Mount Pleasant Road Primary School & Kindergarten

Leadership Centre

Curriculum

It was a very busy and exciting STEM Week in the Leadership Centre. We were fortunate enough to have a number of special events occur during the week, including a zoom with an expert scientist, a maths challenge and a range of engaging science activities students completed at home. We even combined our science lesson with cooking on Tuesday! In addition to the STEM activities students were still engaged in Literacy, Maths and Wellbeing tasks. Students continued analysing their Book Club texts and they also got to complete a town planning project in Mathematics. We were so impressed with the levels of engagement and effort the students showed in Week 6. Read on to see just exactly what they got up to!

 

STEM week

The first STEM activity for the week was called the “Fly Afield” challenge, where students designed, trialled, tested and flew paper planes. Students estimated “time in the air” and the distance our planes would fly and then recorded our predicted and actual data in a shared spreadsheet. In the lunchtime zoom on Tuesday, students, along with Mrs Brisbane, combined their STEM task with their cooking task by making oobleck, a slimy fluid that remains solid when something touches it!

 

On Wednesday, students participated in an online zoom with the Outreach & Education Coordinator from BioEyes Australia, Laura Reid. Laura told us all about how Zebrafish are used for Biomedical Research and how there DNA is very similar to that of a human. 

 

Maths

Last week in Maths students designed a ‘Housing Estate portfolio’. Following the detailed design brief, students created a Housing Estate portfolio on A3 Grid paper, selecting from the given criteria. The project explored the Measurement strands of Area and Perimeter as well as revising other mathematical concepts such as Decimals, Fractions and Ratios learnt this term. See below for some fantastic examples of the students Housing Estate Portfolios!

English

Another successful weeks rotation of Book Club has been completed with students collaboratively working in small groups via the Zoom breakout rooms. This week students explored visualising. Using a specific passage from the class novel “Girl Underground” students drew, by hand or digitally, a depiction of the scene from their perspective. In addition, students recorded their thoughts and opinions on real-world matters through the news reports from Behind the News, a student friendly news program. 

 

Friday 29/08/2020 - On Friday, the 5/6 Staff have been given a Professional Practice Day to participate in Professional Learning. This will mean that there will be no morning zooms for any classes and no work set for the day that students will need to hand in. Instead, we will be providing a choice-board full of different non-device activities for students to complete. If you have any question please don't hesitate to contact your child's teacher.

 

We can’t wait to see you at the disco! 

From your 5/6 Teachers :)

Student Voice

  • Simrah - "I really enjoyed making slime and oobleck because they both are very interesting and can be either solid or liquid and it was a challenge defining whether it’s a solid or a liquid!"
  • Mehek - "I really enjoyed making Ooblek because it really showed science as when you punch it its solid and when you squeeze it its liquid."
  • Ella - "My favourite activity was when the marine biologist came and talked about zebra fish . Why this was my favourite was because we got to learn a ton of facts about zebra fish and other interesting animals."

Reminders

  • Please check-in with your child throughout to ensure they are engaging in learning tasks and that they are using their devices appropriately.
  • Pre-recorded video of each day’s agenda plus each day's daily slides will be posted by 8:30am. It is important that students watch the agenda video so they have a sound understanding of the daily tasks.
  • If your child will be absent from learning or Zoom sessions, please notify your classroom teacher or the office as usual.
  • For daily fitness, students will select an activity from their choice board.
  • Families who have not yet received a refund for the Maths Challenge please contact the office as soon as possible.

Pupil of the Week

5/6B: Coby V -

For continually completing independent learning tasks to a high standard and always ensuring your work is completed on time. Your attention to detail when completing your work is excellent and you are always trying to produce your best. Keep this strong work ethic up Coby! 

 

5/6SB: Saksham C -

For your engagement during the reading of the class novel 'Girl Underground'. Saksham, you consistently demonstrate a sound understanding of the content and contribute valuable ideas to the class discussion. Keep up the great effort!

 

5/6C: Luke H -

Well done Luke on your clear House Estate Portfolio Task. You correctly calculated the area and perimeter of your houses and followed the success criteria to include different features such as solar panels. Great effort using your problem solving skills during this task Luke!  

 

5/6W: Ayush K - 

For confidently sharing your insights on your Book Club text, ‘Once’. Throughout each Guided Reading session, you have used textual evidence and your prior knowledge to communicate your predictions and claims about the themes, plot and characters. Keep up the excellent work, Ayush!