Grade 5/6 News, Term 3 – Week 4

Another wonderful fortnight in the land of Grade 5/6!

Our Inquiry unit has been full of discovery, with students making observations, developing hypotheses and testing their theories. Last Wednesday, we were fortunate to welcome Chris from Swinburne University for a hands-on electric circuits’ incursion. Students explored how electrical circuits work by connecting wires to power lights, fans and other electrical components. It was a fantastic opportunity to apply their learning through engaging, real-world experiences.

“I liked experimenting with the different materials to make a robot” – Archie

“I like how we connected switches to batteries and batteries to lights. We then used solar panels to make power and to make things work rather than using batteries” – Cooper

This week, we have been investigating the fascinating world of light. Students have been learning that light travels at different speeds through different materials, helping them understand why light appears to “bend” when it moves from one material to another. We also explored gravity and air resistance through a simple but effective experiment. Students discovered that while two pieces of paper experience the same gravitational force, they fall at different speeds because of differences in air resistance.

We have also launched our new Exploring Texts unit, where students have begun researching their Passion Projects in preparation for creating a multimodal presentation. As part of this process, each student has set a personal speaking and listening goal to focus on during their presentation. We are excited to see the creativity, knowledge and confidence our students will showcase as they share their passions with their classmates in the coming weeks.

In Mathematics, we have continued building our multiplication and division skills, with students now learning to solve division problems by expressing remainders as decimals. We then moved onto fractions, adding and subtracting fractions with like and different denotators. It has been wonderful to see the 5/6’s confidence andmathematical thinking continue to grow, we are certainly becoming quite the mathematicians!

Our Grade 5 students also enjoyed their first Walk to School session. During the session, we discussed the many benefits of walking to school, including the positive impact it has on our health and wellbeing, as well as the environment and our local community. The aim of these sessions is to establish a morning where students meet at a designated location and walk safely to school together. We are looking forward to our next session next week and continuing to build healthy habits and a strong sense of community. Stay tuned for more details to come!