LEARNING TO LEARN LITERACY

As a class, we have set expectations around how to use both our classrooms and school library. We have selected books that we enjoy reading and are good fit books for us. We also set goals for ourselves to achieve later on throughout the year. Additionally, we also practiced writing some personal recounts and narratives.

We are able to locate numeracy resources in our class and set some goals for us to be able to achieve this year. We used these resources to help us in selecting aworded problem and solve them.

LEARNING TO LEARN NUMERACY

LEARNING TO LEARN OTHER

We have focussed on RRRR, looking at Stop, Walk, and Talk, creating posters to go up around the school to model this strategy. We have socialised with other people in our classroom to create a positive community and learning environement by unpacking the school values. We have shown these values by participating in class group work and playing outside.

Additionally, we have established clear expectations for using our class spaces, such as the sanctuary space, to ensure everyone feels safe and supported in their learning environment.

During term one, year 5 students explored historical narratives. In writing, they began by immersing in a variety of historical texts and identified the structure, language and features. Students then were able to develop their sentence fluency by learning about simple, compound and complex sentences and applied this to their writing. They learnt about the importance of word choice and how this can support in enhancing meaning and engagement to a text. Finally they explored the conventions of writing and how they can effectively and accurately edit and revise their writing. This had a focus on punctuation, capitalisation and  grammar. Students then created a historical narrative from a significant historical event and presented this to their peers.

For reading, students  summarised texts using different strategies, they synthesised texts by going deeper and made connections to themselves, other texts and the world. Students learnt how to determine important information and made inferences using context clues. 

During all our reading and writing lessons, students also engaged in speaking and listening skills using strategies like turn and talk, think, pair, share and question prompts.

During Term One, the Year Five students have been looking at a variety of topics. At the start of the term the children looked at factors and multiples. They explored factor trees along with Lowest Common Multiple and Highest Common Factor. Then the students started the angles unit where they learned how to use a protractor and recognise different types of angles. We used fun activities to entertaining videos for our learning.. Alongside the angles Year 5 learned about place value using whole numbers and for the past few weeks of the term the children have been indulging in the challenging unit of decimals.

This term during CBL the children have been learning about the causes and establishment of British colonies in Australia during the 1800’s, along with how individuals and events have contributed to change in Australian society and politics. The children started their learning by using their wonderings and observations about pictures from the 1800’s and their prior knowledge to know what they still want to learn. They continued to explore this most interesting topic through various writing and clips about significant events such as the First Fleet, Gold Rush, Eureka Stockade and Assisted Immigration, before choosing a topic they wished to explore further through research and the completion of a mini project, which they presented to their peers. Children also chose a significant person to research such as various Aboriginal people like as Pemulwuy and Bennelong. They went on to create an interesting historical narrative, showing their understanding of the language features and events of that time. Indeed, this is a topic that has unending possibilities to not only explore further, but to reflect upon as they develop an understanding of different perspectives of colonisation and how these have shaped Australian society as we know it.

During term 1 students have been unpacking what respect looks, feels and sounds like, with reference to our school values. Apart from a class weekly goal which the children decide and enjoy a celebration when they achieve that goal, they have also been doing various activities about respect and kindness. The year 5 pilot program also supports this goal, which has observed children working collaboratively in small groups, and then reflecting on how well they worked together.