Year 5

The year 5 students have been working hard in improving their writing skills this term. They have acquired the essential skills to start developing further their written narrative and persuasive writing skills. Apart from their daily literacy block writing sessions, students continued practicing their written expressions and vocabulary building during our drama lessons where they have written and presented their own play script to the class.

In math this term, our students have been learning to add and subtract fractions and mixed numbers; elapsed time – working out start and finish time involving 2 days, and chance and data. During our math sessions, students are immersed in a variety of rich mathematical tasks that promote problem solving, reasoning and higher order thinking.

In science, students have been exploring how light from a source forms shadows and can be absorbed, reflected, and refracted. These concepts were investigated through a peek-box experiment. Students quickly discovered that they would be unable to identify the object located in the enclosed box until a light source travelled to the object and then to the observer’s eye.

This term in health we have focused on understanding the difference between rights and power, character strengths and how to develop them, and the importance of exercise. Students particularly enjoyed identifying and sharing their strongest character traits.

Students have enjoyed learning about the government in HASS this term. They were able to make connections between Australia’s recent election and new understandings of the country’s three levelled, representative government and election system. Many students were surprised to learn the responsibilities that each level of government holds.