The past two weeks have flown by in Year 5. In Religion we have been exploring what the Holy Spirit is, what words we use to make connections to the Holy Spirit and what images or image is best used to represent it. The students have put their artistic creativity to the test and have created a visual representation of the Holy Spirit. I have been blown away to the detail and their chosen images. We will continue our understanding of the Holy Spirit and its representation by exploring the symbolism within the church. 

Our biggest challenge in our Math lessons is understanding the mathematical language. We often know how to work out the question once we know what it is telling us to do. There has been lots of opportunities to expand our vocabulary and use this is its correct context. All of us are getting better at reading, sorting, rounding and creating numbers with digits up to 6 numerals. Our addition algorithms are improving and by the end of next week we are going to be able to solve a variety of word problems as well. 

Our understanding of the structure of a narrative is solid and we are now looking at how we can improve our writing by using a wide range of word groups. Identifying personification within a text has proven tricky but with more practice next week we will have a much better understanding of why it is used and how we can use it more effectively in our writing. Reading groups is a wonderful time in Year 5 and it is so nice to have seen improved confidence and ability to read more complex texts. Each of the reading groups are getting into the ‘exciting’ parts of their books and there has been some great discussions about the words used by the author, why they have been used and what they mean. Our ability to understand what we read has been a focus with explicit lessons in comprehension. The students are gaging a deeper understanding of how to read text to make meaning and value. 

Thank you to those students who have remembered their homework this week. As we get into the habit of returning it every Thursday we also need to remember our Library Books as well. Well done also to our families on great attendance. We have had 11 out of our 13 students attend school everyday this past fortnight. This is fantastic!