Last week before the holidays and Oberon's schools were busy

The whole school assembly started with a smoking ceremony. It was then followed by traditional dance and exposure to Wiradjuri language. Students were engaged in a series of workshops throughout the day. These were language songs and stories, cooking Johnny cakes, spear and boomerang throwing, dancing, yarning and weaving.

OPS would like to take this opportunity to thank our special guests for sharing their knowledge about traditions, history and elders of this land with our students.

Year 5 has been busy this term in Science and Technology looking at different materials. Students had the opportunity to investigate the different properties of solids, liquids and gases and conduct experiments to determine whether an object is a solid, liquid or a gas.

In Mathematics this term, Year 5 have been looking at 3D shapes and the different properties of prisms and pyramids and their corresponding nets. Students also had the opportunity to arrange numbers in the millions in ascending and descending order and apply place value concepts to accurately partition, regroup, and rename numbers up to 1 billion. They explored the Cartesian coordinate system through recognising that the grid-map reference system gives the area of a location and the number plane identifies a specific point and identifies the point of intersection of the 2 axes as the origin, having coordinates. Students were engaged in recognising the need for formal units larger than the square metre by measuring small and large areas using a variety of measuring instruments.

Year 5 have continued to work hard in literacy this term through improving their foundational knowledge of how to spell unknown words to incorporate into their everyday journal and creative writing. Students have been completing spelling and grammar tasks each week to help assist them to grasp concepts that they can use in their writing tasks. Students have really enjoyed the opportunity to access interactive websites such as Studyladder and Nessy each day to improve their understanding and knowledge base of literacy concepts. I think it's safe to say they have also enjoyed "Comfy Friday"!!

NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. As part of our celebrations, we held an assembly where Lauren Roels gave the Acknowledgement of Country in language and some of our students performed a dance taught by Jordan Boney during our Aboriginal Dance program.

Students and staff participated in a range of activities including a smoking ceremony, cooking Johnny cakes, playing traditional Indigenous games and art. We would like to thank special guests for attending our school today.