Year 3/4 Mainstream

Celebrating Learning

Students had the most amazing experience at the Botanical Gardens in Week 3. It was fantastic to be a part of the 20-year anniversary of the Children’s Garden, and for TPS kids to see the beautiful signage that they designed in real life. Students also engaged in a range of activities, including leaf boat racing, potion making, cubby building, clay creature making, microscopes, and exploration around the gardens. 

The TPS Family Maths Night was held this Wednesday, and it was wonderful to see so many 3/4 students getting involved in the different activities and sharing maths experiences with their family and friends. Thanks to all who were able to attend: we look forward to holding another session next year that’s even bigger and better!

Maths:

Our work in Maths has focused on fractions, and understanding that numbers and shapes can be broken up into smaller pieces. Students have made fraction walls that show the size of different fractions in comparison to each other, and have also used pattern blocks to show halves, quarters, thirds and sixths. It has been awesome to see students using their knowledge about shapes during this unit of work, and making connections between other topics in maths. This week, we have focused on number lines, and representing numbers less than one to write them as fractions. 

Literacy:

In Reading, students have been enjoying researching a natural disaster using non-fiction texts on Epic.  They have been focusing on explaining the natural disaster, finding out how and why it occurs and what effect the disaster has on the surface of the Earth.  Students have been practising notetaking using dot points and only writing down important information. They have begun researching non-fiction texts about landforms so that they can use this information in a narrative. The landform they have chosen will be the setting of their story - we can’t wait to see what they come up with!

In Writing, students spent last week developing their understanding of sensory detail by focusing on a natural disaster, and imagining the sights, sounds, smells, taste and feelings that might happen during this event. Students watched a video of Pompeii during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and used this as a seed for writing. We have also read amazing stories from Jackie French’s Natural Disaster Series and taken inspiration from her detailed writing style and combined this with researched knowledge to create fictional recounts from the perspective of a person experiencing a natural disaster. 

What’s to come in the next two weeks:

• In Writing, students will be writing narratives that feature a landform they have researched as the setting, and that includes a villain and detailed problem.
• In Maths, we will be continuing to learn about fractions before moving into a unit about decimals.
• In Reading, students will be developing and using assessment rubrics to analyse their own posters for clarity and presentation. We will also be learning about “show, don’t tell”, and how adding description can be more powerful than just telling the reader what is happening. 
• Wednesday 20th November is the whole school Colour Fun Run - great prizes and a fun fitness day await! Compass has the details on how to sponsor your child, and also how to be a parent volunteer on the day.