From the Classroom

Grade 3

This week the Grade 3 children have been learning the following: 

Reading:  This main focus was on Inferring. The children have been developing their skills to piece together what they already know and clues in the picture or text to help them make inferences. 

Writing: all children have been listening to the story called “Frog and Toad are Friends.” They have been making inferences based on what the characters say and do in the story. These inferences are based on character feelings. 

Maths: Addition and Subtraction have been the main focus. Classroom work has involved children developing their estimation skills by rounding numbers. Building their knowledge when rearranging numbers to make one friendly making it easier to add or subtract. Setting sums out in written format and solving problems with trading. 

Physical Science: The children completed their experiment on conduction observing how heat flows better through some things than others. The testing objects were a metal, plastic and wooden spoon. 

 

Activities you can do at home:

  • Reading – Decoding harder words in the text in align with student reading goals at school.  
  • Re-reading when faced with a tricky word and saying the initial sound.
  • Skip the tricky word and reading to the end of the sentence. Thinking about what makes sense beginning with that sound.
  • Predicting another word that makes sense. Going back and re-reading for meaning. 
  • Writing - Creating short imaginative texts, imitating familiar storylines, by changing the characters, setting and plot. 
  • Spelling - Word recognition of homophone words. Drawing pictures to match different spelling of words and spelling words to match pictures. 
  • Maths – Addition and Subtraction fact families. Counting decreasing by 2, 3, 5 and 10 or any other sequence starting from a random number. 
  • Completing activities on Essential Assessment in My Literacy and My Numeracy. 

Mr Tarrant

Grade 1 & 2

On Wednesday afternoon we became Paleontologists and made fossils! The children from Grade 1/2 enjoyed getting their hands dirty.

AFL Clinic

Grade 4

We have had a few busy weeks in Grade 4 completing a number of assessment tasks. Students are to be commended for their positive attitudes towards these tasks. 

 

In Reading, we are learning to respond to Non-Fiction texts. Students are focusing on identifying the features in the books (subheadings, glossary, diagrams and so on). 

When we respond to Non-Fiction text, we discuss what students already know(background knowledge) about the topic. While reading students record key information, any questions they have and tier three vocabulary words.

 

With the skills students are learning in Reading, we are consolidating them in Writing by completing information reports. This week students are working with collaborative with a partner to create a presentation on Google Slides about a planet in the solar system. Students have been using Epic to find their information. We will upload the presentations to Class Dojo when they are completed. 

 

In Maths, we are continuing with subtraction. Students have been using the compensation strategy when working with two digit numbers. Compensation allows to students to round the 2nd number to a friendly number (ending with 0) to make their subtraction sums easier.

 

Example

65 – 26 =

+ 4   +4

69 – 30 = 39

 

We have also introduced vertical subtraction with regrouping (borrowing). We have been using MAB to physically borrow from another number, students are able to trade 1 ten for 10 ones or 1 hundred for 10 tens to make the sum possible. 

We have also been looking at measuring area of rectangles. This week students were tasked with trying to measure the area of their handprint by counting the number of complete squares inside their hand.

 

What you can do at home:

  • Students can complete activities for My Literacy, My Numeracy & My Spelling on Essential Assessment.
  • Ensure students are reading each night. Ask students to infer what characters are feeling and how they know? What clues in the text/images support their inference?
  • Students can read on Epic!

AFL Clinic