Monday, 13 May 2013

Explaining Everything!

Over the past few days in Maths, we have been solving a range of worded problems. When solving problems we know there is a process to follow-


We have begun using the app on the iPads 'Explain Everything' as a way to work through different problems and explain how we have solved them. 

See and listen to some of your work-


By Campbell


By Chelsea

By Elysse

We are looking forward to making more videos to explain how we solve maths problems!

What did you think we did well?

Do you think we explained these problems well or do we need more practise? 

What problem solving strategies do you use when solving word problems? 

Thursday, 9 May 2013

Should the pigeon drive the bus?

Today we read this hilarious picture story book- Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems. It is an unrealistic story of a pigeon trying to convince a bus driver that he should be allowed to drive the bus. The pigeon is quite convincing (or really just annoying because he nags so much). We discussed the character traits of the pigeon and decided that he is confident, stubborn, a nagger, cheeky, adventurous, a go-getter, crazy, curious and persistent!


We then talked about all the devices that we have learnt about that could convince somebody to do something and decided we would have a debate. 

Our learning intention was to- 
Identify strong arguments and use persuasive devices to convince the audience

Our success criteria was-
- Explain our point of view
- Use evidence to back up arguments

Here is our debate-



Vote now...

Would you let the pigeon drive the bus?
  
pollcode.com free polls  

What do you think? Would you let the pigeon drive the bus? 

Do you think we met our success criteria? Why / Why not? 

Have you ever done debating before? 

Homework Blog


Hi, we are the Junior Government (Campbell, Fatat, Adison, Elanur, Aykut, Neha and Ramy). We have been doing CBL for about a term. Our challenge was to respond to an issue we want changed.

First, we brainstormed issues we wanted changed, we then chose one of them in consultation with Miss Spink and Mrs Cotter. We chose the homework blog idea. So we persuaded Mrs Cotter and Miss Spink to maintain the homework blog. We are now getting it up and running.

Now our homework will be on the homework blog and not on our class blogs. The homework will be updated every four weeks. It is important to have a homework blog because it is helpful to kids who need the help and kids who don’t need the help. It is very useful because many people like to share their ideas and work.

The essential question was 'How democracy does an impact on the way we live?'.  Democracy has made impacts on our lives because it changes the way we live, it can make the way we live better or worse because we are able to have a say. By convincing Mrs Cotter and Miss Spink we were able to change the way we learn in class and out of class.

You will find the homework at

Hopefully it will be a big help to all students.  

Tuesday, 30 April 2013

Making Inferences

We are learning to make inferences about a text in order to improve our reading comprehension.

We will be able to:
- Identify and explain information that is not directly stated.
- Draw conclusions and make generalisations.

Inferring is defined as-


Today in reading we read the inferring cards from the Into the Book Website. We had to infer what was happening from the clues in the text. It is important to identify key words that give the readers clues. 

We then wrote our own inferring cards. Can you infer what is happening from what we have written? 

Watch our video and test your inferring skills! 


Can you infer what is happening in these paragraphs? 

Discuss some inferences you have made from the text you are currently reading.

How has making these inferences improved your understanding of the text? 


Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Managing our own learning...

In Grade 5/6 we are trying to be organised learners who manage our time wisely. We have learnt to identify areas of our learning we do well, as well as elements we need to improve on.

This is something we will continue to work on for the rest of the year and will help us to become self managed, independent learners.


But what is managing our learning all about?



By the end of year six, our curriculum expects that we will-

We came up with the following ideas in order to help us manage our own learning...


This year we will....




How do you manage your learning? 

What are some areas you will be focussing on this year? 

Why is managing your own learning important? 

Wednesday, 27 March 2013

So much hard work to finish off the term...

Both 5/6 classes at ACPS have been working really hard to present their findings for their CBL research. The quality of work that has been produced is fantastic. Students have enjoyed researching their own questions and constructing new knowledge from their findings. We are looking forward to proposing our solutions next term.

Here is our CBL Challenge-


Here are just some of the well researched results of student investigations:



Guiding Question




Thursday, 21 March 2013

CBL- Guiding Questions and Guiding Activities


Hi my name is Campbell and I am the group leader for my CBL group. The two classes who are doing it together are 5/6A and 5/6B, that’s my class. For the last 5 weeks we have been set a task. To research and find the answer to our guiding question which most of us were given. My question was- ‘What Australia would be like without the Commonwealth?’

We were set another task to present our research and findings. Miss Spink and Miss Cotter showed us and explained to us ways we could present our findings and research. We went off and had to decide how we wanted to present, tell the teacher and go back to plan. I decided to do a video scribe. This is what mine looks like. 


I hope everyone does just as well as me. I am really looking forward to seeing other people’s presentations.

Have you ever done CBL?
What are you doing for your presentation?
What is your guiding question?