Year 3/4 Team News

Hello Year  3/4 families,   

Our 3/4 Willy Kids have settled back into our routines and are already a third of the way through Term 4!! Although the end of the year is approaching, there is still a lot a valuable learning that happens in primary schools and we encourage our students to keep working towards their learning goals by working hard and focusing. Of course, we also have some fun activities coming up as well, including our excursion, the Seaside Fair & Willy Games – just to name a few!

Coming Up: Melbourne Museum Excursion.

As part of the Grades 3/4 Inquiry Unit on Geography, students will be learning about the  major geographical divisions of the world including continents, oceans and hemispheres as well as vegetation and the main climatic types in Australia.To enhance this learning the Grade 3/4s will be visiting the Melbourne Museum’s new workshop and exhibition titled ‘Climate and Environmental Change’ and ‘Our Wondrous Planet’ on Tuesday 18th November (3/4G & 3/4M) and Thursday 20th November (3/4T, 3/4S & 3/4P). More details to follow. Keep a look out on Compass.

3/4 Homework Reminder: (Repeat)

Homework is an important tool for reinforcing what is being learnt at school and we provide our students each week with differentiated activities to cater to their needs, abilities, and interests.

Homework tasks include:

• Reading – Four nights per week for a minimum of 15 minutes.Students are encouraged to choose their own "just right" books and record the titles on the homework sheet. They can select books based on their individual interests or reading levels.
• Maths – Playing number games learnt in class at home to continue building number sense and fluency.Each week, students will have two games to play, which can be enjoyed with siblings, friends, or family members. The games will often include extension ideas to further challenge students.
• Spelling – Each week, students are introduced to a new spelling focus and given a list of words with varying difficulty. They are encouraged to choose seven words from the list and to select three personal words—words that they may have misspelt in their own writing.Suggested activities to help practice these words can be found in their Homework Book under the section "Ways to Learn Your Words."
• Writing – A short writing task to be completed in the Homework Book.For more confident writers, we encourage students to expand their writing into longer stories, incorporating complex ideas, paragraphs, accurate punctuation, and enhanced vocabulary.

***Keep working on learning times tables.

All students will receive their homework on Monday, and it is due back at school by Friday of the same week.

Reminders-

• Students are now required to wear a wide rimmed school hat whilst outdoors.
• Students are still required to bring a filled water bottle each day.
• Please ensure that iPads from home are fully charged and brought to school every day. 

Fortnightly Curriculum Focus:

Literacy: In Reading, we are learning how visualising will help us comprehend a text. We are learning to respond to tasks linked to our class novel, ‘The Wild Robot’. 

In Writing, we will continue to focus on the structure of persuasive writing, and we will be learning about various persuasive devices to use when writing persuasive texts. We are learning to create our own simple, compound and complex sentences. We will be planning and writing a persuasive speech.

Numeracy:  Angles: We have been learning how to estimate and compare angles using angle names including acute, obtuse, straight angle, reflex and revolution, and recognise their relationship to a right angle. We have been learning how to measure angles in degrees using a protractor.

Measurement:  Length- We are learning to measure objects using familiar metric units of length. We are learning to use an appropriate tool to measure length.

Mass- We are learning to use our understanding of mass to solve worded problems. We are learning to accurately use scales to measure items of varying weights. We are learning to convert different units of mass.

Capacity- We are learning about the meaning of capacity. We are learning to use our understanding of capacity to solve worded problems. We are learning to use a scaled instrument to measure capacity.

We are learning to identify which metric units are used to measure everyday items; use measurements of familiar items and known units to make estimates.

Inquiry: Geography ‘What in the World is Worth Protecting’. We will be comparing the functions of vegetation in the global environment such as forest, woodland, savannah, grassland and desert to vegetation in Australia. We will be learning about the climate, characteristics and location of the main climatic types (temperate, Mediterranean and arid) in Australia and the world.

Respectful Relationships: Help Seeking.  Students normalise help-seeking behaviour. Students identify strategies for peer support and peer referral. Students identify sources of help for children experiencing a range of problems.

Warm regards, 

The Year 3/4 team – Rebecca Givogue & Mary Colangelo (3/4G), Katja Morris (3/4M), Grace Pante & Steven Puhar (3/4P), Alison Standish (3/4S) & Hayley Thibou (3/4T)