5/6C News Term 2

Welcome back to Term 2. The first few days of the term have been very busy but we have settled well and have jumped straight back into work mode. This term our Science unit will be on electricity and circuits. This will be a lot of fun with heaps of hands on activities. Our class and Miss Baldwin's class have started a program where all the boys work with Mr Cornish and all of the girls work with Miss Baldwin. This program runs for the first hour of the day. The idea came from current research on the benefits of boys and girls working in their own groups for certain times during the day.

We have been talking about ANZAC Day and the importance of this day to us. We are completing a writing task about sacrifice, history, pride, loyalty and freedom. The class are extremely engaged in this activity and are producing some excellent pieces of work. We have continued our approach to fitness this term and run every morning around the oval. This is very good practise for the cross country which is on next week.

The class all enjoyed their holidays and were very excited to get back to work!! We used Inspiration (computer program) to plan and write a recount of the holidays. It sounded like the students had lots of fun. NAPLAN is also approaching quickly and the students in Year 5 are looking forward to completing these tests. (some of them)

This is going to be a very busy term with the class needing to work very well to keep up with expectations. Even though it will be very busy, there will be plenty of interesting activities to complete.

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Water Bug Research

On Wednesday the 2nd of December, 5/6C went on an excursion to Narrabri Lake to undertake research on bug life. This term we have been researching lifecycles of various bugs. We contacted Miss McCaffrey from CMA (Catchment Management Authority) in Tamworth. She explained the process for catching and identifying the bugs. It was difficult to catch and identify bugs because of the huge amount of mud in the water. The lake is very low which didn't help our research. Miss McCaffrey explained the best way to get bugs and the reasons why the only bugs we could find were Water Boatmen. The Water Boatmen are very tolerant to difficult conditions and don't have gills, so the mud in the water did not effect their breathing as much as some of the other insects. This was a very good excursion and we learnt a lot. We would like to thank Mrs Davis for organising the excursion and Miss McCaffrey for coming from Tamworth to talk to us.

KD and 5/6C animations

On the last day of Term 3, students from KD joined 5/6C to create some animations. This was great fun for all the students. They worked hard to produce their animations and were very proud of the finished product.

Flower Power Rockets


Crazy animals Shapes

Flowers

This term we have been doing lots of work on our RAT's (real assessment tasks) about Antarctica. We have also been focussing on explanations, the topic we used to write a portfolio task was on how to ride a bike. Over the last few weeks our class has been looking at animation. We have been using whiteboards to create images and taking pictures with the school's new cameras and tripods. We are using movie maker to transform the photos taken into an animated movie. We are currently planning storyboards for our group animation projects which will be done outside using whatever resources we can find.

Miss Mostyn, who is a second year education student from UNE has been in our class for the last four weeks. She has been doing some exciting lessons with us and we will miss Miss Mostyn and hope she comes back to the West when she is finished her degree.

Next term we are very excited about beginning senior sport. Our choices this year were golf, gym and tennis. This is a great treat and we can't wait. The holidays are rapidly approaching and we are all thrilled to be getting a rest from the exhausting work load we have been under this term.

Our gold badge assembly is on next week and the people receiving this award have been extremely well behaved and thoroughly deserve this honour. Our term has been hectic but we are pleased with the work we have produced and can't wait until next term, the last at the West for some of us.

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5/6C News

Canberra was a sensational week and it has been hard to settle down after returning to school. We have managed to get back into our routine and are working furiously to get through the loads of work we need to complete. This term we have been researching Antarctica and the impact of whaling. We have also been making a speech about whaling and the food chain, our RATS all involve this topic. The fete is on tomorrow and we are getting ready to rumble. Many of the class have been busy bringing in bottles and jars for the bottle stall and we think we may be a chance of being the champion class this year. In technology we have been learning about animations and how to create them. We have been working in small groups to create animations and we have also made a couple of class animations. The animations take a lot of patience, although then results are worthwhile. A quality animation can take between 150 and 1000 photos. PE has been fun this term. We have been learning a variety of Indigenous games with whole school PE and one day a week we do basketball skills with our class. Our skills are developing well and we are improving at a rapid rate. We have completed our buddy craft project with KD and 1N. The results will be able to be seen in the 'Art Gallery' at the fete. It has been a great start to the term and we have been working very well.

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Ready to go for Term 3

We have started this term talking about Antarctica, we have realised already that there are lots of interesting facts. We have completed a RAKE and KWL on the topic. The new sports court has proven to be extremely useful and we have begun learning basketball skills. This has been great fun. It's starting to get very exciting because we are leaving for Canberra in 11 days and we can't wait to get going. The school Fete is coming up and our class is bringing in bottles at a great rate and we think we will have the most in the school. Our communication with Westdale is continuing this term and we have sent them a message on our Wiki, asking them to join us in a video conference. We are looking forward to the rest of the term and we can't wait to start our work.
5/6C

5/6C Back to school!

We have returned from our yummy chocolate holiday and are ready to get back into our school routine. We have heaps of sport events early in the term including cross country, football, netball, softball and soccer. We are making sure we work really hard so we don't miss out on any learning. Our focus unit this term is about Traditions and Heritage. In this unit we talk about gold, Aboriginal lifestyle, democracy and about our history. Hopefully we may be able to pan for some gold. This term is going to be extremely busy with lots of exciting activities planned for the term. We have continued working on our Eisteddfod pieces and are very pleased with the way they are going. We are continuing our video conferencing with Westdale and our wiki is working well. We are currently working on writing tasks about Westy the Bear. We are calling them the Westy T Bear chronicles. This is going to be a great term and we can't wait to get into it!
Welcome to Amber and Tayla Jane who have joined our class this term.
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5/6C Video Conference with Westdale.

Over the past few weeks we have been communicating with Westdale PS using the Wiki we established, emails and today we had a video conference with our partner class. We are creating this Blog with 6B from Westdale while we are having the conference. We were able to introduce ourselves to our email buddies and get to see what they looked like. We're learning about Living Lands and Westdale are learning about Antarctica. We learnt we do similar things between the schools. Our house names are named after prominent people. 6B told us about their fundraising efforts with FM 92.9 and Westpac Rescue helicopter.

"I learnt a lot more about the Video Conferencing and using computers to communicate." Zac 6B

"I enjoyed doing the Video Conference and learning about students from another school." Connor 5/6C

"It was fun to meet other people we didn't know before" Zach C 6B

"It was good to meet our partners" Daniel 5/6C

5/6C and 1N email legends

5/6C and 1N have created a buddy system to learn how to email and to create a Blog. 5/6C learnt how to email and Blog. They then were given a buddy to teach the same things. 5/6C went to 1N's classroom and the kids buddied up and went to the computer lab to begin our emailing. The students worked very well together and were able to send and receive emails. The work between these two groups was very impressive.

5/6C learnt a traditional Indigenous game called Taktyerrain. This game involves throwing balls a certain distance and racing to get your ball the quickest. The class, in groups were responsible for teaching small groups from 1N. The students were taught the game and then we played a huge game involving all of the students. Everyone had a great time and all of the students developed confidence in different situations.

5/6C Class News

Welcome to our first class news.

This year we have been working on different types of technology such as: Marvin, Emails, Web Quest, Blogs and Video conferencing. We have created a buddy class with 1N. We are going to work with the class to teach them how to access and reply to emails. This process will help us to learn as well as helping 1N.

Also this year we have been using alot of thinking tools such as the doughnut, lotus diagram, blooms grid, brainstorming and decision making matrix. These tools help us to think, organise, plan and produce quality work.

Fitness is a focus for the term. We are running or exercising most mornings which helps us get our minds active for a great days work. We are working towards making ourselves healthy and strong for the future. Recently we have begun learning circus skills which is great fun and also helps our hand eye coordination. Some of the class are natural clowns!

We are continuing to develop our skills in singing and have begun learning to use our voices as an instrument. We are learning a couple of different songs and everyone is having a great time singing together.

Our focus for the term is on Living Lands which includes areas such as National Parks, rainforests, animals and plants. We have been conducting research on this and are learning some very useful information.

The class has begun the year extremely well and are producing quality work in all areas.