Grade 4 News

Dear Year 4 Families,

Our Year 4 students have settled into their new classrooms so wonderfully! They’ve quickly gotten into their learning routines and are showing lots of excitement and focus in their lessons. It’s been amazing to see them embrace new challenges and participate so eagerly in class.

Just a quick reminder to please make sure your child brings their satchel to school each day, which should have their diary and reader inside. This helps us stay organised and keep track of important notes and their reading progress. At the moment we have many students forgetting their diary, so please try to support them in packing it and bringing it each day.

Also, nightly reading is an important part of our routine. We encourage students to read at home every night for 20 minutes to help build their reading skills and understanding. It’s a great way for them to practice and get even better at reading! The library will be open for borrowing in the next few weeks where your child can select books of their choosing to also read at home.

Thank you so much for your support – we’re looking forward to a fantastic year of learning together!

Learning Focuses- Below is what we have been focusing on with our learning at the start of this term. We have also suggested some activities you can do with your child/ren to support their learning outside of the classroom if you wish to.

Reading Fluency

In class, students have been reading short passages of text to help build their skills in expression, pace, use of punctuation, and accuracy. By practicing reading aloud, they are learning how to adjust their tone and expression to match the meaning of the text, which helps make their reading sound more natural and engaging. They are also focusing on reading at the right pace, not too fast or slow, to ensure they understand and convey the message clearly. In addition, students are paying close attention to punctuation marks like commas, periods, and question marks to guide their reading and improve their fluency. This practice is helping them become more confident and accurate readers, while also strengthening their overall comprehension and expression.

Typing

Our Year 4 students have also been practicing their typing skills to improve both speed and accuracy. By using fun, interactive activities, they are working on developing their typing technique, which will help them become more confident and efficient when using laptops for schoolwork. With regular practice, they are steadily increasing their typing pace and precision.

Morphology

In our lessons, we have been teaching students about the prefixes over-, con-, trans-, and the fore- to help them understand how words are formed and how their meanings can change.

over- means above, higher or too much (e.g., overlap– put one thing/object on top of each other).

con- means with or together (e.g., concur– to agree together).

trans- means across/beyond or through (e.g., transfer– to move something from one pace to another).

fore- means before/front (e.g., foreleg– front of the leg)

Some ways you can continue to work on this at home include:

Word Hunts: Go on a word hunt in books, newspapers, or even around the house. Look for words with anti-, de-, re-, or -en and write them down. Discuss their meanings and how the prefix or suffix changes the base word.
Find Opposites & Similar Words: Challenge your child to think of words with opposite or similar meanings using these prefixes. Example: Antiwrinkle (opposite of wrinkle), Rebuild (similar to construct again).
Real-Life Connections: Talk about real-life examples of these prefixes/suffixes. Anti- (antibiotics, antifreeze), De- (deflate a balloon, decode a message), Re- (recycle, redo homework), -en (soften butter, strengthen muscles)
Word Families: Teach students about word families—groups of words that share a common root and similar meanings. For example, “help,” “helpful,” “helpless,” and “helper” all come from the same root word but have different meanings based on the prefixes and suffixes attached.
Practice Word Formation: Challenge students to create new words by adding prefixes or suffixes to root words. For example, take the word “care” and have students form “careful,” “careless,” and “caring.” This helps them understand how affixes modify the meaning of the root word.

Grammar & Syntax

In Grammar and Syntax, we have been focusing on helping students understand the following to improve their writing and add detail to their sentences.

Concrete and Abstract Nouns: Concrete nouns are things we can see, touch, or experience physically, like "dog" or "tree," while abstract nouns refer to ideas, feelings, or concepts that cannot be physically touched or seen, like "happiness" or "freedom."
Upgrading Verbs in a sentence: Upgrading verbs means replacing a simple verb with a more specific one to make the sentence stronger, like changing "run" to "sprint" to show faster movement.
Apostrophes for Contractions: Apostrophes for contractions are used to shorten two words into one by replacing missing letters, like "can't" for "cannot" or "I'm" for "I am."
Expanding a sentence using 2 or more adjectives: Expanding a sentence using two or more adjectives means adding extra details to describe a noun more clearly, like saying "The tall, green tree" instead of just "The tree." There are different types of adjectives: descriptive adjectives describe qualities, such as "big," "happy," or "smooth"; quantitative adjectives tell us how much or how many, like "few," "many," or "several"; demonstrative adjectives point out specific things, like "this," "those," or "these"; and possessive adjectives show ownership, such as "my," "her," or "their." These adjectives help make sentences more interesting and detailed.

Literature/Knowledge

In Knowledge, we have been learning to explore South Australian geography, local habitats, and ecosystems through the text Rivertime by Trace Balla. This book has helped us understand the connections between people, rivers, and the environment. By following the characters on their journey along a river, we have gained insight into the diverse habitats and ecosystems found in South Australia. Additionally, we have been learning about world rivers through our Core Knowledge unit 'World Rivers', studying how rivers shape landscapes, support ecosystems, and play vital roles in human societies around the globe.

Through these lessons, we have also extended our vocabulary, using new terms related to geography, ecosystems, and environmental science, which has helped us better describe and understand the world around us. This has allowed us to build a deeper understanding of both local and global environments and the importance of preserving them.

You can support students' learning at home by engaging in activities that reinforce the concepts they've been learning in Knowledge lessons. Here are some ways parents and guardians can help:

Encourage Discussions: Talk to students about the Rivertime book and ask them to explain the different habitats and ecosystems described in the story. Discuss how the river impacts the environment and the people around it, which will help them connect what they've learned to real-world situations.
Explore Local Geography: Take students on nature walks or visits to local rivers, parks, or other natural environments. Discuss the local geography, animals, and plants they see, reinforcing the concepts of ecosystems and the importance of preserving these habitats.
Extend Vocabulary: Use new vocabulary words that students have learned in their lessons at home. For example, when talking about the environment, parents can introduce related terms such as "ecosystem," "biodiversity," or "watershed," and encourage students to use these terms in conversation.
Research World Rivers: Help students explore world rivers beyond the local ones they’ve learned about. This could include looking up information about major rivers, such as the Nile or the Amazon, and discussing how these rivers support different ecosystems and communities.
Support with Projects: If students are working on projects related to their learning, such as researching local habitats or ecosystems, parents can assist by providing resources or helping with organization. This could include finding books, documentaries, or even virtual tours to support their studies.
Ask Open-Ended Questions: Encourage critical thinking by asking open-ended questions like, "Why do you think rivers are important?" or "What might happen if an ecosystem is disturbed?" This helps students develop their analytical skills and deepen their understanding of the material.

Maths

In Maths, students have been developing a strong understanding of numbers up to 100,000 through a variety of hands-on and interactive activities. In Year 4 the focus has been on supporting students to read and write numbers, identify place value, partition numbers, compare and order numbers, estimate quantities, and round numbers.

SEL - In Social and Emotional learning, commonaly referred to as SEL, students have been developing their ability to recognise, understand, and appropriately respond to their own emotions and the emotions of others through various targeted activities and discussions in our lessons. They have been building on the skills learnt in Grade 3 to gain a deeper understanding of more complex emotions such as jealously and anxiety and how numerous ways they can respond to these both at school and at home.

Some ways you can continue this at home is by:

Start or end the day by asking, "How are you feeling today?" and encourage your child to describe their emotions.
Read books or watch films about emotions and discuss how characters feel and why. Ask, “What would you do if you were in their place?” or "Was that character in control of their emotions? Why or why not and how could they have acted differently? "

Thank you for your ongoing support in continuing and strengthening our home and school relationship, which is so vital for students😊

Miss Lochhead, Miss Carlesso and Mrs Schache