3/4 Learning News

Hello, Grade 3/4 families!

Another busy couple of weeks at St Joseph's. We've started Lent this week with Shrove Tuesday pancakes being a hit, and a visit to church on Wednesday to get our ash crosses on our foreheads. We have been speaking in class about what Lent means and the things we can do to show we are getting ready for Easter.

Matilda continues to be a fantastic book for sparking conversations in Literacy, especially with all the drama around Miss Trunchbull's punishments! It’ll be interesting to see what kind of persuasive arguments the students come up with on why those "old school" punishments shouldn't be used. At the moment, our spelling focus is on long vowel sounds, which are the sounds that are pronounced the same as the letter name (for example, the "a" in "cake" or the "e" in "be"). We are exploring the different graphemes, or letter combinations, that are used to represent these sounds in words. 

In Numeracy, we have recently started exploring the concept of time, which can sometimes be a tricky topic for students to master. We are focusing on important skills such as estimating the duration of events and understanding formal units of time. The students have been using the stopwatch and timer functions on their new devices to measure and record times. Next week, we will begin learning how to calculate the length of time events take, as well as understanding the difference between AM and PM. It's been an engaging and hands-on learning experience, and the students are enjoying the challenge of applying these new skills in real-life contexts. We look forward to continuing this journey as they gain confidence in telling time and measuring durations!

Please don't hesitate to contact me on Dojo, jbutler@sjnagambie.catholic.edu.au or come in for a chat if you need anything at all!