Year 5/6 News

What’s happening in the Year 5 and 6 room?

‘The Global Wellness Institute’ defines wellness as the active pursuit of activities, choices and lifestyles that lead to a state of holistic health.

That is exactly what the students of year 5 and 6 are working towards in our current Unit of Inquiry…a more well-rounded state of holistic health to help us deal with and face an ever changing world.

We started by unpacking the central idea, understanding what it means to be human, and helping people prepare for change. In order to prepare for these changes, we need to be more conscious of having a healthy and active holistic state of health.

We have set up circuit training courses where we come together three times per week to help develop and improve our physical health.  Lots of huffing and puffing but making steady gains and improvements.

Mindful breathing is such a quick and effective strategy to refocus and bring about a sense of calmness.  Have you ever tried box breathing?

Box Breathing

1.  Step 1: Breathe in, counting to four slowly. Feel the air enter your lungs.

2.  Step 2: Hold your breath for 4 seconds. Try to avoid inhaling or exhaling for 4 seconds.

3.  Step 3: Slowly exhale through your mouth for 4 seconds.

4.  Step 4: Repeat steps 1 to 3 until you feel re-cantered

Be sure to get your child to demonstrate some of the mindful breathing activities we have been trailing in the classroom.

Each Monday, we have been very fortunate to have the experience and expertise of Jacklyn to work with us in teaching us Yoga. Some of us were lucky enough to do yoga with her last year. Jackie has been teaching us the benefits of yoga including how it helps us to be more flexible, increases our energy, helps us to be calm, and connects to our mind and body. 

We learnt lots of different yoga positions including the flower, downward dog, boat, snake and frog. We also got to give our partner a massage. Jackie would call out different directions like “rain”, “thunder” and “hail” and we had to do that on our partners' backs. It felt really relaxing. We are learning some of the techniques involved in yoga and now starting to feel the effects Yoga is having on our wellness

We have also been stepping out of the school environment and going on nature walks around Elwood.  Last week we took in the Elwood Canal where we became more focused and aware of our local environment and ourselves. We took some time to sit quietly and reflect, look and listen to the various things around us.  Some children also found it relaxing to sketch to relax their mind and refocus.

Stay tuned to see our wellness toolkits which we are developing to help our overall state wellness and holistic health.