Classroom News

Grade 5 & 6

Well done to our students who have been out representing BPS proudly as part of the Summer Sport Round Robin, regional tennis and/or the District Cross Country teams this past fortnight. We are so proud of the way our Grade 5 and 6’s have conducted themselves both on and off the field, they are a credit to themselves, their families and their school. Some incredible results too - well done 5/6!

Coming up in 5/6 in the next fortnight we have:

• Year 5 assembly sharing - Friday 19th May
• Band Open Rehearsals - 15th - 19th May
• Grade 6 Swimming - 15th - 19th May
• Open Classrooms - 22nd - 26th May - Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop sessions happening in 5/6 classrooms 9am - 10.40am
• Parliament Education Office - video conference incursions begin this week - 1 per class over following 2 weeks
• Friday 26th May and Monday 29th May - Student Free Days

LIVING AND GROWING

Our Living and Growing program concluded last Wednesday 10th May. Students have had the chance to ask questions both anonymously and during group discussions. They have handled these sessions with respect and maturity, and have learned a lot of useful information along the way. I hope this has provided the opportunity for some great discussions at home too.

DECISION MAKING AND DEMOCRACY

This week we begin our new integrated topic focus on democracy and Australia’s parliament. Students will revise rules and laws and the 3 levels of government from previous years then progress to investigating how new laws are passed, how representative governments are formed and how decisions are made in a democracy. We will take part in video conference sessions conducted by the Parliamentary Education Office, as well as experience a role play incursion with Parliament Victoria (Week 7). This unit offers great opportunities for developing critical and creative thinking as well as speaking and listening skills through discussion and informal debate.

ENGLISH

Grade 5’s are looking forward to sharing our learning about Sorry Day at assembly this week. Students will play some of the Archie Roach song “Took the Children Away”, and read responses to the text “Sorry Day” by Coral Voss. We are also preparing a Sorry Day activity to share with you as part of Open Night on May 25th.

Our whole class focus in Reader’s Workshop this fortnight will be comprehension of non-fiction texts, particularly those on the topic of democracy and parliament. We will begin by looking at:

• naming, describing and using non fiction text features
• determining importance - what are the main or key ideas communicated in the text, what are the supporting detail.

Students will also continue to read and respond to their chosen iPick books, working on their individual goals during independent reading time.

In Writer’s Workshop students our whole class focus has been on the PRESENTATION trait. We have looked at examples of beautiful Writer’s Gifts from previous year 5 and 6 students to inspire us as we begin to choose favourite pieces to build our own Writer’s Gifts.

Students will also continue to work through the Writer’s Cycle independently to create great pieces of writing on their own chosen topics.

Teachers have also been conducting various reading and writing assessment tasks ahead of semester 1 reports, interviews and goal setting.

LITERATURE CIRCLES

Beginning Week 5, we will introduce students to the Literature Circles program. This will run each Friday for 1 x 50 minute Reading session. Literature Circles is little like a “book club”, where a group of students agrees to read a particular book, reads the book to an agreed upon page each week, then discusses various aspects of the books in their Literature Circles group each Friday.

Each member of the group will be responsible for preparing playing a specific role in the group discussion each week.. This preparation and reading will form the weekly homework task for all Year 5 and 6 students from Week 5 onwards. Tasks will be explicitly taught to students in class as well as detailed the usual way through Showbie.

MATHS

This fortnight in Maths we have focused on number properties - ways to describe properties of numbers and use these to solve problems. Vocabulary has included factors, multiples, prime, composite, square and triangular. Year 5’s will explore symmetry this week while the Year 6’s focus on representing and interpreting data using displays such as pie charts and dot plots.

HOMEWORK

Homework is given out each Friday via Showbie and due back the following Friday, either via Showbie or in hard copy.

Some students will also be given some additional Maths fluency (times tables) tasks as part of their homework from Week 4 onwards, if this is one of their maths learning goals.

Please support students to plan a time and place to complete homework each week.

THANK YOU AND HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY

We have noticed many parents volunteering their time to support various programs around the school for our 5/6 students - from Patch Cooking, to Round Robin sport, to classroom help and the Mothers’ Day stall. A heartfelt thank you to you all. I hope our mums enjoyed a wonderful Mothers’ Day last Sunday!