Year 4

Year 4 February Newsletter 2025

Welcome back parents and carers of Year 4, we are so excited to share some of the wonderful learning that has been happening in Term 1 so far!

Literacy

In Knowledge, we have started our novel study on the text ‘Uncle Xbox’. Our book is about a young Indigenous boy named Dusty who wants an Xbox more than anything. After facing some challenges, Dusty realises what is really important in life which is his connection to his culture and Country. 

We are enjoying reading the book together as a class, discussing the different language features such as idioms, similes, metaphors, alliteration and repetition, and writing short summaries of the chapters. 

We have also started our first Writing Unit on ‘Factual Recounts’. We have learnt about the language features in a factual recount, such as past tense verbs, compound sentences and third person perspective, and are excited to begin writing our factual recounts in the coming weeks. Before we begin writing though, we are building our confidence to write complete ideas with a variety of sentence types. Here is a small snippet of the learning we have been working on!

Numeracy 

We have kicked off our Term 1 maths lessons with a focus on place value. Students have been focusing on 6 digit numbers and expanding them to identify the place value of each digit. We used our understanding of place value to order 6 digit numbers in ascending and descending order. Moving forward we are using our place value knowledge to identify 10, 100, 1000 and 10 000 more of a given number and round numbers to their nearest 10s and 100s place. In Measurement we have begun with a focus on time. Students have identified different units of time and are converting them using repeated addition and multiplication. 

SEL (Social and Emotional Learning)

Following on from last year, we are continuing to use The Resilience Project (TRP) to guide our social and emotional learning at GPPS. TRP's school program is designed to help students build resilience and improve their mental health by focusing on three key principles: Gratitude, Empathy, and Mindfulness (GEM). Through engaging presentations, activities, and resources, the program teaches students practical strategies to manage stress, build emotional strength, and foster positive relationships. 

In Year 4, we have begun exploring our TRP journals and learning about both healthy and unhealthy habits. Each week we are utilising the habit trackers in our journals to track both our habits and our mood.

Auslan 

We are thrilled to continue our Auslan learning journey this year! We began by exploring what Auslan is and why it’s such an important tool for communication. It’s been amazing to see students remembering signs they learned last year, including the alphabet, greetings, and colours.

Next, we’ll dive into learning signs for breakfast items and practice ordering from a café menu—how fun! We’ll also start learning signs related to transport, building on our growing Auslan vocabulary.