Grade 3/4 News

Reminders 

• Homework - Week 1: Reading Diary (only 2 nights required due to Anzac Day and Curriculum Day) 
• Homework - Week 2: Reading Diary and Big Talk Homework (signed and returned to school)
• Home Reading Diaries must be checked each night and come to school Friday with a parent signature. Students will need to read a minimum of 20 minutes for 4 nights each week.

ANZAC Day

Last Wednesday Year 3/4 were privileged to have Mr Bill Clark give a class talk on ANZAC Day and the meaning of the ANZAC spirit. Mr Clark is a retired medical electronics technician and gave 12 years service to the Army Reserve, driving trucks and training junior troops. He volunteered to go to South Vietnam with the Royal Australian Corps of Signals. His role was Operator Keyboard and Radio and Electronics technician. Mr Clark has a very  long and distinguished family Army service history. His father, mother, aunty, uncles and grandparents all went to various wars, hence Mr Clark’s extensive war knowledge. (His grandfather stands in the back of this famous war photo in the Gallipoli trenches below).

Mr Clark has worked as a volunteer at the Bendigo Military Museum for the past 18 years and was recently awarded a medal at the Victorian RSL Hall of Fame for his research and project work. He has also had slides and photos accepted by the National War Museum in Canberra.

Mr Clark brought in numerous items to view and touch such as dog tags, clothing, helmets and his own kit from his time spent in the Vietnam War, along with photos, posters and papers. Listening to Mr Clark’s war diaries was extremely insightful and students were most fascinated by Morse Code which Mr Clark demonstrated. We listened to music, watched footage and stood for a minute silence after the bugle played. Mr Clarke explained how we should stand, why we place our hand on our hearts, the meaning of the Ode as well as the meaning and significance of the Dawn Service. We thank Mr Clark very much for his time and effort to visit SGPS and hope that his class talk opened up conversations for students to be curious and chat with their families about their own personal war history.

Finishing up Term 1!

We have had a marvellous last few weeks of Term 1 with a variety of different events including Harmony Day, Cross Country, our celebratory 'Chipnic', continued Science Rotations, our Easter Hat Parade and much, much more! Thankyou to everyone for making our first term of 2023 absolutely amazing!

Learning in Weeks 1 & 2

Mathematics: Our 'Multiplication & Division' unit for Fluid Groups has been pushed back to the start of Term 2 and will continue until the end of Week 3. We will also be exploring 'Chance' in Week 2 as part of our Applied Maths sessions.

Writing & Reading: In Writing, students will explore Poetry and the important role that figurative language has in this text type. In Reading, we will consider the importance of self-correcting errors and build our Comprehension by recognising literary elements such as plot, characters, settings, problems and resolutions in the texts we read.

Topic: Students thoroughly enjoyed playing their much awaited 'Game of Life' and were able to learn lots of different things about their classmates as they answered questions about themselves. Next term we will begin a new unit called 'Into the Unknown' where we will learn about the Age of Exploration and people from all over the world who voyaged into the unknown.