Year4 Term4 Team Overview

Nǐ hǎo (hello) Year 4 Families,

Womenjeka (Welcome) back to school for Term 4! The Year 4 students have transitioned respectfully by showing great resilience skills by settling back into learning routines quickly.

This term we will continue our specialist focus areas which are: PE, Mandarin, STEM and Visual Arts.

Curriculum:

Literacy

During Literacy this term, we will be focusing on procedure and explanation texts in writing and reading. We will continue to develop our understanding within both fiction and non-fiction texts, and as well, endeavor to build your child’s vocabulary.

This term in reading, we will be investigating the features of procedure and explanation texts and developing an understanding of their purpose and structure. We will use a variety of texts to allow your child ample opportunities to compare and contrast the effect of underlying text features and use academic language to critique them. We are also focusing on identifying information in sentences with nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. This will give your child a thorough understanding of the use of different words and phrases with in a text and specific choices that authors can make. Students will also have the opportunity to explore embedded forms within texts, such as letters, journal entries and emails. Students will analyse and critique the use of the embedded forms and gain an understanding of the effects on the reader.

This term in writing, Year 4 students will be exploring how to write a procedure and explanation text and we will continue developing our knowledge around the 6+1 writing traits, with a particular focus on voice, conventions and presentation. Students will have the opportunity to think about their target audience for their writing, by creating procedural texts for the Preps to use in their daily activities, such as washing their hands or choosing a just right book from the library. Every fortnight, students will have the opportunity to complete a free-write with the aim to build up writing stamina and apply the skills they have learned each week. Each week, students will continue to engage in SMART spelling as well as handwriting practice to help improve their understanding of spelling patterns and letter formation.

Numeracy

In term 4 we will have a focus on chance and data, shape and geometric reasoning as well as measuring mass, capacity, volume and temperature. Students will explore hands-on learning experiences this term including a play dough making activity to deepen their understanding of measurements. Year 4 students will continue to make connections to maths in their everyday lives across all learning areas this term, with a focus on problem solving where students can use a range of problem solving strategies. Multiplicative thinking is a focus that we continue to develop to support your students' fluency with multiplication facts, specifically using the 5+2 strategy to solve 7’s facts equations, as well using strategies learnt throughout the year to solve multiplication equations that involve using distributive properties. We will also be exploring factors of products, as part of our Big Ideas in mathematics lessons. These strategies will be crucial in the students understanding of mathematics in everyday life and are the stepping stones to their maths processing skills,

SEL

Our SEL program consists of the PATHS program, Respectful Relationships and teaching to your child’s social and emotional needs as they arise. This term we are focusing on behaviours influenced by gender roles, as part of the Respectful Relationships program. Students will also be given the opportunity to discuss the value of diverse perspectives and demonstrate respect for a diverse range of people and groups. As part of the PATHS program, we will continue to do PATHS Kid this year with a new PATHS Kid each day and students will be given the opportunity to give and receive compliments from their classmates. The PATHS Kid will also give themselves a compliment as we build your child’s capacity to recognise their personal strengths. We will continue to explore what makes a good learning partner, the wheel of choice and control signals (which provide strategies to settle disagreements), and how to uphold the school expectations of striving for excellence, respect and being safe as well as the school values (teamwork, integrity, respect, kindness, learning). Students will identify ways in which their actions can have a positive and negative impact. These skills will be really important as we embark on our year 4 camp in week 7 and will be crucial for their personal and social development.

Inquiry

This term, Inquiry will have a focus on science and design tech and explore how the world works. Grade 4students will explain how solutions are designed to best meet needs of the communities and their environments, through our driving question: How do designers and engineers create sustainable solutions for the community using knowledge of materials and forces? In this unit, students will explore the different forces that create movement and research about different materials, properties of materials, where they come from and whether they are renewable and sustainable. Students will use these skills and knowledge to innovate on pre-existing objects using more sustainable materials. 

Ways to Help Your Child At Home:

Home Reading - The expectation is for your child to read their take home or WUSHKA book 5 nights a week, answer some comprehension questions that a family member asks them and record the title, date and a comment in the green reading journal themselves. Take home books are for enjoyment and for your child to practice their reading strategies, and are not meant to be a challenging task for your child. In addition to the Home Reading program, Wushka and Reading Eggs are extremely valuable resources to help your child practice their reading. 

Learning Goals - Your child’s individualised learning goals are listed on Compass. There is a reading goal, a maths goal, a writing goal and an Inquiry or SEL (social and emotional learning) goal for your child. Please read these and support your child by going through the suggested strategies to help at home. These goals are changed every five weeks (twice a term), and you will also be informed of your child’s achievement of these goals. We look forward to continuing working and building relationships with both you and your child this year. Please contact your child’s teacher if you have any questions or concerns. After school is best for a quick chat, otherwise send your child’s teacher an email to set up an appointment time for a longer chat.

Xièxiè (Thank you) from the Grade 4 Teachers,