Year 3/4

Welcome

Welcome back Year 3/4 Families, 

We hope that you all had an enjoyable and relaxing holiday with your children. Level newsletters are made available to all families at the start of each term. This will enable you to keep up to speed with what is happening in your child’s year level including important dates for your calendar. 

Please take the time to read our newsletter regarding events and news about our school. 

Kind Regards, 

Annette Howe, Emily Casaceli, Lachlan Ware, Milena Santoro, Rachel Gurvich and Tahira Tannen 

English: Reading 

This term, in Reading, we will be investigating different types of poetry and the structures behind them. We will use images to make predictions about the text and investigate how poetry devices such as rhyme, alliteration, onomatopoeia, simile, and metaphor are used. Students will have a chance to recite poetry and perform in front of their peers. Later in the term, we will focus on the persuasive genre and investigate the features of a persuasive text. 

English: Writing

In Writing, students will create various forms of poetry throughout the term. Some of the types of poetry students will create are rhyming poems, haikus, songs, and limericks. Students will also be investigating homophones and learning new vocabulary words each week to try and use in their writing. Further into the term, we will be creating our own persuasive texts and learning how to persuade readers. 

Maths 

We are excited to continue working with students on their mathematical thinking and problem-solving skills this term. Students will have the opportunity to use concrete materials to consolidate their learning and will be encouraged to develop efficient mental strategies. The following topics will be covered this term:

Multiplication & Division - Weeks 1 & 2

Year 3 students have been working with the multiplication facts of 2, 3, 5 and 10 and related division facts. Year 4 students focus on multiplication facts up to 10 × 10 and related division facts, developing mental and written calculation strategies.

Fractions & Decimals - Weeks 3 & 4

We will explore equivalent fractions, count by halves, quarters, thirds, and fifths and represent these on a number line. Students will also work with tenths and hundredths in practical contexts, such as solving money problems.

2D Shapes & 3D Objects - Weeks 5 & 6

Our geometry unit will cover identifying and classifying 2D shapes and 3D objects, including hands-on activities to enhance spatial reasoning.

Addition & Subtraction - Weeks 7 & 8

We will reinforce addition and subtraction skills, focusing on strategies to improve accuracy and efficiency for 1- 2—and 3-digit numbers.

Location & Transformation - Weeks 9 & 10

Students will learn about using maps with scales, directions, and legends and explore symmetry and transformations to create new shapes and patterns. 

Inquiry 

Through inquiry this term, students will learn about geography. The 3/4s will focus on Australia, its location compared to the world, and its features. Students will explore the states and territories, capital cities, landmarks, climate, animals, vegetation, and population of Australia and its surrounding countries. They will also develop their knowledge about other countries and compare them with Australia's features. 

Religion

In Term 3, we will focus on God, Religion, and Life. Students will explain the relationship between God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as expressed in the New Testament.  

Following this, students will investigate the Old Testament. They will learn that the Old Testament is found in the first section of the Bible and stresses God's special relationship with his chosen people, such as Moses, Abraham, and Noah. 

Later in the term, the students will be focusing on Church and Community. They will investigate the importance of Mary MacKillop and how she demonstrated courage, determination, and a tremendous amount of faith overall. These virtues, in particular, made her the first Australian Saint and a great religious role model in our Catholic community. The students will then investigate Scripture and Jesus and reflect on the Assumption of Mary in scripture text. Students will further develop their understanding of her life on Earth and how, after her death, she was reunited with her son, not just spiritually but also physically, when she arrived in Heaven.

Homework: Reading Daily & Weekly Tasks

Students are expected to read each night for 15-20 minutes and to record their reading in their diary.

Please record the reading using the following format:

Title:

Time Read:

Pages:

Parent signature:

After completing the reading, it would benefit your child to talk about what they have read.

This ‘verbal processing’ helps them remember and think through the book's themes. 

Ask questions before, during, and after a session to encourage reading comprehension.

 For example: 

• Before: "What are you interested in about this book? What doesn't interest you?" 
• During: "What's going on in the book? Is it turning out the way you thought it would? What do you think will happen next?" 
• After: "Can you summarise the book? What did you like about it? What other books does it remind you of?"           

You may also like to visit the local library and select books that interest your child.

Homework: Curriculum Tasks 

Homework tasks will be presented to each child for the week. The classroom teacher allocates the tasks based on the prior week's curriculum. Tasks are assigned to take no more than 15 minutes per session.   

Homework tasks for this term commenced in Week 2 on Monday, July 22nd. The last week of homework will be handed out to be completed in the second last week of term, Week 9.

Positive Behaviour for Learning

We have started this term revisiting our school wide routines and expectations and the way that we line up and transition throughout the school. We then moved on to Responsibility and the ways that we help each other inside the classroom and use our strengths to assist our peers. Next week we are focusing on how we can help others outside the classroom and during sports games and on the playground. 

We will then have a large focus on Resilience and taking ownership of our feelings and actions and being brave and having a go, even when we are feeling nervous about trying something new! Towards the end of the term we will focus on being responsible and speaking to adults when we need the advice and assistance of a grown up. We will finish the term with revising how we show respect in our words and actions.

SPECIALIST PROGRAMS

All Year 3/4 classes have specialist lessons on Monday.

Students are to wear sports uniforms with runners only on a Monday

Italian – Mrs White

P.E. – Miss Kayla Puetz

Performing Arts - Mrs Cooper

Visual Art – Mrs Bartlett

L.O.T.E.    ITALIAN

Dear parents, welcome to Term 3.

The students will begin this term by revising, recycling, and consolidating previously acquired language through written and oral activities. They will continue to develop their skills in Italian and build on their vocabulary knowledge in a unit of work centred on shopping—lo shopping. 

They will learn the names of various shops, e.g., La gelateria, the ice cream shop, La pasticceria, the cake shop. They will also learn the vocabulary for the goods that are sold in each shop, e.g., il gelato, la torta. The students will be able to identify the similarities and differences in common types of shops and what they sell, e.g., Il bar—the café, Il supermercato—the supermarket. They will complete a Venn diagram to show their findings. 

The students will be introduced to new language structures: Che negozio é? What shop is it? É una gelateria. It is an ice cream shop. Che si vende? What does it sell? Si vendono gelati. It sells ice creams. Using the new language and in pairs, the students will write a shopping list in Italian for a shop of their choice and complete an illustrated and labelled poster of the items that can be bought there.

                                                                                 I negozi

Cordiali saluti,

Signora White 

Physical Education 

Hello families and welcome to Term 3 in Physical Education! 

The Year 3/4’s will be spending a large portion of Term 3 further advancing their Athletics Event skills, including the 100m, 200m, high jump, long jump, triple jump, discus and shot put. After our unit in Athletics, students will be able to see their improvement and reflect on the value of practice. Towards the end of the term, we will transition to team-focused sports, including AFL and handball. We will practise our skills in these sports, including kicking, catching, marking, running, dribbling, passing and shooting.           

Another goal for our learning space is to embrace positive sportsmanship for ourselves and others! 

Looking forward to a fun term! 

Miss Puetz 

Visual Arts

Welcome to the Art room for Term 3. The grade 3/4s began the term by assembling a sporting figure from cardboard on a felted French flag to represent the upcoming Olympics. During term three the children will continue to develop their knowledge and understanding of sketching and observational drawing with greater detail and a more developed sense of context. They will also follow step-by-step drawing techniques to create various pictures. In line with their Inquiry, they will create oil pastel and collage artwork to complement their learnings. Students will enjoy painting from direct observation and subjects that include still life. They will continue experimenting, mixing different colours to create shadings and tones. They will combine more complex colours and tones and recognise and experiment with warm, cool and complementary colours for the effects they create. We aim to have a busy, fun term and be very creative.

Enjoy, Mrs Bartlett

Performing Arts

Welcome to Term 3 to all 3/4 students and their families!

First and foremost, thank you to anyone who contributed to fundraising last year. A very special thank you to members of the P & F, who generously donated the 2023 fundraising money to the Performing Arts department. I’m very excited to share that the Performing Arts room now has an electronic drum kit and 12 new full-piano-size keyboards. We are super excited and grateful to have these new instruments to expand our performing arts learning.

The 3/4s are in for an exciting term! Students will learn a short ostinato (repeating pattern) as a percussion piece, then add melody, a bassline, and harmony. We will put all of this together using glockenspiels, percussion instruments, recorders, and, of course, piano! We will be using the new pianos and brushing up on our treble clef understanding, music theory, and practice by playing as much piano as possible. 

Students will also be travelling “Around the World” through folk dances from Tuvalu, Poland and Holland in conjunction with their Geography Inquiry unit this term.  They’ll learn the importance of dance within cultures, including their own. Finally, we’ll be doing an “Around the World” drama unit involving researching things from different countries and then going in a time machine to act out what they did in that country. 

Thanks, and happy performing!

Emma Cooper

How to Contact Us

All of the 3/4 team members are able to be contacted on the following emails. Please be aware that teachers will read and respond during working hours. Please be mindful that we are teaching the students and allow us time to reply. We will attempt to get back to you as soon as possible.

Rachel Gurvich- rgurvich@saclaytonsth.catholic.edu.au

Netty Howe - ahowe@saclaytonsth.catholic.edu.au

Emily Casaceli - ecasaceli@saclaytonsth.catholic.edu.au

Lachlan Ware - lware@saclaytonsth.catholic.edu.au

Tahira Tannen - ttannen@saclaytonsth.catholic.edu.au

Milena Santora - msantoro@saclaytonsth.catholic.edu.au