cabinet, three levels of government (local, state and federal), Senate and House of Representatives. We have also examined the different ways in which governments can be/have been run around the world. We did this with the help of jellybeans to demonstrate what different government systems may look like; such as monarchies, democracies and dictatorships. We may have eaten one or two of said jellybeans, I must admit. It has been a timely investigation with our recent election, and the students have made excellent contributions to classroom discussions along the way- including about the roles and responsibilities of our superheros - State Man, Federal Girl and Local Lady! 

Religion:This week in Religion, we have been exploring the stories of the Old Testament, and developing our understanding of the differences between the New and Old Testament. We have examined scripture, created our own visual representatives of Biblical stories, and more. The contributions students have made during these explorations have consistently been deeply thoughtful and reflective.