From the 3/4
Classrooms
Boroondara Park Primary School
The Royal Botanic Garden Excursion - 14 October
To support our concept-based unit of Place in Term 4, students in Team 3/4 visited the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne on Wednesday 14 October. As well as exploring the beautiful gardens, students participated in a Plants and Animals program led by educators from the Royal Botanic Gardens. Students discovered the rich diversity of plants and animals that thrive within Melbourne Gardens.
Through hands-on exploration, including a sculpture lesson with clay and natural resources, students investigated how living things grow, change and adapt to their environments. They explored how plants and animals interact with one another, build connections, form food chains and contribute to keeping habitats balanced. This excursion was an engaging opportunity to connect their classroom learning with the natural environment and deepen their understanding of the concept of Place.
English:
Students finished off their poetry writing unit last week, having explored a range of different styles of writing; including rhymes, alliteration, similies, onomatopoeia and ballads.
This week we moved into our narrative writing unit, where students explored what a narrative is and how we can use a Plot mountain to plan the action of our stories.
During our Mentor Text Reading sessions, we have started reading Are We There Yet? by Alison Lester. Students generated brainstorms around holidays and made predictions from clues they gathered on the front cover of the text. They also made connections with the text, using the following questions to guide them:
- Where have you gone on a holiday (or outing for those of you who have not been on a holiday)?
- Who do you go with?
- How did you get there?
- Where did you stay (or what did you do for those of you who have not been on a holiday).
Maths:
In Mathematics over the last few weeks students have been revising the multiplication and division algorithms in order to complete some worded mathematical investigations. Students reviewed 2-digit x 1-digit, 2-digit x 2-digit and even 3-digit x 1-digit and 2-digits and decimal multiplication! Our Grade 3/4s enthusiastically worked on using their 'Bus Stop' symbol to divide some larger numbers, working out the fractional remainders!
Students also recapped statistics, including how we gather data, graph this data and analyse it by testing some 'Tongue Twisters' and experimenting with 'Tiddly-Wink Jumps'.
See how quickly you can say the tongue twister "Three witches wished three wishes, but which witch wished which wish?" with your family at home!
Integrated Studies:
Last week, our Grade 3/4s learnt to research the important symbols of different places. They shareed what they knew about the Australian, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flags, researched the flag, anthem and an interesting fact about one of Australia's neighbours and shared their research with others.
This week student have been learning to research climate and rainfall in different places. They contributed to discussions about climate zones and rainfall, researched and recorded the cllimate zones and average rainfall for different places and shared their findings.
STEM:
In our STEM session we are learning to identify living things, non-living things, once-living things, and products of living things. Our curious Grade 3s and 4s contributed to discussions about living, non-living, and once-living things and worked collaboratively to classify objects into each of these categories. There was lots of rich discussion around what constitues a once-living thing, as well as the products of living things.
Wellbeing:
This terms in Zones of Regulation, we are focusing on reviewing all the great strategies we use to regulate ourselves and to assess which ones work best in different situations. Students have been tracking their use of these strategies and learning all about 'STOP, OPT, GO' which reminds them to stop what they are doing by using body clues, weigh up the different options in terms of the strategy they could use, and then go forward with care.
Through our Respectful Relationships topics we are also exploring gender norms and stereotypes, and positive relations.
Home Learning Reminders
To support our learning at school, we ask that students complete the following home learning each week:
- Read for 30 minutes each night
- Complete the weekly activity from the Maths Home Learning Grid that was sent home earlier in the term.
- Practise weekly spelling words each night (Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check)
- Multiplication Practice - sent home each week
The maths, spelling and multiplication sheets are glued in Home Learning books, and students should bring these each Monday to receive new home learning for the week ahead and to submit their homework for the previous week to their teachers.
Important Term 4 Dates:
Monday 2nd November - Pupil Free Day
Tuesday 3rd November - Melbourne Cup Public Holiday
Monday 9th to Wednesday 11th November - Grade 3 / 4 Camp Phillip Island Adventure Resort
Monday 7th December - Swimming Program begins
Tuesday 8th December - Whole School Transition Day
Wednesday 9th to Monday 14th December - Swimming Program continues and concludes
Friday 18th of December - Last Day of Term 4. Early Dismissal 1:30pm
Prepared by the Grade 3/4 Teachers