Yr5 Weekly Update – 11/18/16
Central Idea: Media can influence an audience’s thinking and behaviour
This week the children have been planning the draft, and starting their summative task in groups of three. This was to advertise a product or subject of their choice using the semiotic devices we have been analysing in this UOI. So applying their knowledge of what makes a good advert and developing criteria around this to guide them, along with the rubrics that they helped to co-construct that will give them their grade for the summative task on the new evidencer, the children are very clear about what criteria they need to be thinking about when constructing their summative task.
The children have also been unpacking “Feedback”, how to give and receive this as a means to improving their work.
Literacy
All classes are still working towards developing their understanding of what they are reading. As you would have seen in the parent conferences this is still a big focus area for our children. The children’s prior knowledge is being activated before reading a text with us. This is looking at what vocabulary and phrases may be in the text, writing down what they know about the topic they are going to read about, and what questions or wonderings they have around the topic.
We are still including data reading skills as part of our rotation, as our children need more work on this as was shown in our INCAS data, so this is maths and literacy. This is reading and interpreting graphs, menus, timetables etc. The children need to look carefully at the details, one of our important skills of analysis.
In writing the children have been working on setting up, and starting blogging. This is after looking at why we blog, and what good blogging looks like. After a few challenges, we persisted and got there.
Keep talking to your child about their goals in writing and why they need to work on these. They should be able to articulate what their goal is and why they need to work on this.
Maths
This week we have been working with the Peter Sullivan maths ideas around encouraging persistence and maintaining challenge through addressing the topic of multiplicative thinking.
This is to explore different ways to improve the experience of students when learning mathematics. The rationale is that while everyone can learn mathematics, it takes concentration and effort over an extended period of time to build the connections between topics, to understand the coherence of mathematical ideas, and to be able to transfer learning to practical contexts and new topics.
To do this, students need to be encouraged to persist, which includes them concentrating, applying themselves, believing that they can succeed and making an effort to learn. The lessons are challenging, in that they allow for the possibility of sustained thinking, decision making, and some risk taking by the students.
Keep delving into the My Maths website as the children also need to keep practicing their understanding about decimals, this is ordering them, writing in expanded forms, writing them as a fraction, and renaming them for maintenance. Keep up maintenance with area, and perimeter, angles, and co-ordinate work.
Other news
Our school Annie production starts this Thursday night.
Not long until camp, please make sure that all the necessary paperwork has been filled in, and your child is part of the packing process, so they know where things are in their bag.
Homework
- Twenty minutes daily reading;
- Try some of the online maths activities to reinforce learning in angles, perimeter and area – students have been given their login and passwords for MyMaths.
- Ask your child about the advert they have been working on and the devices they have used to influence their targeted audience.
