15 Mar 2019

Yr5 Curriculum Update – 15/03/19

Working together to achieve success for every child

 

Dear Parents,

We have once again had a highly productive week in Year 5. The students have really impressed us with their enthusiasm and effort towards their learning!

 

Unit of Inquiry

Our new Unit of Inquiry is: How We Organise Ourselves and How We Express Ourselves

Central Idea: Producers and consumers play interdependent roles within a business system.

Lines of Inquiry

  • What businesses need to work (form)
  • The techniques of media (function)
  • The interdependence of the parts of a business (connection)
  • The ethical responsibility of producers and consumers in a market economy (responsibility)

This week we have continued with our inquiry into the techniques of media.  We have begun to delve into some of the semiotic codes that creators use to influence audiences. The audio code refers to how music, dialogue, sound effects, volume, mood and silence are used to attract viewers’ attention.  The gestural code includes the different forms and functions of non-verbal communication, including facial expressions, body posture and position.

In addition, we have been busy designing promotional advertisements for the Year 5 stall in preparation for the upcoming Green Team School Fair.  Students have applied their knowledge of different devices and explored various tools, such as Google drawing, and Green Screen to create their pieces of promotional media.

 

Literacy

Our literacy learning this week has again been closely connected to our inquiry focus.  Students have continued to develop their viewing skills through the various opportunities to analyse a range of visual texts. We have paid particular notice to word choice (persuasive language) when developing slogans for the school fair adverts. In reading, our focus continues to be on the skill of ‘inferring’, which means to infer the message of a text through the use of clues and one’s background knowledge.

 

Maths

We have recently begun a new unit on Shape and Space. Our central idea for this unit is: Geometry allows us to make sense of and interact with our world.

Our lines of inquiry are as follows:

  • Describing the world accurately using the language of geometry. (Form)
  • How shapes and objects can be changed in position and size (Change)
  • The relationship between 2D shapes and 3D objects (Connection)

This week, we have begun to unpack the vocabulary needed to describe 2D and 3D shapes.  We have analysed different shapes, looked closely at their various parts and described the similarities and differences.

In addition to our work on shape, we have continued with developing our understanding of division strategies. We have made connections between division and other areas of maths (e.g. division and multiplication, division and subtraction). We have looked at the importance of being flexible with our strategies and have explored how finding and using patterns can help us to find solutions to multiplication and division problems.

 

Chinese

In the Chinese classrooms, we continue to focus on the concept of wellbeing and providing different learning opportunities for children to explore their own interests and promote agentic learning.

Here is a glimpse of some of our classrooms:

One of our regular supply teachers, Heather Quinn, shared with our Year 5 students her recent experience of co-teaching in a school in South Sedan.  Ms. Quinn is involved with a charity that has helped build a new school in this impoverished area. There is still more work that needs to be done to help resource this school.  Students have been asked to consider donating funds earned during Market Day to this worthy cause.

 

We are looking for parents in our community to help support our students’ learning in this unit of inquiry. If you have experience in the area of market research and/or business in general and are willing to come into school and share your knowledge with us, please contact your child’s class teacher.  Your support would be greatly appreciated!

 

In a few weeks time, students will learn new maker skills they can use to create products for their businesses, which means we need to think about collecting resources now.  We will be asking students to bring in any recycled cardboard (cereal boxes, shoe boxes, grocery boxes, etc) that they may have at home. If you have any cardboard to spare, please send it in!

 

We hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Kind regards, 

The Year 5 team

 

Key Dates for the Diary

  • PTA Disco – 11th April (POSTPONED)
  • Student Led Conferences – 8th (evening) and 9th April (all day)
  • Last day of term – 12th April (half day)