Face to face for fun and focus once again…

‘I can’t believe we’re only at the start of term’ – Archie 5/6C

This has been on the lips of students as we near the end of week 4, of a ‘very exciting and breath-taking’ (Harry 5/6D) term. 

Our inquiry project groups of Personal Growth and Historical Growth have continued to gain momentum as they move through the apply phase, even overcoming the hurdle of remote learning at the end of last term and the start of this term.

Leveraging the excitement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, has led to a mini maths inquiry into statistics as well as fractions, decimals and percentages. 

To deepen our understanding of non-fiction texts, we have also explored Explanation Texts and applied our understanding to explain how and why particular events have happened such as ‘how volcanoes are formed’.

The grade 5s have also started their correspondence with their Hong Kong buddies after a number of digital face-to-face meets last term.

Personal Growth –

‘I like that we are learning about both biology and emotions and they’re both quite interesting’ – Ione 5/6C

In Personal Growth, the students have been exploring how emotions effect us through the lens of nature v nurture debate. They have unpacked how emotions such as disgust and fear, are impacted by how you have been nurtured. The design process includes many important steps such as defining a problem to solve (through your presentations or invention), collect information that will help you succeed, e.g sketches, diagrams, photos, and drawings, brainstorm and analyze our prior knowledge, research and ideas, develop solutions and build a model to make your design even better, present your ideas to others for feedback, and improve your design for better results.

They have continued to look into the different parts of the human brain, how they function and help you in different areas of your life, and what happens when they are damaged. For example, if the Temporal Lobe (which is a crucial part of your brain for working in the recognition and memory area) is damaged, it can cause memory loss and inability to process information and familiar surroundings and environments.

‘We learnt how to identify emotions expressed by ourselves and our community, and how to control and deal with them. We have recently been looking into applying our learning and sharing our knowledge and insight with the other neighbourhoods across the school.’ – Aurelie 5/6D

‘I enjoyed turning myself into a teacher in my video to explain emotions’ – Baz 5/6D

They have been using the Design Process as a guide to present their work to different year levels and show/ explain how emotions can affect us, and how we act and react to situations.

‘Using the design process has been really fun’ – Giorgiana 5/6C

In previous sessions, the students explored how to prepare for and present debates on the topic that Nurture has a bigger impact your life than nature.

‘I really enjoyed learning how to debate’ – Danny 5/6C

‘The personal growth workshops this year have been extremely engaging and informative, and we can’t wait to continue with these workshops and share our knowledge with the rest of the community!’ – Aliye 5/6D

Historical Growth –

‘In the historical growth group we have been looking to learn more about the past and see how the world has progressed over time.’ Edie 5/6A

During remote learning, to deepen our understanding of how changes in time are interconnected, and nothing happens in isolation, we explored and took SHARP Notes on the ABC series, Back in Time for Dinner. “I like to see were we have grown over the years and how inventions have changed our way of living” – Sylvie 5/6C

‘We are striving to make a Horrible Histories type of documentary focusing on historical growth in the areas above.’ – Audrey 5/6D

To achieve this, the students have elected to research one of the six categories of change over history, as previously identified last term; Social Media, Natural and Manmade disasters, Human Rights and Global health, World Conflicts, Space and Innovations, and Violent Acts.

Numeracy – Olympic Statistics

‘I had to figure out how to calculate a percentage to know the percentage of female and male athletes at Tokyo’ – Harriet 5/6C

‘We wanted to look at all women, but then we realise there was too much data for that, so we changed our question to compare men and women over two games’ – Maylin and Valentina 5/6C

Data and statistics have been on the minds of the 5/6s this term as the students engage with an Olympic statistics project to gather, display and analyse a data set. Each student has created a big question about the Olympics, provoked from the Tokyo Olympics that are happening in real time, this will then drive their research and data analysis. ‘I am really interested in swimming, so I am investigating the swimming results’ – Cleo 5/6D. 

‘I have been researching the total medals won by Australians in Athletics, but I found trying to stay on topic to be difficult, so I changed my big question to make it more specific’ – Luke 5/6C

‘I am exploring the average time for the men’s 100m sprint. I will have to learn how to calculate an average after I have gathered all the times of the winners.’ Luca 5/6D

Writing – Explanation Texts

‘Explanation texts explain how or why something happened, don’t confused them with procedures or ‘how-to’ texts

‘I think explanation texts are a good way to share your knowledge’ – Paisley Meyer 5/6B

‘Explanation texts are a good way of explaining things with good research and knowledge to back it up’ – Matilda H.G. 5/6B

This term the students have been focusing on explanation texts and learning about their features such as: introductions, body paragraphs and conclusions. 

‘The first one we did was based on a diagram of the life cycle of a frog.’ – Ada 5/6B. 

The second explanation text the students wrote was  explaining how volcanoes are formed. The students watched a quick clip to gather information and key words and then conducted further research. The students enjoyed doing this and want to do more of it!

The students now understand that learning about different kinds of text styles can allow them to express themselves in multiple and varying ways . 

‘Explanation texts are informative ways to express our learning and research about certain topics.’ Sophie and Lily 5/6B

‘I like writing them because I learn new things about different topics I learn new things about different topics’ – Tom Laferlita 5/6A

‘We showed our editing skills and showed our work on Seesaw then we typed it on our laptops for publishing.’ – Mila F 5/6B

Hong Kong buddies

‘I am so excited to know more about you and, I am so happy to be a part of this amazing program’ – Matilda HG 5/6B

Over the last few weeks, the students in the Hong Kong buddy program have been drafting letters to their assigned buddy at our sister school PLK Luk Hing Too Primary School in Hong Kong. The correspondence between the two schools began last term with students meeting each other face-to-face in the digital world via Zoom. After being assigned a correspondence partner, the students have been exploring letter writing and how to share interesting facts about themselves as well as asking interesting questions.

‘Being part of the Hong Kong buddies means I can get to meet and get to know new people in another country’ – Matilda A. 5/6C