Grade 3 News

📅 Important Dates & Reminders

• Tuesday 16th September - Student Led Conferences
• Wednesday 17th September - Student Led Conferences
• Friday 19th September - Last Day of Term 3 (2:30pm finish)

Learning in Action

📖 Literacy

Students have continued to enjoy reading Charlotte’s Web during our Literature Unit. They have been deepening their comprehension through pair shares, where they discuss the text and explore new vocabulary by defining unfamiliar words and considering synonyms and antonyms.

In writing, students have been developing their narratives by planning and drafting problems and resolutions. During Sentence-Level Writing, they have been practising identifying independent and dependent clauses, as well as inserting subordinating conjunctions into complex sentences. They have also worked on unscrambling sentences by identifying the subject (who) and predicate (what the subject is doing/what is happening to them), and then ordering the words so that the sentences make sense.

Preview – Students will complete the final lessons of the Charlotte’s Web Literature Unit in Week 8. They will spend time concluding their narratives, then revising and publishing the stories they have been working so hard on. To celebrate the end of the unit, we will host a movie afternoon on Thursday 18th September (more information has been emailed to families).

➗ Maths

This fortnight, students began their Division Unit in Number lessons. They first linked their learning to multiplication by understanding that multiplication and division are inverse operations. Students explored division vocabulary such as shared between and shared into, and worked on solving both worded and numerical problems using known strategies. They also evaluated the efficiency of these strategies (e.g., drawing groups vs. skip counting). In addition, students created fact families using arrays with both multiplication and division problems.

In Applied Maths, students explored 3D shapes and expanded their vocabulary by learning not only the names of these shapes but also their features. They identified real-life objects and pictures of 3D shapes, naming them and labelling their edges, faces, and vertices.

Preview – Students will continue to deepen their understanding of division by learning the difference between:

• Partition problems (sharing a collection into equal groups and identifying how many in each group), and
• Quotition problems (sharing a collection into equal groups and identifying how many groups).

They will also strengthen their skip-counting skills to support division problem-solving. For example:

24 ÷ 4 = ? → “4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24” → 6 fours go into 24, so 24 ÷ 4 = 6.

🗺️ Knowledge Rich Unit

Students have completed their unit on Australia and its Neighbouring Countries by reviewing key content. They revised:

• the names of neighbouring countries,
• different climate types and how these affect natural features and animals, and
• the definitions of natural, managed, and constructed features, along with examples from both Australia and New Zealand.

😊 Wellbeing

This fortnight, students began exploring the concept of identity. They played a “human bingo” game to highlight similarities and differences, discussing how these make us unique and interesting individuals. Students then completed an identity wheel, highlighting important parts of their identity and sharing with the class.

They also explored the idea of “Rainy Day Friends”—what we can do to cheer up someone who isn’t having a great day. To practise this, students created cards to give to friends as a way of showing kindness and support.

Preview – To finish the term, students will revisit all the Friendology and RRRR content covered this year. This will culminate in planning a Birthday Party, with a focus on being respectful to both invited and uninvited peers. We will also be celebrating friendships in the final weeks of term.

Whole School Production - Moana

We are so proud of our Grade 3 students, along with all LPS students, who rehearsed and performed in Moana this week! They worked incredibly hard and got through a very big, busy week while keeping smiles on their faces. A special mention goes to the Grade 3 choir members for their amazing efforts.

Thank you to Mrs Higgins and her wonderful team for bringing this production to life. Please see below for some photos from the week!

Grade 3 Staffing

We would like to thank Mrs Huxley, who has been teaching in 3SH (Thursdays) and 3RH (Fridays) this year. She has now begun maternity leave, and we wish her all the best! We look forward to hearing her updates — and hopefully meeting her new bub next term.

We are also very pleased to welcome Miss Egorov to the Grade 3 teaching team. She will be teaching in 3SH this term and continuing in both 3SH (Thursdays) and 3RH (Fridays) in Term 4.

If you have any questions or would like to arrange a meeting with your child’s teacher, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via Compass.

Have a wonderful weekend,

The Grade 3 Team

Mrs Rosewarne, Mrs Huxley, Mrs Stokol and Miss du Vallon and Miss Egorov

Updates from around the school

Garden Working Bee – Friday 12th September

We are calling on our wonderful school community to help us freshen up the gardens at the front of the school. On Friday 12th September, from 11.30am to 3.30pm, we will be holding a garden maintenance afternoon and would love your support.

The work will include:

• Removing old plants
• Weeding garden beds
• Planting new plants to brighten up the entrance to our school

If you can spare some time, whether it’s for the whole afternoon or just an hour, your help will make a big difference. Please bring along gardening gloves, tools if you have them, and plenty of energy!

To assist with planning, we kindly ask that you confirm your attendance by emailing the school office at lysterfield.ps@education.vic.gov.au.

Together, we can make the front of our school a welcoming and beautiful space for our students, families, and community.

Green Team News

Under the guidance of Mrs Stokol and Mrs Alexander, the Green Team met for the first time this week, and what a meeting it was! Across Years 3 to 5, we had nearly 50 excited and passionate students eager to do their part for the environment.

Whether it’s helping to keep the school free of rubbish, caring for and developing the gardens, or educating our community about sustainability, there was a real buzz in the air as students shared ideas and signed up for various roles.

A new initiative launched this term is the collection of 10c containers. Thanks to the special lunch day last term, we raised $21, a fantastic start! We’re now working to collect eligible containers daily to reduce landfill waste and turn recyclables into funds that will be reinvested into future Green Team projects.

Participation in the Green Team is inclusive and open to all. It’s not too late for your child to get involved; we’d love to have them on board!

Green Team Newsletter #2

The enthusiastic Green Team members from Years 3 to 6 continue to meet with Mrs Alexander and Mrs Stokol each Wednesday lunchtime. Meetings begin with a check-in on how the yard cleaning roster is going. Students report which areas are the cleanest, which need more attention, and share ideas for improvement.

Sustainability remains a key focus. Whether it’s managing waste, maintaining garden spaces, or spreading awareness, students have shown impressive initiative and creativity.

Our 10c container collection is going strong! We've raised over $80 so far. Green Team members manage the collection bin outside the canteen on lunch order days, and also visit classrooms weekly to gather containers from specially labelled tubs. By collecting these items daily, we are preventing waste from going to landfill and turning it into cash to support our environmental efforts.

Be sure to check out the Sustainability Display in the gym over the coming weeks to see what we’ve been up to!

Did you know? You can support the Green Team by nominating Lysterfield Primary School (LPS) as your donation partner through Victoria’s Container Deposit Scheme.

Download the app or visit:🔗 Victoria's Container Deposit Scheme | Learn How To Donate

It’s planting season, and what’s better than free plants? 

Help the Green Team — and Earn Free Plants!

Did you know that the Knox Environment Society (KES) offers free native plants as prizes through their Nature Discovery Passport program?

By playing an interactive game and collecting stamps at local reserves, participants can earn plant prizes, and what better way to use those plants than by donating them to our school for the Green Team to grow and maintain?

Explore one of the many beautiful reserves in Knox on the weekend, learn about your local ecology, collect stamps, and claim your prize. It’s a fun way to get outside, support the environment, and contribute to our school’s sustainability efforts.

And who says the fun is just for the kids? Families are welcome to join in too!

To learn more, visit:

🔗 Nature Discovery Passport – Knox Environment Society

🔗 Knox Environment Society Home Page

Thank you — every little bit helps!

Mrs Stokol and Mrs Alexander