Ms Temple’s Weekly Update – Term 1 Week 1

Hello everyone,

It is so nice to be back at school after such a long summer. Everyone seems to have settled into Year 5/6 nicely and I hope your children have enjoyed their first week back also. Here is what we have been up to this week:

Maths

Year 5

Aut.1 – Place value	Aut.1.1 – Roman numerals to 1,000
Aut.1 – Place value	Aut.1.2 – Numbers to 10,000
Aut.1 – Place value	Aut.1.3 – Numbers to 100,000

Year 6

Aut.1 – Place value	Aut.1.1 – Numbers to 1,000,000
Aut.1 – Place value	Aut.1.2 – Numbers to 10,000,000
Aut.1 – Place value	Aut.1.3 – Read and write numbers to 10,000,000

Literacy

In Literacy this week, we started our brand new unit with the book Star of Fear, Star of Hope by Jo Hoestlandt. This powerful story is set during World War II and explores themes of friendship, courage, and the impact of conflict. For our introductory lesson, the children explored a range of real photographs from World War II. Working in groups, they came up with their own ways of sorting the pictures, some organised them by when they were taken, while others focused on the emotions the people in the photos might have been feeling. Their ideas were thoughtful and imaginative, leading to some great discussions about similarities, differences, and the theme of conflict.

Earlier in the week, the children were given writing prompts to create their own short stories, which I will be reading over the weekend to get a sense of their current writing levels and how I can best support them as the unit continues.

IPC

This week we began our brand new IPC unit Brainwave with our Entry Point. Working in groups, the students chose a topic to research, practised it themselves, and then planned how they could teach it to others.

The results were brilliant! One group taught us a fun hand clapping game, another led an aboriginal mindfulness activity, while others showed us how to draw a Goober, tested us with brain-training tongue twisters, and even introduced traditional children’s games from around the world.

The children worked very well together and showed great creativity, teamwork, and independence. It was a wonderful introduction to our unit, which is all about understanding how the brain works and how we learn best.It was also valuable for the students to step into the role of a teacher, giving them a taste of just how challenging it can be to plan lessons that are both fun and engaging. 😀

Important Information

Please know that PE is always the last lesson on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which means that students will need to wear shoes that they feel comfortable running around in. As it is still hot outside we will have PE indoors until the weather improves.

Here are the details for my Class Orientation Meeting on Wednesday: