Welcome To Term 4

Dear Parents and Guardians, 

Welcome back to the final term of the year! We would like to extend our sincerest appreciation for all the effort you put into assisting your child throughout the Learning from Home period in Term Three. 

Term Four will be an exciting term enriched with many learning opportunities. Students will prepare for the ‘Toys and Games Expo’ later in the term, where they will showcase their Inquiry learning and raise funds for a much needed charity. 

Please take a few moments to read our Curriculum overview and what we have planned for Term Four. 

REMINDERS

• School Hat & Water Bottles – As we are a Sun Smart school, hats must be worn at all times when the students are outside in Term One. Please also organise a water bottle for your child to bring to school every day to assist them to stay hydrated during hot weather.
• Home Learning – Home Learning will be distributed on Friday and will be due the following Friday.  It is expected that it will be fully completed and to learner’s personal best.
• Home Reading – It is important that the students read for at least fifteen minutes each evening to consolidate the concepts and strategies they have learnt in class. Please sign their diaries after they have read and encourage them to read a wide variety of material at home. 

ENGLISH

Reading:

In Reading, students will continue to build on and apply their CAFÉ (Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency and Expand Vocabulary) strategies while exploring narratives and persuasive texts. They will consolidate their understanding of a variety of CAFÉ strategies with an emphasis on ‘Making a picture or mental image’, ‘Showing the meaning or feeling in how the text is read’ and ‘Determining the author’s purpose’. Students will continue to have opportunities to apply their schema to infer the meaning of the text by exploring surface level questions which are evident in the text, for example, “Who are the characters in this story?” They will be challenged to take their questioning skills deeper by using inferring to ask questions beyond the text, such as, “How does the character express their emotions?”  These strategies that they learn in Reading will support them in their own writing of narratives and persuasive texts.

Writing and Spelling:

In Writing, students will be consolidating their skills in the areas of Narratives and Persuasive Texts. Through reflections, they will identify areas they will focus on refining. The VOICES (Voice, Organisation, Ideas, Conventions, Excellent Word Choice and Sentence Fluency) menu will be used to explicitly address our students’ needs. Vocabulary will continue to be a focus throughout our writing units, where students will be explicitly taught how to transfer new vocabulary into their writing as well as understand the impact their word choices have on a reader.  Students will also have opportunities to link their writing with other areas of our curriculum, in particular our ‘Forces’ Inquiry Unit. They will have the chance to compose a Persuasive Text to advertise. Students will explore how to convince their readers using different techniques in persuasive writing, as well as engage the reader through an imaginative story in narrative writing. Students will continue to deepen their understanding of the English language through an independent Spelling Inquiry and a targeted weekly spelling focus. They will continue this investigation by researching their independent spelling words from their own writing to determine the word’s meaning and will explore and deepen their etymological understanding and connections. They will inquire into word origins to attain a deeper understanding of words.  

Speaking and Listening: 

In Speaking and Listening, students will have the opportunity to apply and consolidate the skills and strategies they have learned throughout the year. They will continue to practice their Social and Emotional goals to strengthen their communication, personal and social skills. The students will continue to practice speaking in an appropriate tone and volume and asking relevant questions in class and small group discussions. 

To support your child’s learning at home, you could:

• Encourage your child to read their home readers out loud each night to practise projecting their voice clearly, fluently and with expression.
• Encourage your child to investigate the etymology of new and interesting words they come across in their reading and daily conversations.
• Participate in daily discussions around your child’s school day, including their favourite learning task, what they struggled with and what strategies they used to overcome the struggle. 
• Encourage your child to write any text type they choose to practise embedding the new and interesting words they come across in their reading.

MATHEMATICS

In Term Four, students will continue to expand on their understanding of Number and Algebra and investigate the concept of Money. Hands-on learning tasks, problem solving, and Maths Talks will continue to be our learning models this term, as they provide opportunities for discovering, applying and sharing strategies, and allow students to practise the Mathematical Proficiencies and Big Ideas. Students will explore ways to count, order and represent money values in multiple ways, as well as work out change.

In Measurement and Geometry, students will explore the features of two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional objects through connections to shapes in the environment around them. They will make links between two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional objects by comparing and contrasting attributes. Students will gain an understanding of how to draw and transform shapes, as well as construct three-dimensional objects.

In Statistics and Probability, students will be investigating the concepts of data and graphs, and chance. Students will have opportunities to formulate meaningful questions, conduct surveys to gather information, use a variety of graphs to represent their data, and subsequently interpret data in different ways. We will explore the concept of Chance and how it is used to explain everyday events. Students will also have opportunities to conduct Chance experiments and use the vocabulary to describe outcomes. 

Purposeful learning fosters intrinsic motivation in children. Therefore, it is important for them to make connections between Mathematics concepts and everyday life. To support your child’s learning at home, you could:

• Provide real-life situations for your child to use maths in everyday life. For example, involve your child in grocery shopping and counting out money and change.
• Explore shapes around the house.
• Discuss the chance of an event, such as rain, happening on a certain day. 
• Engage them with questions such as “How did you work it out?” “What strategy did you use?”

INQUIRY

This term, our ‘Forces’ Inquiry Unit will allow students to explore and observe different forces and their effects on objects in everyday life. They will build their knowledge and awareness of physical sciences through making observations and posing questions as well as experimenting with how forces effect an object’s movement, speed or shape. Throughout the unit, students will investigate contact and non-contact forces such as push, pull, friction and gravity. They will have the opportunity to transfer their skills and knowledge to create a toy or game that involves forces.

To celebrate their learning, Level Two will showcase creations to others in the school community. This will be a fundraising event and a valuable and purposeful Service Learning opportunity with a strong connection with GWPS commitment to the awareness and application of the United Nations Global Goals. Level Two’s Global Goal is focussed around Reduced Inequalities, with the funds raised used to support a charity to work towards this goal. 

YCDI

We continue to integrate the ‘You Can Do It’ Program into our weekly teaching and learning in Term Four. ‘You Can Do It’ is tailored to the unique needs of students in each classroom and aims to build the social and emotional thinking and self-regulation skills of our students. The implementation of the YCDI program draws strong connections to our Whole School Values of Global Empathy, Integrity, Respect and Initiative, as well as our Global Goal of Reduce Inequalities. These connections allow students to reflect on how actions affect the wellbeing of self and others, and how we can support each other and our communities. They also allow students to deepen their understanding of their social and emotional identities, as well as value the social and emotional identities of those around them.

Your child’s happiness is always at the centre of our thoughts and actions so if you have any queries or matters you would like to discuss with your child’s teacher please don’t hesitate to contact them. The Level Two team thanks you for your ongoing support and assistance and are looking forward to another wonderful and productive term. 

Kind regards, 

Mr Ben Stirling, Miss Bianca Liburti, Ms Amanda Sierp, Mrs Samantha Stefanidis, Mrs Lauren Lee and Mrs Jackie Gilbert