Year 4

Year 4 Term 3 - August Newsletter 2024

Literacy 

In writing, we have been creating our own biographies. Students were explicitly taught the features of a biography. They then chose their favourite Olympian and followed the complete writing process—planning, note-taking, editing, and revising—before publishing their final biographies. It has been wonderful to see students enhance their research and writing skills. They are very proud of their published biographies (and so are we!). If you haven’t already, head over to Seesaw to check out the fantastic work!

Knowledge 

In our Olympic Unit we have been ‘diving’ into the Olympics and exploring modern day Olympics and famous Australian Olympians. Students identified the core values of the Olympics and reflected on how they use these in their sports and play. Some of our Year 4 students have been so inspired by our Australia and their achievements they bought in some of their own sporting achievements to share! To celebrate our learning and the end of this unit students will be participating in the Gilgai Plains Year 4 Potato Olympics!

Mathematics  

In Maths, students are deepening their understanding of multiplication and division by exploring new strategies to solve complex equations. Some of which were, using our knowledge of simple equations to solve complex problems by removing the zero and adding it back, fact families and vertical algorithm. The students also learnt how to measure all sorts of angles using a 360 degree protractor! It was fantastic to see how determined the students were to measure the angles as accurately as possible. 

Social Emotional Learning  

Our social and emotional learning has focused on problems and resilience. Students engaged with the concept of a catastrophe scale and brainstormed some problems rating them from catastrophic problems to no problem at all. Students discussed emotions that are helpful to our thinking and emotions that are unhelpful to our thinking and put some strategies in their toolbox for when they are feeling a certain emotion.

Auslan

During our Auslan lessons we have learned about HOLM and NMF.

These are important in the Auslan language. 

HOLM means:

H = Handshape

O = Orientation (the direction that the fingers and palms are facing)

L = Location (where in relation to the face/body)

M = Movement (how the hands move)

NMF = Non-Manual features - not on the hands (facial expressions and body language)