Year 3/4 News

It’s been a busy three weeks in Year 3/4! We’re already halfway through Term 3 and, with the end of winter in sight, there has been plenty happening both in and out of the classroom. Here’s a snapshot of some of the learning and activities our Year 3/4 students have been enjoying.

Inquiry

In Inquiry, Year 3/4 students have been exploring an Our Stories unit and the big question: How do people, places and communities shape our identity? Students have been thinking about the people, places, traditions and experiences that are important to them and their families. We have also explored migration to Australia, why people migrate, and how migration has shaped Australian communities. Students are using this learning to reflect on their own stories and the many different influences that help shape who they are.

Science Week, Reading and Writing

Science Week provided plenty of opportunities to combine literacy with hands-on science. Students read and followed a range of procedural texts, including making seed helicopters, salty snowflakes, paper bridges and paper helicopters. We also explored how procedures can be communicated visually by following origami diagrams.

In Writing, students learned about the structure and language features of procedural texts and wrote their own clear, ordered instructions. During Science Week, they also explained the science behind our experiments, making predictions, recording observations and investigating what happened when we changed different variables. Importantly, we embraced First Attempts In Learning (FAIL) and discovered that experiments don’t always work as expected — and that unexpected results give us a chance to think, make changes and try again!

AFLW Visit

Year 3/4 students were fortunate to have AFLW players visit the school. Students had the opportunity to learn more about AFLW, hear from elite athletes and ask questions about their experiences. Before the visit, we explored the history of AFLW, discussed the qualities needed to be an elite athlete and prepared open-ended questions.

Mathematics

In Mathematics, we have been developing strategies for solving worded addition and subtraction problems. Students have been learning to slow down and read carefully, identify the important information, decide which operation is needed and write a number sentence before solving. We have also explored different types of subtraction problems and begun tackling more challenging two-step problems.