STUDENT  LEARNING

Year 3/4 in Term 2

Integrated Studies

The 3/4s have been learning all about Biodiversity by exploring a chosen habitat in depth. Students have been learning about biomes, food webs, animal adaptations, life cycles and soon to be making dioramas! We have even been lucky enough to take a visit to the Halls Gap Zoo where we saw lots of amazing animals such as red pandas, rhinos, and snakes in different habitats. Some groups were able to see different animals being fed such as the cheetahs and rock wallabies and a few lucky students even came home with some shredded snakeskin souvenirs. There were lots of animals that roamed around freely which included many different peacocks, guinea fowl, wallabies and even some very friendly deer! 

Reading

Students have been learning to synthesise and summarise non-fiction texts. They have drawn on their prior knowledge about topics, discussed new information and recorded how their thinking has changed throughout the process. Non-fiction texts have been linked to our Integrated Studies topic, which has seen classes read, summarise and synthesise information about various animals, including giraffes, gorillas, cheetahs, rabbits, elephants, lions, tigers and whales. 

Writing

Students have been working hard to turn their animal knowledge from Integrated Studies into fabulous information reports. Students worked through the writing process, to research, plan, draft and edit and enhance a piece on their chosen animal, which has been linked to their habitat focus. It has been wonderful reading about the classifications of animals, their appearance and adaptations, their diet and habitat, their family life and some fun facts that make them unique.

Numeracy

Students have learnt how to calculate area and perimeter this term, which saw them design their own robots using calculated formulas as part of a portfolio task. Students have also enjoyed using various tools to investigate measurement, including both formal and informal units. It was fun seeing students use kitchen scales to weigh items, along with balance scales to find objects that weighed the same.  Multiplication and division have also been explored this term through links with fact families and inverse operations, along with various strategies to problem solve, including repeated addition/subtraction, arrays, equal groups and the use of tools such as number lines and think boards to show their working out.