From the Classrooms
PREPS
Grade 5
It has been an amazing start to our year in Grade 5. Our students have settled well in their new classes and have been getting to know their 2020 teachers. We have had lots on already and are in the depth of our work across all areas of the curriculum.
READING
We have started this year by introducing our Reader’s Notebooks, filling our book boxes and looking at comprehension strategies. Students have also been immersed in class novels and are having great discussions around these to develop their comprehension skills. Students have been actively engaged in completing entries in their Reader’s Notebook and taking notes during their reading to gain more of an understanding about what is happening in a text and how they are feeling.
WRITING
Each class has been unpacking the traits of writing - Voice, Organisation, Ideas, Conventions, Extending Vocabulary and Sentence Fluency. This also includes Presentation. Students have been experimenting with each of these as a bit of an overview, but we will be going into more depth throughout the year to really explore each one in detail.
MATHS
With the introduction of our Maths Tool Kits, each student now has access to a case of commonly used resources in class. These manipulatives, such as dice, cards and counters are available for each student whenever they need it, and for use in planned maths activities. This term, we have been exploring place value to at least the hundreds of thousands and decimals to at least the hundredths. This has also included exploring the fact that a decimal is part of a whole number.
CBL
This term’s CBL topic is Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions. We have been using the UN Global Goals for the past couple of years as areas of exploration and they have worked really well as they help shed light on global issues for our students. Miss Sango has started the term with students looking at how to research on the internet accurately and how to break big questions into smaller, more manageable questions. We have also looked at iPad expectations and the students agreed on what they would follow. They had a creative task to share these expectations with others - please see the attached video of a mash up of student work.
INTERSCHOOL SPORT
Students in Grade 5 and 6 have been involved in some type of sport this term for Interschool Sports. It has been great to see everyone having such a great time, demonstrating excellent sportsmanship and encouraging others to give new sports a go. We have been pretty successful so far this term across the board.