News from the 5/6 classrooms 

Term 1 Writing

This term the grades 5/6 have been working on persuasive writing where they targeted the reader to persuade them to participate in a particular activity or hobby. The first step in our writing process was to complete a ‘Cold Write’, which is our first draft, thus the name Cold Write. Then we began the editing process. First, we looked at how our writing is organised into paragraphs. Students structured their body paragraphs into an ‘OREO’ which stands for: Opinion; state your opinion for the start of the paragraph. Reason; give a reason for the reader to support your statement and an Example; give a real-life occurrence that helps make the reader see ‘reason’ to agree with the author. Lastly, opinion; re-state your opinion, to outline the topic one final time. Some students did a ‘double stuffed OREO,’ adding one more E or R in the paragraph to challenge their writing skills. 

Along the course of the next 2-3 weeks, students finessed their paragraphs one by one by either adding or subtracting words and sentences, adding in different persuasive techniques to persuade the reading even more and editing their spelling and punctuation to create version 2.0. After watching some educational clips learning about persuasive writing, students would assess and edit their peer’s work to perfection. The week after that, the whole class participated in the ‘Hot Write,’ where students had 40 minutes to publish their final piece of writing. This task was extremely enjoyable. 

By: Nina Tyler, 5SG :)

Maths Investigation 

During this term the 5/6s explored integers (negative and positive numbers). The grade 5s completed a Math investigation about planets and their temperatures. First, students needed to analyse a thermometer (on the scale of -200 degrees to 500 degrees) that showed the average temperature of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Student’s needed to look carefully at the thermometer to find the precise answer to each planet’s average temperature. For example, the average temperature was about 165 degrees for Mercury. 

Next, we were required to find each planet’s range with the given information of minimum and maximum temperatures. The equation to solve this problem of finding the range was to minus the minimum and maximum temperatures and that would give you the range. For example, the result for Saturn’s range was -182 degrees. 

Finally, we had to use this information and put it in to a graph. Various students placed the information in different graphs. Some included a bar graph or a line graph. All the information was presented on coloured poster ready for our wonderful Expo. In the end, students learned more knowledge and facts about integers, planets, graphing and analysing a thermometer which relates to our real world knowledge. Lots of parents were pleased to see their neat poster and their efforts on their Math Investigation. 

By: Sophia 5SG

Passion Project

The grade 5/6 have been working on a passion project that is based on a topic of our choice, something that we are passionate about. To begin the passion project, we identified what we were interested in or something we wanted to learn more about. We then brainstormed some wondering questions to help us with our research. For example, we wrote a list of questions based on the 5W’s and 1H (Who, Where, When, Why, What and How). We then used Google to begin our research and answer our wonderings. We took notes from our research on the internet and then summarised the information to then put into our presentation. We used book creator or on keynote to present our passion project. Some topics that students researched were about Space, underwater waterfalls, dogs, sports, caves, Mario, animation, planets etc. After everyone was done we all got to present our passion project to family and friends at the end of term Expo.

By Maddie 5SG