Weekly Update: 

Great week back for all grades I have been very impressed by the effort and attitude shown!

Heres a quick review of the week for both parents and students alike.

Grade 5:

In literacy we have been looking at some of the great ancient civilizations from around the world. So far we have explored the Roman and Egyptian empires and are currently looking at the 7 ancient wonders of the world! 
During our communication skills lessons we revised the concept of subject and predicate in order to look further at compound sentences and how by moving our subject around we can really improve our sentence writing skills. 
The new independent novel study just started, using skills such as prediction and inference to discuss how book covers influence our choices.


Grade 6: 

I have been delighted with grade 6, their focus has been exceptional and their effort in class has really begun to show in their work. After working on Narrative structure for the past few weeks during our literacy lessons we have practiced a number of short stories using visual prompts. I am very pleased to see evidence of varying story starts, characterization, plot structure with clear use of the 5 senses to describe settings. More impressively yet I have seen use of flashbacks, foreshadowing techniques and figurative language throughout. 

Moving on from this we have begun to work on newspaper articles writing. After examining a variety of information sources and discussing positives and negatives the group have explored the differences in language used in differing papers types such as broadsheet, tabloid and local. 

Grade 7:

Having been working in literacy on the concept of 'serious playing'; we began this week with the concept of PROTYPING. Each group has been tasked with designing and marketing a board game design which must in some way contain embedded learning concepts. We have had some very interesting concepts emerge, from Greek Mythology, the human body and digestion, Pandemic Viruses and Geometry!

After MOOD BOARDING to help the groups decide on a visual style for their games, each group is now developing 3 dimensional concept ideas to a playable a standard for review and development.

During our communication skills lessons the group have been developing our mythological stories.

The independent novel study began with the exploration of character development and traits in media.

Grade 8:

In a break from the norm we have been working on an entry for an Earth Day Competition based on the terms EARTH, AIR and WATER. There have been some fantastic photographs taken and I will post them as soon as possible.