Year 4 Term 4 Newsletter

Teaching Team

4A - Sarah Lazzaro (PLC Leader)

4B - Robyn Apostolopoulos and Rebecca Robinson

Welcome to Term 4

Greetings from the Year 4 teaching team!

We hope everyone had a restful break over the holidays and enjoyed spending time with friends and family. We are delighted with how the children have smoothly transitioned back to school and embraced a positive attitude. As always, we have an exciting term ahead, packed with various challenging and engaging learning activities and events. We are excited about the opportunities ahead and look forward to continuing to support and connect with your children throughout the term.

 Specialist Timetable

Important Dates

1. Thu 15 Oct – Italian Day
2. Mon 2 Nov – Curriculum Day (student-free day)
3. Tue 3 Nov – Melbourne Cup Public Holiday
4. Thu 12 Nov – School Fete
5.  Mon 16 Nov - Friday 20th Nov – Swimming Lessons
6. Friday 19th Nov – Special Lunch Day
7.  Thurs 3rd Dec – Health Education Lessons Begin
8. Mon 14 Dec – Curriculum Day (student-free day)
9. Fri 18 Dec – End of Term 4 - early dismissal 

Electronic Rolls

Our electronic rolls are legal documents; therefore, we must be accountable for any absences. If you haven't logged the absence ahead of time, please assist with this and inform the school by replying to the text message sent by Compass in the event of your child being away.

Teaching and Learning

Reading and Viewing 

This term, our class novel is The City of Ember. The students will be looking at strategies the author has used to create a cohesive, detailed and engaging text. They will learn the impact that using precise vocabulary, dialogue, and complex sentences has on the reader.  Students will identify key information from supporting details and use this to summarise chapters. They will continue to improve their self-monitoring skills by re-reading, pausing, self-correcting, questioning and cross-checking information. As always, please ensure your child does not read the text ahead of the class or watch the movie at home. We also ask that any conversations or exposure to the content of the novel not to be shared with younger siblings to ensure their experience will not be affected should they study this text in Year 4.

Writing

In Writing, Year 4 students will build their writing skills by investigating information reports, explanation texts and personal narratives. They will engage in all stages of the writing process: planning, composing, revising, editing and publishing. 

Students will focus on researching and generating ideas, using paragraphs to organise information, creating cohesive sentences that use precise language and complex phrases and editing their work for spelling, punctuation, grammar and meaning. They will publish an information report on a significant Indigenous Australian and an explanation text on their roller coaster in connection with our Humanities topic.

Through English Orthography lessons, students will further investigate how the written word works with a particular focus on the changes required when joining suffixes to a base. 

Speaking and Listening

This term, students will focus on developing essential speaking and listening skills. They will learn to recognise, construct and use open- and closed-ended questions for a variety of purposes, and identify conclusions that are supported by clear reasoning. Through guided discussions, students will also explore ‘if…then’ thinking to build logical connections between ideas. They will engage in active listening tasks and contribute their thoughts and opinions during whole-class and small-group discussions. Students will be encouraged to use expanded vocabulary and extend their ideas using the language of opinion, fact and feeling. When speaking to an audience, they will plan and deliver structured spoken texts that incorporate digital elements and appropriate language for the purpose and audience.

Mathematics

In Maths, we have started the term with a two-week unit on Data Investigation. Following this unit, we will work with Multiplication & Division, 3D Shapes, Probability, and then finish with Mass & Capacity.  Our Maths lessons include:

• Daily Reviews, where we revisit concepts previously taught.

• 'I Do' where the teacher teaches concepts and models to the students.

• 'We Do', where the students work on individual whiteboards to follow worked examples provided by the teacher.

• Frequent 'Checks for Understanding' to guide teacher support for individual students.

• 'You Do' where the teacher supports students as they work through maths problems independently.

   

Formative assessments and student work samples will be a regular tool to guide teaching. Outside of the classroom, students are encouraged to continue using Mathletics and the maths games set for homework to support their understanding of classroom content and to develop speed and accuracy when working with numbers.

Humanities

This term in Humanities, we’re exploring “How can we use science and design to create a roller coaster that is both thrilling and safe?” Students will investigate the history of roller coasters, explore forces like gravity and friction through hands-on experiments and analyse different coaster designs. They will then design and build their own roller coaster models, testing and refining them for speed and safety. The term will finish with a showcase where students present their designs and reflect on their learning.

Wellbeing

CEPS VALUES

COURTESY    RESPECT    CO-OPERATION    RESPONSIBILITY 

This term, the value our school is focusing on is RESPONSIBILITY. Opportunities will be provided for students to explore various skills through age-appropriate activities. At our fortnightly Friday afternoon assembly, awards will be given to children who lead by example. Parents of award recipients will be notified by the classroom teacher via Dojo prior to Friday’s assembly.

Supporting Learning from Home

Homework

This term, homework tasks will continue for all students in a similar way to Term 3. Classroom teachers will continue to support families with reviewing work upon request, answering questions, and providing targeted support to students as needed. As per our school policy, homework tasks should be limited to 90 minutes per week. 

Weekly homework tasks should include:

• Mathletics - Teachers do not have specific tasks set, so students have access to the full range of activities within Mathletics. Students are encouraged to choose tasks that support their understanding of topics covered in the classroom, in addition to building number fact fluency and revising any areas of difficulty. If your child has difficulty with a particular problem, they are encouraged to speak to their teacher for help.

   

• Reading - Students are encouraged to source their own reading material, which should be a range of both fiction and non-fiction. They are encouraged to engage in a combination of reading experiences that include being read to, reading aloud to a parent and reading to themselves. All students would greatly benefit from being asked comprehension questions about what they have read and comparing different reading material. All students should aim to read for a minimum of 15 minutes at least four nights during the week. Your child is encouraged to reach out to their teacher if they require support with accessing reading material.

   

• Maths Games - Each fortnight, in Mathematics, the students will learn a maths game and are encouraged to play this at home as part of their homework. These games will provide students with the opportunity to build fluency with number facts and reinforce concepts taught in the classroom. Students can find instructions for these games inside their Google Classroom accounts.

   

• Challenge - Students thrive with challenge, but struggle with failure. They only learn

  to manage adversity by surviving failure. Give them opportunities to fail safely. Eg, cook dinner (almost) on their own, make the shopping list for the week, plan and coordinate an outing with a friend.

Communication

Parents and carers are welcome to contact classroom teachers via email through Compass or by messaging us through Class Dojo. At this stage, teachers will continue to use Class Dojo to share learning updates and highlights from the classroom.

Teachers will endeavour to respond to messages promptly; however, please understand that during the school day, our focus is on teaching and supporting students, and we are often unable to check messages until after 3:30pm.

If you have an important or time-sensitive message that needs to be passed on to your child, please contact the school office directly. This may include advising us that your child will be collected early or will be going home with another family member. The office will ensure the message is passed on to your child’s classroom teacher.

As always, parents and carers are also welcome to pop into the classroom before or after school if you have any questions or concerns.

Compass: Compass is the formal tool for communication regarding attendance, payments, excursions, camps, permission forms, school reports, etc.

Please use Compass to advise the school in a timely manner of all student absences.

Early Pick Up: If you need to pick up your child early, please collect them from the office area and be sure to sign them out. You will require an Early Leaver's Pass, provided by the office staff, before we are able to dismiss students. 

You can also keep up to date by using the school website and weekly newsletters:  http://www.cheltenhameast.vic.edu.au