Class 3/4 S
Kii 3/4S families,
Hope you are all staying cosy as the weather begins to change. As we head into the cooler and soggier months, students are welcome to bring their bags up to their hooks in the morning before heading back outside until the school day begins. On particularly wet mornings, I’ll have the classroom warm and welcoming for students to come in a little earlier than the bell, where they can settle in with some quiet reading or colouring while they warm up.
During recess and lunch, we will follow a wet weather timetable on rainy days. However, if the weather is dry, students will still be heading outside to play and explore, so please ensure they are coming to school with warm clothing suitable for the cooler weather. It may also be a good time to check that your child has a spare change of clothes packed in their bag, just in case of soggy socks, muddy pants, or unexpected puddle adventures!
The library and lunch clubs are always there also for students who prefer not to head out into the colder environment.
Maths
Our location and mapping unit has involved looking at what maps are and their different purposes. We have looked at components of maps and what necessary features they should include to make them effective, such as; border, orientation, legend, title and scale. Students were then tasked with creating their own maps. They drew inspiration from maps found at the beginning of fantasy novels. These maps were also used as SEEDS for creative writing in Literacy.
Additionally, students have continued to explore various strategies they can utilise when adding and subtracting 3, 4 and 5-digit numbers. We’ve been focusing on the place value of each digit, by manipulating concrete materials. Students had a number hunt throughout the playground, where they had to find partitioned numbers and recombine the parts back together to form the original numbers.
Students have also explored place value in order to round numbers to the nearest ten, hundred and thousand. We’ve found the following rhyme useful for remembering the steps required when rounding numbers:
Find the place
Look next door
5 or more, raise the score
4 or less, let it rest
Literacy
In literacy students have been focusing on the reciprocal reading role of summariser. They’ve practised identifying key information such as the characters and setting, and what happened at the beginning, middle and end of texts. Students worked on combining this information into simple and succinct sentences in order to summarise their texts.
In writing, we’ve been expanding sentences using adverbs of time, place and manner. Students were given image prompts and simple sentences, such as ‘The ballerina danced’ and asked to come up with adverbs related to when, where and how, in order to provide more information to the reader.
Sorry Day
On Tuesday the 26th, we recognised Sorry Day with a whole school assembly. Some of our students sang in the choir, and it was truly beautiful to witness. Thank you to the families who were able to attend the assembly, and also for the meaningful conversations that continued beyond the school gates surrounding Sorry Day and Reconciliation Week.
Our students continue to show deep respect for First Nations peoples, their cultures, histories and languages. I was incredibly proud of the thoughtful insights, compassion and understanding they shared throughout the week in response to our learning and discussions.
“Sorry Day is great because it gives back to the people who were here first” - Sassy
“Sorry isn’t sorry until you change your behaviour” - Ivy I
“Sorry Day is about apologising for what happened in the past” - Sophie
“Sorry Day makes me feel sad because of the children who were taken away from their families during the Stolen Generation” - Stella
“I feel grateful for learning Woi-wurrung with Aunty Terri because she teaches us the language and we can also pass it on” - Luka