Grade 4 Community News

We can’t believe it is almost the end of Term 1! 

Thank you to all of the families for your support and encouragement throughout this term. The Grade 4 cohort has had such a successful start to the year and we could not be prouder of our students.

Reading

In Reading, we have started our Literature unit on Dragonkeeper by Carole Wilkinson. The students have been exploring the genre of Dragonkeeper, fantasy fiction, and how this has been represented throughout the text - for example, one of the main characters is a dragon named Danzi. The Grade 4 students had a lot of fun learning about dragon mythology and how this is connected to the text. There are four different kinds of dragons in Chinese mythology; blue and green, black and white, red, and yellow and gold.

We have also built our background knowledge on other areas of Ancient China to help us make connections to important topics in the text, such as the different social classes during this time (comparing the life of an emperor compared to the life of a slave), and the meaning of different proverbs that Danzi, one of the characters, says throughout the text.

Writing

In Writing, students have come to the end of writing their imaginative narratives. They have repeated the structure of creating their plan, extended plan (which entails them planning their language features) and writing. The Grade 4 students challenged themselves to think about and create an alternative problem to their story, choosing which one they liked best. They then wrote their resolution to match the problem that they chose. The students explored different language features to include in their writing such as homophones, idioms, adverbs of time, place and manner, and ellipsis, to enhance their reader engagement and make their writing more descriptive and interesting.

Maths

Over the past 2 weeks, year 4 students have been developing their knowledge of time. Using different strategies, they have practised how to calculate durations of time (elapsed time), as well as unknown start time and finish times. The most frequent tool students have been using to demonstrate their understanding is the empty number line, as illustrated below. They have paired this with their prior knowledge of counting on and back in hours and in increments of 5 to support their calculations. To apply their knowledge to real life contexts, students have been solving word problems that use this strategy, for example, calculating when a show or sports game should finish when given the start time and the duration. 

Reminders 

-    The last day of Term 1 will be on Friday the 4th of April. Students will finish early at 2:30pm.

-    Please ensure that students are wearing their hats every day. It is a requirement that in Term 1 and 4, students are wearing their hats. If you need to purchase a hat, please visit the front office.

-    Please remember to send students with charged iPads and headphones to school each day.

Thank you 🙂

PLC4