The Thistle - An E-Newsletter of Scotch College, Perth, Western Australia

5C News

There has been a happy and busy buzz throughout Term 1, as we have established a sensational classroom culture in 5C.

Inquiry learning has taken us into the past with a deep study of the Swan River colony. The boys' developed wonderings which sought to answer why the settlement was established, how it was originally set up and what life was like at the time. The boys then researched a range of sources with a focus on a chosen perspective: free settler, convict or indigenous person. This research enabled the boys to write a diary from their chosen perspective. Interesting sources included newspaper articles form the mid 1800s, advertisements persuading people to make the journey to the settlement, excerpts from actual journals from the 1830's and a range of books from our wonderfully resourced library. The boys used Book Creator to make the final copy of their diary entries and they also enjoyed creating watercolour images in the Sketches app to enhance their written work.

The narrative writing focus extended into our assembly for the term, where the boys planned to showcase our understanding of narrative features with a specific focus on picture books. We had written a script and rehearsals for our play were underway but this has now been postponed until later in the year where we hope to dazzle our audience with some comedy.

Our inquiry then took us to the future, where we explored the idea of colonising Mars through researching necessary resources and equipment before applying this knowledge in a collaborative group project using Minecraft. This was definitely a highlight of the term.

5C have enjoyed this term and we look forward to continuing to work together in whatever format this maybe in the near future.

Miss Renae Cirillo

Year 5 Teacher