Year 4

Welcome to Term 1!

Welcome back to another busy year. It has been a delight to reconnect with the students I had back in Year 2 and I am so impressed to see how they've grown academically and in maturity. The weeks have whipped by already and we're settled and working well together.

Should you need to contact me, my email is kking@sjeuroa.catholic.edu.au

Parent Teacher Interviews

It was wonderful to catch up with families during Parent Teacher Interviews and I thank you for taking the time to come in. If you haven't been able to come in, please don't hesitate in making an alternative time. 

Specialist Times

Monday - Physical Education & Art (9-11am)

Thursday - STEM & Japapnese (9-11am)

Readers 

In Year 4 we encourage our young readers to read texts from the library. These can be easy read short chapter books, novels, information texts and graphic novels. Of course students can read from their own collection at home. It's been great to see so many families and students committed to nightly reading. We know families can be very busy with out of school commitments so we do understand there will be evenings it's difficult to fit in, but please aim to read at least 5 nights a week when you can.

School Hats, Drink Bottles & Sunscreen

We've had great success in everyone having a drink bottle and hat for break times. Thank you for ensuring hats and drink bottles are clearly named. We do provide sunscreen in the classroom for students to use when they need it. Please feel free to supply your own should your child have skin sensitivities.

English

Reading - We've been on the edge of our seats reading Kensuke's Kingdom. A story about a boy who has been lost at sea and finds himself alone on an island. However it turns out he hasn't quite been alone! Ask your child for a rundown of what's been happening! 

Writing - During writing time we've been fine tuning our handwriting with h, k and p.

We've also been exploring the components of persuasive texts. We've been coming up with lots of for and against arguments to support statements. At the moment we are keeping within the theme of Kensuke's Island and debating whether island living would be positive or negative.

Spelling - We launched into our new spelling program Spellex. Spellex is proving to be a very thorough program where we don't just learn how to spell but the rules and intricacies to help us become better spellers.

We know that phonemes are the sound we hear in words, and that graphemes are the letters we use to spell these sounds. Last week we learnt that morphemes are the small parts of words that have meaning and these can help us spell. For instance un-pack-ed

pack is our base word, un is our prefix which means to undo something and ed is our suffix which means past tense. Knowing these meanings can help us spell.

We also learnt all about the doubling rule which seemed pretty complicated at first, but we got the hang of it. If the suffix has a vowel, the base word is one syllable, there's only one vowel making a short vowel sound and there's only one consonant after the vowel then we double it.

Mathematics

In weeks 1-3 we brushed off the cobwebs and revisited some of the different strategies for addition and subtraction with a heavier focus on algorithms to help with regrouping. Or if you were an 80s student like me, 'borrowing' was the term we used. Weeks 4-5 we are working on Fractions. We know the denominator is how many parts there are of an objects and the numerator is how many pieces are selected. We've made fractions and named fractions before getting into the trickier concept of counting with fractions. We've practised counting by halves, thirds, fourths and tenths. 

Mercy Day

We celebrated our special Mercy Day by learning all about the Mercy Charism and our school founders. We learnt about Catherine McAuley and how she created the Mercy Sisters. We discovered that boots, a shawl and a cup of tea are the symbols that represent the sisters. They were known as the walking sisters who walked great lengths to help those in need with dignity.

With this in mind we read I Saw Pete and Pete Saw Me, a story about a displaced man living on the streets and how a young boy lead the town to see Pete with dignity and compassion. We then considered how we could build shelters for those in need, much like the tents we see on the commercial to provide warm, protecting and dignity. Here are our creations.

Lizzie and Robbo

We had a visit from two blue tongue lizards called Lizzie and Robbo from Jett in year 5 who told us many things about how to look after them. Jett told us that we can tell female and male lizards apart by looking at the shape of their head. Did you know that they have blue tongues as a defense mechanism? Other animals will think they are sick and so they won't want to eat them.

Thank you for visiting our page!

Katherine & Lisa