It was so good to see so many of you at our 3 Way Conferences. Thank you so much for your support to ensure that your child has the best possible learning experience in Grade 5. We also want to add a HUGE thank you for being so quick to supply student IDs for the upcoming field trip. We appreciate you!
Some things to note:
- Next week is Anti-Bullying week 2024 with the message to ‘Choose Respect!’ We are encouraging all Grade 5 students to participate in this world wide event, by wearing the brightest, craziest, wackiest ODD socks they can find for Odd Sock Day, Tuesday 12th November 2024, as a sign of respect and participation in this important event.
- Grade 5 will visit the Book Fair on Tuesday November 12. Please send your child with some money if you would like them to make a purchase.
- Wednesday 13th November is Kindness Day and our Primary student council are arranging some activities to remind us that we should always be kind to each other.
- Please remember to send in the Field Trip Permission Slip to school as soon as possible for our port visit.
- Please remember to send your child’s teacher a copy of their identification card or passport. (We need these for the port).
- Please help to ensure your child has a hat that they can leave at school for outside play time.
The P.E. Department has been working very hard to ensure an even spread of House Team members across each grade level. There have been some changes made so that each grade level has an even amount of competitors for any of the school House Team competitions. We thank you for your understanding. If you do have any questions, please reach out to Mr Fernando ( f.beukes@abisoman.com ) or Ms. Dorothy. ( d.dorothy@abisoman.com ).
Students came back to school after the week holiday, recharged and ready to learn! This week our students became scientists as they used the Scientific Method to figure out if the distance between dominoes affects how fast they fall. We identified the different variables within the experiment using the mnemonic Cows Moo Softly. A mnemonic is a tool that helps us remember information more easily by associating it with an acronym, phrase, rhyme, or pattern.
- C- What is changing? (independent variable)
- M- What are we measuring? (dependent variable)
- S- What is staying the same? (controlled variable)
We learnt as a class that we can only change one thing in an experiment at a time and the rest needs to stay the same. We recognised that when we say ‘measure’ it doesn’t have to always be length, we can be measuring time. Students in groups had a go at writing the procedure (steps) for the experiment, which when we tried using them, we realised that these instructions need to be very specific for someone else to recreate the exact experiment and just because we know what we meant by it, doesn’t mean that someone else will. Our scientists conducted their experiment, recording their results using a table. After, in their groups they analysed their results and together wrote a conclusion stating what happened and what it meant.
In literacy, students focused on transition words or sequencing words to use within procedures but also within their narrative writing as well. Students were able to understand the importance of these words and how they help to keep information organised. During our guided reading time, students worked on reading out loud fluently and understanding of the book by using pictures to help us. We went through unfamiliar words, using context clues to help us with the meaning and connected these to other things in our lives to better understand their meaning.
In maths, our mathematicians were hard at work understanding the difference between volume and capacity. Students are now able to understand that volume and capacity relates to liquids and solids (we focused on liquids for now) and we can use millilitres and litres for our units. Mathematicians learnt how to convert between these units. Students worked on using a measuring tape to accurately measure the distance between them and their athlete in the Shot Put event! They then recorded their distance in centimetres, and then converted to millimetres, metres, and kilometres. In pairs, students were able to order the distances from least to greatest in order to figure out where our athletes placed.
Please find pictures from our week here: Week 10 in Grade 5
Looking forward: Next week, students will apply their knowledge of volume and capacity when competing in the Potato Olympic event of diving! We will continue to work on our procedural writing skills, focusing on making clear and specific instructions using transition words. In reading, we will continue to work on comprehension skills to understand what we are reading and be able to explain it to others.
Kind regards, Grade 5 Team!
