Grade 4 Community News

Time is flying by in Grade 4, with week 98 well underway!

Reading

As we start to wrap up Term 3, Grade 4 students have begun their Literature unit on their class novel, A Long Walk to Water, which they have been reading since the beginning of term. During week 7, classes began the unit by exploring the setting and context of the novel, which follows the dual-narrative story of two characters both experiencing the impact of the Civil War in South Sudan. With their prior knowledge of African Kingdoms from the previous Read to Learn unit, and their exploration of the book through class discussions when reading, the children have been engaged in many provocative and meaningful discussions. Students have also developed their skills in answering inferential questions, using their prior knowledge and context clues from the text to further analyse the themes of survival, hope and family in week 8.

Writing

In Writing, students have begun their learning on persuasive texts, where they will each be completing a piece of writing to persuade the reader to visit a country of their choosing. Students first investigated countries during our Geography lessons and created posters with key features of their countries. Then students have been using Single Paragraph Outlines (SPOs) to plan and draft their main body paragraphs for their persuasive writing pieces about these countries. They have been working hard to incorporate different types of language features used in persuasive writing and have included a range of interesting facts about their chosen countries. We look forward to seeing their soon to be finished published copies!

Maths

After finishing our unit on fractions during week 6, Grade 4 spent week 7 completing a unit on location. Students spent this time perfecting their ability to use map grid systems by describing locations on a map using grid references, as well as using maps to write and follow directions. In week 8, students began a unit of learning on decimals. This unit adds to previous learning about decimals covered in term 1, where pupils explored concepts that connected decimals to fractions and place value. In this unit, they have practised their skills in place value problems using decimal notation in different written forms. In week 9, pupils will apply decimals to a variety of real-life contexts, including use of money and measure. 

PLC 4