Year 4 

Spotlight on Learning

Dear Families,

Each week is extraordinarily busy now, as we fly towards the end of our year together. Students continue to engage in focused teaching while also completing end of year assessments.  We were so lucky to receive a gift from the Year 2 Damascus students, who made protein balls for us. Thankyou! Delicious!

Our Learning

English:

We have finished reading the text 'The Arrival' by inferring and discussing what happened using pictures to understand the characters stories.  The students learnt the illustrators signs that he was showing flashbacks to a characters story through the use of colour and symbolism.  After a couple of sessions next week the students will begin a new text: CJ Dennis' poem "The Ant Explorer", initially published as part of a collection in the authors text 'A book for kids'.  Vocabulary will include loathe, dreary and weary, while handwriting reviews consonants joining to the letter a.  Writing structure continues to work on subordinating conjunctions and constructing complex sentences.

Mathematics:

This week the students began a probability unit that focused on the exploration of chance, including ordering chance from least to most likely.  Questions included 'Can events of chance influence each other?' and 'How can you tell if 2 events are independent?'   Our unit continues next week, when students will analyse dependent events in their everyday life, where the first event affects the second one.  For example; If you eat one chocolate from a box, there are fewer left for the next person to choose.

Religious Education:

Our focus is now about learning the Journey's of Mary and Joseph.  Students were asked to retell the main points of the scripture while exploring how Mary and Joseph's journey was a pilgrimage of trust.  We have also begun practicing 'Little Drummer Boy' for Carols performances on the 9th December.  Next week we will begin our advent education.

Social & Emotional Learning & Integrated Studies:

This week students students have been completing preparation lessons for their KidsRoar Incursion occurring on Monday.  KidsRoar educates students in Protective Behaviours and is a world-wide recognized program that aims to promote personal safety skills for children and adults. By creating an awareness of ‘safe’ behaviours, people are empowered to use strategies that will help to prevent abuse, reduce violence in the community, and promote positive health and well-being.

Protective Behaviours has two Core Themes that are emphasized throughout the KidsROAR Programs.

Theme 1: We all have the right to feel safe at all times.

Theme 2:We can talk about anything with someone we trust, no matter what it is.

By participating in an interactive KidsROAR session, children will develop a greater understanding of how important it is to ‘ROAR’….

Recognize – feelings, warning signs, safe/unsafe situations and secrets

Own – their body and understand it belongs to them

Assert – have confidence to implement the ‘No, Go, Tell’ strategy

Report – to their identified trusted adults and persist in telling them how they feel.

Auslan:

This week we practiced animal's 'In the air', retrieved the signs for two other things with wings - birds and chicken. In our ‘Beware’ story, we retrieved the signs for brown, green, look, want, play, can, with, yes, have, what, dog, quiet, white and again

Next week students will take part in a reflection week and will depict and enact the movement of zoo animals . They will create a story using simple descriptive phrases and can summarize two events in a signed story.  This will form part of the final assessment for the term for Auslan.

Important Reminders

• HATS - During Term 4, school hats are mandatory.
• Smart watches & mobile phones need to be handed in to your student's teacher for safe keeping throughout the school day. Only bring to school if it is absolutely necessary.
• Every morning the students complete a 'Check in' as soon as they arrive at school. 
• Thanks for providing your child with fruit or vegetables for their fruit break, it helps with our learning.
• Please ensure that your child has a bottle of water each day. They are able to refill it when needed. 
• Please continue to listen to your child read as this helps to build their fluency and accuracy skills.

Other Important Dates

Our Schedule:

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