Classroom News

Grade 5 & 6

Well done to all of our Year 5 and 6 students on completing a successful and challenging first semester! We are so proud of the learning happening in and outside of our classrooms and hope student reports and parent teacher meetings provide a meaningful opportunity for reflection, pride and goal setting for the semester to come.

The 5/6 team emerged from our recent planning day really excited about the experiences that await us in Term 3. To conclude an action packed Term 2, here is an overview of the learning focus over the final weeks of the semester.

ENGLISH

Our mentor texts in Reading and Writing Workshops have included the inspirational “I Have a Dream” speech by Dr Martin Luther King Jnr, presented as a picture story book with paintings by Kadir Nelson. We have focused on:

• Making connections between texts and our understanding of significant historical events, including the 1967 Referendum
• Practising locating specific information in texts to respond to comprehension questions, both those requiring literal interpretation and inferential
• Describing techniques used by authors to show “voice” – passion, persuasion and personality
• How images can be interpreted and add to our understanding of a text
• Exploring how authors show points of view, particularly through our class novel “Wonder” by RJ Palaccio
• Developing speaking and listening skills to actively listen, summarise, describe and question during Literature Circles sessions

SPELLING AND GRAMMAR

Spelling rotations continue, operating over a 2 week period with a focus on a specific word family. This fortnight our focus has been on:

• ie/ei letter pattern – eg ceiling, niece, protein
• ous letter pattern – delicious, suspicious
• word types – nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs
• vocabulary building – exploration of word meanings and origins relating to our integrated unit on parliament and democracy

MATHEMATICS

We continue to practice fluently recalling number facts as part of every maths lesson. Activities are individualised to focus on each students’ fluency goal. For example, some students will be focusing on 6,7, 8 and 9 times tables, while others may have a goal relating to multiplication of decimals, eg 8 x 0.4, 8 x 0.04 etc.

Our lesson focus in recent weeks has been Data and 3D Shape. Students have been learning to:

• Construct line graphs, dot plots, pie charts and column graphs by hand and digitally
• Conduct surveys and represent results using data displays
• Interpret misleading data displays found in the media and create more accurate versions of the data represented
• Represent qualitative data using a 4 quadrant graph, eg placing foods on a scale that shows their rating between “healthy/unhealthy” and “delicious/disgusting”
• Distinguish between prisms and pyramids
• Construct 3D shapes using nets we have created ourselves
• Explore the relationship between the dimensions of prisms and their volume

PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY

We have enjoyed 2 fantastic incursions recently to learn from experts about Australian state and Federal parliaments, Federation, the Australian Constitution, referendums, law making and the electoral process. We have:

• Participated in an online incursion with the Parliamentary Education Office
• Participated in a parliament role play, modelling the passing of a bill in state parliament
• Looked at the current process of deciding to hold a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament
• Designed a fair process for holding a BPS ”referendum”

HOMEWORK

Homework continues to be set for students each Friday via Showbie. Students have a week to complete the tasks and they are due back at school (usually uploaded to Showbie) the following Friday.

Homework for the remainder of this and next term will be to prepare for Literature Circles classroom sessions by:

• Reading up to the assigned page in their Literature Circles novel (taken home by students)
• Completing the assigned role in their Homework Book and uploading a photo of this to Showbie – eg role of Summarizer, Discussion Director, Illustrator etc.
• Preparing to share this information with others during Literature Circles sessions

Details and teacher examples of all tasks are shared with students each week via Showbie and explained in class.

All Year 5/6 students should also be regularly reading texts they have chosen themselves as part of their weekly homework.

LOG CABIN CAMP – YEAR 5

Camp happens for Year 5 students in the first week back of Term 3, Wed 12th – Fri 14th July. Thank you for completing all those forms – we are ready to go! Meetings will be held with students in the final week of term to go through camp information in detail and allow for lots of questions. We will also have a final reminders meeting in the days before leaving next term.

We know students will be very excited, and some a little nervous about being away from home. Some tips for preparing over the holidays could include:

• Have your child actively involved in packing their bag
• Practice setting up, using and packing away their camp bedding
• Practice setting and clearing the table
• Practice staying overnight with trusted friends or family for those who haven’t done so before

SPECIAL EVENTS

Friday 16th June – Winter Sport Round Robin

Many students will participate in T-Ball, AFL, Netball and Soccer competitions at various venues.

Students not participating in this round robin will be supervised in classroom activities at school.

Students need to dress appropriately for the weather and bring a backpack containing snack, lunch, water bottle and any asthma medication.

Students will need to wear school uniform.

Please note - Students are required to be at school by 8.30am for an 8.45am departure.

Enjoy the final weeks of Term 2 and enjoy a restful holiday break!

The Year 5/6 Team