Grade 3 Community News
Dear Year 3 Families,
We hope you're enjoying Term 2 as much as we are!
Have a look at some photos from our Melbourne Museum excursion. The students and staff had a fabulous time. All the galleries we visited reinforced the learning we have been doing throughout class. We especially enjoyed going to the First Nations and walking through the gardens, where we even saw some waterfalls!
Knowledge Building Unit—Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening.
In Weeks 9 and 10, we have started looking at rivers and world geography. Students have been looking at maps and using keys to explain the symbols that represent human and physical characteristics of a place. Students can now name and locate on a map the continent, country, and state we live in.
In particular, we have learnt how rivers bring life to farms, how they make our lives better, and the wildlife on wild rivers. We have been using rivers from our own state to learn about this. Can you guess what one? It's the Murray River! We look forward to the parent walk-through day to show you all about the different rivers we have learned about.
In writing, we are looking at information reports. We are using the information learned about world rivers and turning them into information reports. Students have been consolidating their previous learning by using SPOs (Single Paragraph Outline) to plan, draft, and write their information reports. To support students' writing, we are also revising and expanding our sentences and correctly using conjunctions. Doing these activities enhances students' writing in their information reports.
Numeracy
In maths, we have begun a new unit: data. Over the last few weeks, our students have turned into data detectives and are learning how to collect, organise, and make sense of information in fun and meaningful ways. Students have been able to ask meaningful survey questions, use tally charts and frequency tables, and create and label clear graphs. A few key concepts we are focusing on are collecting the data by asking relevant questions and recording answers using tally marks and charts, and interpreting data by asking questions about graphs (e.g., “Which had the most?” or “How many more?”).
If you would like to continue this at home, you can discuss real-life data: “How many different fruits do we have?” You could make simple charts together based on daily life (e.g., snacks eaten in a week, the colours of cars you see outside).
Vocabulary
Our target words this fortnight are from our novel study, Race for Reconciliation. Our week 9 words were precise, grimace, flex, motion, spectacular and eternity. Our week 10 words are apology, unity, shiver, properly, native and quest.
Students enjoy sharing their learning of these words with you, and we encourage you to support and surprise them by using these words when the opportunity presents itself.
Friendly Reminders
- We ask students to read for 20 minutes each school day and then record their reading nights in their student reading journals that we keep at school to track their reading nights. Young readers who read frequently develop essential reading skills.
- We thank and remind families to continue to support their children in charging their iPads and bringing their headphones ready for each school day.
- Staff appreciate that dropping students off can be frustrating with the traffic at drop-off time. We appreciate it when students show up before the bell in the morning so we can get to learning
- We would like to remind students and families of our iPad expectations. Students must keep their iPads in their bags before and after school. Students have been reminded of this expectation, and consequences will be applied; students will lose their iPad privileges within the classroom.
- School finishes at 2:30pm on Friday 4th July. Term 3 will recommence on Monday 21st July.
- Parent teacher interviews Thursday 24th July
- Pupil Free Day - term 3, Monday 28th July
PLC 3