Year 4 News 

English

Reading 

During term two the grade four students will be focusing on summarising their texts. This unit will require students to understand and summarise fictional stories including the key events and details and sequencing in a logical order when reading non-fiction. They will be learning the skills and importance of paraphrasing an author’s words while maintaining the author’s view of the text. During the summarising unit students will also be building their skills in determining important information, inferring, and identifying and understanding text structures and features of both fiction and non-fiction genres using textual evidence to support their thinking. 

Writing 

 Term two will see the students continue to build their skills in the craft of writing with a key focus on persuasive writing. They will learn the correct textual structure and the persuasive language techniques and devices within a persuasive text to engage and persuade the reader. This will include features such as repetition, emotive language, adjectives, and verbs. They will be identifying how to hook their reader through well-constructed introductions and use evidence to support their views or opinions through facts and statistics that reflect on universal issues.

Mathematics

We will start the term by focusing on the formal units of measurement -  millimetre (mm), centimeter (cm) and (metre (m) and we will continue to study  place value and extend students' knowledge  to decimal fractions including  10ths and 100ths.  We will then move into our main focus of addition and subtraction where students will be learning to identify unknown quantities in number sentences and using strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems of up to four digits. They will learn how to describe these strategies while developing a preferred method to solve addition and subtraction using a place value method e.g., jump strategy (number line), vertical method, mental strategies.  

Inquiry

In year 3 and 4 students will begin the ‘everybody wants to rule the world’ unit. Throughout this unit we will be learning that decisions can be made democratically along with the role of local government. Students will recognise the importance of rules and distinguish the differences between rules and laws. We will review how people can be active citizens in their community and how the different kinds of authorities we may encounter. During this unit we will look at different cultural norms and the impacts that they can have on rules that are accepted within that culture.

Science

This term in Science, Grade 4 students will be focusing on the Earth and Space Sciences. Students in Grade 4 will be looking at different human activities that cause changes to the Earth’s surface (e.g. farming, mining, damming of rivers, development of cities). They will investigate the impact of these activities on Earth’s natural environment. Grade 4 students will also identify some of the effects, both positive and negative, that weather events have on the natural landscape(e.g. storms causing flooding and erosion, heatwaves contributing to drought and bushfires, earthquakes causing damage to Earth’s surface). The overarching key idea students will work towards is that Earth’s surface changes over time, as a result of natural processes and human activity.

LOTE - Chinese

I would like to welcome back the Year 4 students to Chinese for this term. During Term 2 in Chinese, Year 4 students will learn about traditional Chinese family structure and the national sport in Chinese. We continue to do numbers 1-100 in Chinese characters and pinyin as well. Continue to learn some key animal signs related to their birth year. 

Art

Welcome to Term 2, Art, 2023! In Art, the Grade 3 to 6’s have started the term off with Rock Painting. The students have been mapping out a pebble design and executing their masterpieces on rocks. One of the great benefits of Rock Paining is that it helps to relieve stress and anxiety as well as providing students with an opportunity to express their creative abilities by focusing on the task at hand. This term, we will be immersing and exposing students to Art from many different cultures including Aboriginal and Indigenous Art, Mexican Folk art and French Impressionism. We will dive into the world of renowned Artists like Frida Kahlo, Thaneeya McArdle, Albert Namatjira, Rover Thomas, Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri, Dorothy Napangardi, Tommy Watson and George Ward Tjungurrayi to better understand the history and background of their Art work and what inspired them to create such amazing masterpieces. The students will be experimenting with combinations of components and approaches, such as combinations of elements, design principles, composition and style. They will use these techniques to replicate and to create their own versions of the artwork. 

We will continue to investigate how colours work together by looking at colour theory. The students will experiment with warm and cool colours, and participate in printmaking using leaves as stencils, taking into consideration the current season and tones of ‘Autumn’. Warm and cool colours play a vital part when designing, and particularly when painting to create a sense of mood in the artwork.  This term will be very messy in Art. I look forward to more fun in the Art room with our students!

 P.E.

Students in grade 4 will continue a games-based approach to their Physical Education learning and take steps to improve their problem-solving skills in conjunction with strategy to achieve success when they participate in different sports. Basketball and track & field will be the two topics that the students will work on during this term. During the basketball topic there will be a games-based approach to the learning where the students will be given ample opportunities to show the skills required to play in a game setting. These skills will include passing, dribbling, and shooting. In addition to skill development our students will be asked to apply problem-solving and begin to form strategy when they play the game. During the second half of the term, students will participate in track & field events that will work on their running, catching, and throwing. These events include short distance running, relay running, discuss, shotput, and hurdles. Students will continue to develop correct running form and participate in races of various distances. We will also be building on the field events that were worked on last year which were shotput and discuss. I am looking forward to working with the grade 4 students and achieving so many great things this term.