Welcome to Year 6/7, 2013
Term Letter Print Version | How to communicate with your child's teacher
Year 6 HIstory Podcasts
Term Letter, Term 2, 2013
Dear Families
Welcome back to Term 2. Term 1 was a busy time but a highly successful one. It was great to see the students in Year 6/7 transition from being part of the school community, to leaders within the school community. They have accepted their role and the responsibilities that go with it and have proven to be wonderful examples for the rest of the school in all that they do as they, “Think and Learn, Care for One Another and Act to Make a Difference in our World”.
Religious Education
During this series of learning experiences, students will:
- Investigate the cultural context of the human authors of the New Testament, using a range of Biblical tools
- Understand the purpose and meaning of sacred texts, including New Testament texts
- Make connections between the power of texts from the past and their meaning in contemporary contexts
- Participate with respect in a range of prayer experiences using ancient and modern sacred texts
English
This unit of work explores the human dimensions of forced and voluntary migration.
Texts used include the picture storybook Ziba Came on a Boat, written by Liz Lofthouse and illustrated by Robert Ingpen, and the real-life story of Najeeba, an asylum seeker from Afghanistan. The unit will be complimented by exploring the novel Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman as well as novels for students to read independently during the unit, such as Mahtab’s Story by Libby Gleeson and Parvana by Deborah Ellis.
Mathematics
Year 7
During this term students will be taught to:
- Establish the formulas for areas of rectangles, triangles and parallelograms and use these in problem solving
- Apply the associative, commutative and distributive laws to aid mental and written computation
- Solve problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions, including those with unrelated denominators
- Connect fractions, decimals and percentages and carry out simple conversions
- Solve simple linear equations
- Establish the formulas for areas of rectangles, triangles and parallelograms and use these in problem solving
- Draw different views of prisms and solids formed from combinations of prisms
- Identify corresponding, alternate and co-interior angles when two straight lines are crossed by a transversal
- Demonstrate that the angle sum of a triangle is 180° and use this to find the angle sum of a quadrilateral
- Classify triangles according to their side and angle properties and describe quadrilaterals
Year 6
During this term students will be taught to:
- Solve problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions with the same or related denominators
- Find a simple fraction of a quantity where the result is a whole number, with and without digital technologies
- Add and subtract decimals, with and without digital technologies, and use estimation and rounding to check the reasonableness of answers
- Make connections between equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages
- Interpret and use timetables
- Construct simple prisms and pyramids
- Investigate, with and without digital technologies, angles on a straight line, angles at a point and vertically opposite angles. Use results to find unknown angles
History
Year 7
This unit will help students to understand the processes used by historians to study history. Students will examine a range of sources, primary and secondary, used by historians to inquire into, and find out about, the past. Furthermore, students will become aware of the nature of historical inquiry and the questions that historians ask when analysing sources. Students will also be exposed to scientific and other methods used by historians to investigate the past.
Year 6
Year 6 students have investigated the contribution to the development of Australian society by significant individuals, across a range of fields. This term they will work in partnership to present and share their findings in a podcast.
Following this, the students will investigate the migration patterns in Australia from 1900. They will use a variety of primary and secondary sources to collect information. These include:
- interviewing a person who has migrated to Australia
- relevant internet sites
- literature
- DVD sources
Science
Throughout the term, students explore what water is and how it behaves as it changes from ice to liquid water to water vapour. They will investigate how water molecules behave, and explore the processes of evaporation and condensation.
The purpose of this unit is to give the students a clear mental picture of water molecules. Learning about how these molecules behave when water is heated and cooled can help them to understand how the water cycle works. These mental pictures will be a useful foundation for further learning in chemistry.
Music
In Music, Year 6/7 students will consolidate and practice all known rhythms and demonstrate this through a variety of musicianship activities. Melodically they will consolidate their knowledge and performance of the pentatonic scale and apply this to known repertoire.
Health and Physical Education
In the early weeks students will be developing their touch football skills. This includes gaining an understanding of the rules and concepts as well as practical experience in various game skills in preparation for the Zone 4 weekly sports afternoons. Later in the term we begin reviewing athletics skills, these include shot put, ball games, long jump in preparation for the athletics carnival in Term 3.
During the various activities students are developing various skills including team building and social skills as they work together teams.
LOTE
This term students are learning about families. They will learn to say the names of people in their family. They will also focus on the cultural aspects of the family structure in Japan, eg, family name first types of family names are based on elements of nature. Students will complete a project and will research family names. They will also research housing in Japan. In terms of Japanese writing students will be learning hiragana (48 characters) and the main emphasis for Term 2 is the letter r to h.
ICLT – Information Communication Learning Technology
Each week the students participate in an ICLT skills session that helps them to develop and use digital technologies across all key learning areas. These sessions take place in the iCentre utilising the bank of computers.
Homework
Homework will be assigned throughout the week and recorded in their student diary. Generally it will consist of Maths consolidation, an English or spelling activity as well as finishing off school tasks. Longer term projects will also be included at various times throughout the term. Home reading is always an essential part of the homework and should occur every night. The students should be encouraged to spend some time each day on homework tasks regardless of their other commitments.
Other points to note:
- NAPLAN tests will be conducted during week 5 of this term.
- Library Borrowing is on Thursday and it would be appreciated if your child could have a library bag with them each week.
- Music is on Monday with Mrs Johnson.
- Japanese with Mrs Morton is on Wednesday
- Heath and Physical Education with Mrs Evans is also on Wednesday.
- Active travel is encouraged for all students every Wednesday morning.
- Dance is on Thursday’s with Miss Nicole.
- The Year 7 Buddy program will continue this term with the Year 1 class.
- Gala Days (touch football) will be on Friday’s commencing in week 4.
Please refer to the online calendar on the school website for all the upcoming events for the term. If you have any concerns or issues, please see me or phone the office so we can arrange an appointment.
Kind regards
Terry Madden Patrick Davis
Classroom Teacher Principal