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Reconnecting with Friends and making new connections in Year 5

We have reconnected with friends and established new friendships with others in the Homestead as we focus on being caring and communicative learners with opportunities to thrive. We are extending this learning about connections into our unit of inquiry: Sharing the Planet, in particular the interdependence of systems and how they can affect the Earth’s ability to thrive. Through the key concepts of connection, causation and function we are delving into our lines of inquiry:


• The role of diversity and balance within ecosystems

• The impact people can have on ecosystems

• Actions to maintain and regenerate ecosystems

With some topical discussions on ‘greenwashing’ and the responsibility that small and large companies have to the environment we are excited to see the actions students will take to address issues raised in this unit.

Numeracy

To perceive mathematics as both useful and worthwhile, to believe that steady effort in learning pays off and to see oneself as an effective learner and do-er of mathematics is our key focus throughout our numeracy sessions in the 5/6 Homestead. Continuous and conscious effort toward this productive disposition has enabled us to understand and work flexibly with numbers in our current unit of place value. Students are beginning to challenge themselves and each other as we investigate our place value system and review our work to check the reasonableness of our answers. As we plan our Maths units, the four proficiencies will be at forefront of our thinking:

  • Reasoning
  • Fluency
  • Understanding
  • Problem-Solving

We are looking forward to working together as a Homestead on a range of problem-solving activities and attempting to balance open-ended activities with explicit Maths teaching.

Over the next few weeks, our themes in Maths will centre on understanding place value using the four processes, mapping, and posing questions and collecting categorical and numerical data through observations and surveys.

Literacy

We have developed strong links in literacy with our ongoing unit of Who We Are. In Week 1, Year 5 students began interviewing Year 6 students about key moments in their lives. As students have established these new relationships, they have taken the time to reflect on what they have heard to and have identified the character traits of their partners to construct a detailed biography. Embodying the learner attributes of ‘caring’ and ‘communicator’ have been vital as students engage in choosing language and grammatical features to best describe their partner. Towards the end of the term, students will develop their oral language skills and self-confidence as they present their biographies to one another, along with a piece of art. Stay tuned, for this is something not to miss!

Zara Love-Davey and Andy Hicks