Year Four
Happy Newsletter Day!
Welcome families to another instalment of what has been happening in and around the Year 4 classrooms this week.
A big congratulations to the students who participated in the House Teams STEM Bridge Building Challenge. They demonstrated incredible resilience, creativity and teamwork building their skills along side the Year 5 and Year 6 students. The winning teams included the following Year 4 students: Purav 4C
Ollie 4C, Hridyansh 4D, Aiden 4I,Marco 4F, Seoha 4I, Yash 4I, Madhav 4I and Manya 4I. Keep up the curiosity in Science and Technology - who knows where it could take you!
Reading
Students have continued exploring texts by author Jackie French and illustrator Bruce Whatley. Before reading Earthquake, they built their background knowledge by examining an explanation text to understand what causes earthquakes. Students then identified powerful verbs and adjectives used by Jackie French and explained the emotional impact of these word choices. They applied her writing techniques to craft their own descriptive paragraph about different landforms and natural events including earthquakes, waterfalls, drought, monsoons, avalanches, mountains, storms, tsunami, floods and volcanoes. Students also compared real-world events to the story, discussing how communities support one another after an earthquake and reflecting on the key messages Jackie French wants readers to take away.
Writing
In writing, students selected a landform of their choice to research. They watched videos and read articles, websites and books to gather information, and were encouraged to take notes from at least three different sources. Students then began drafting an explanation text, describing how their chosen landform was formed. They incorporated subheadings and diagrams tosupport their explanations. Soon, students will create a model of their landform to accompany and enhance their written work.
Inquiry
Students have been busy investigators this week, exploring tectonic plates, earthquakes and erosion by watching videos, conducting experiments and creating writing pieces to demonstrate their understanding and how they can show empathy for the people effected by the natural destruction.
With their curiosity exploding on how landforms are created, students have displayed some creativity and are designing their landforms to build and present along side their explanation text.
Numeracy
Students have been busy consolidating their fractions knowledge by engaging in hands on activities and applying their skills in various ways. They have worked on developing independence to find equivalent fractions, count forwards and backwards on a number line in halves, quarters, thirds and fifths; converting between improper and mixed numerals, comparing and renaming fractions, simplifying and when confident, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with fractions.
Camp Date Reminders
Grades 4A, 4B, 4G, 4H and 4I on camp from Monday 1st December to Tuesday 2nd December.
Grades 4C, 4D, 4E and 4F on camp from Tuesday 2nd December to Wednesday 3rd December.
General Reminders
No Hat No Play: Students are reminded to wear their bucket hats (not caps) when outside the class at recess and lunch times.
MacBooks: MacBooks must be brought to school every day fully charged.
Mobile Phones: If brought to school, mobile phones must be handed in to the classroom teacher at the start of the day and collected at the end of the day.
Uniform: Students must wear full academic uniform every day On days with sports or PE, they can wear their PE uniform. Long hair should be tied back.
Late Arrivals: Students arriving at school after 8:30am must sign in at the office before going to class.
Absences: Absences must be logged on Xuno as early as possible to avoid messages home for unexplained absences.