Year 3/4 Mainstream & Steiner

What we’ve been up to:

Over the past fortnight, our gardening sessions have taken on an exciting new focus as we explored the concept of biomimicry - the practice of observing patterns, systems, and solutions found in nature and using them to inspire human design. Students learned how plants, animals, and natural structures can spark clever ideas for innovation.

We ventured into the garden to search for real-life examples of biomimicry. Students noticed how leaves channel water efficiently, how vines climb and grip for support, and how seed pods protect what’s inside - all powerful design ideas waiting to be used. We then shared our observations and discussed how these natural strategies could inspire our own inquiry design projects. It was fantastic to see students making connections between the natural world and the creative challenges they are working on in class.

This week has been especially joyful with pyjamas day and the Colour Run! Thank you to all who helped make these days a huge success.

Maths

Over the past fortnight in Mathematics, we have been exploring a new series of learning focused on algebra, number, and shape patterns. Students have been investigating how to find numerical values of symbols and using manipulatives, drawings, and number sequences to identify rules and describe relationships. They experimented with repeating and growing patterns, predicted what would come next, and explained the strategies they used. These activities have supported students in recognising structure and making connections between visual, numerical, and symbolic representations.

In addition to our pattern work, we have launched a new focus: Problem Solving Fridays. Each Friday, students engage with open-ended mathematical challenges designed to strengthen their reasoning and estimation skills. They have been practising how to make thoughtful estimates, justify their thinking, and communicate their ideas clearly using mathematical language. These sessions encourage perseverance, collaboration, and multiple approaches to solving a single problem, helping students see that there can be more than one valid pathway to a solution.

Literacy

In Literacy this fortnight, we have been learning to infer meaning in texts we read and listen to. Students have practised reading ‘between the lines' to understand what is happening in a story, and learnt to identify evidence to justify their opinion. These skills have been introduced while reading several picture story books as a class (Chalk, The Lion and the Mouse and Goodnight Gorilla) that have not contained any words. Pictures from these books were then provided to students and their task was to infer the storyline and write the text that could go with the images. It has been wonderful to see how varied the students' own texts have been, while using the same images as the SEED of their stories.

Spelling skills practiced through our phoneme program are continuing to grow! We focused on the ‘ow’ and ‘ou’ phonemes this past week through active literacy games, our spelling menu activities, dictation, diacritical marking and recording newfound vocabulary words which contain the phoneme at hand. This ongoing practice is helping students to become more confident and accurate spellers.

What’s coming up:

Book Fair: Next week (25th November- Monday 1st December), our library will turn into a Scholastic Book Club bonanza!
Summer Seasons Farewell: Friday 6th December
In Maths, students will be finessing their multiplication and division skills, with exploration in problem solving.
In our unit focus, students will be bringing their game designs to life! These games include at least one simple machine, and a nature-based element, inspired by examples of biomimicry that were visited in last week’s gardening.
In Literacy, students will be publishing their written interpretations of wordless picturebooks. They will also start researching Australian inventors, inventions/ designers, designs to base an information poster on.

Things families can talk about at home:

Wearing sun smart hats during play time.
Australian inventions, inventors and designers.
Simple machine examples at home, and around the neighbourhood.
Students are encouraged to continue practising their times tables at home each week to strengthen their understanding and maintain their fluency in this important area of learning.