Year 3/4 News

Literacy: Personal Responses to Finding Our Heart

Our Year 3 and 4 students have been working on writing a Personal Response to our novel, Finding Our Heart by Thomas Mayor. They are learning how to write a clear thesis statement, recount the main themes of the story, express their own opinions, and sum up their ideas in a concluding paragraph. While this has been a challenging task for many students, it has provided valuable opportunities to develop stronger sentence structure, stay focused on key ideas, and practise perseverance when writing becomes difficult. We are proud of how students are learning to think deeply about the text and to communicate their understanding in thoughtful, structured writing.

Numeracy: Exploring 3D Shapes

In Numeracy, our Grade 3 and 4 students have been investigating the features of 3D shapes. They have been learning to identify faces, edges, and vertices, and to describe how these parts work together to form different solids. Students have built rectangular prisms with varying bases and heights, experimented with drawing nets, and used their designs to create their own 3D shapes.

To extend their learning, students explored how 3D shapes can be used in real-world contexts, such as designing and testing structures. They experimented with different shapes to find out which provided the strongest foundations for tower building, developing both mathematical reasoning and problem-solving skills.

Inquiry: Rules, Laws, and Sacred Sites

In Inquiry, our Grade 3 and 4 students have been exploring the difference between rules and laws, and why both are important in helping communities stay fair and safe. To deepen this understanding, students are beginning to research how rules and laws apply to Indigenous sacred sites, linking their learning to our novel Finding Our Heart by Thomas Mayor. Through this work, students are developing respect for cultural traditions and learning about the importance of caring for places of significance.

Remembrance Day

We also took time to reflect on Remembrance Day, learning about its history and the significance of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance. Students watched an informative video explaining why poppies are worn, read the famous poem In Flanders Fields, and listened to Alfred’s War by Rachel Bin Salleh — a touching story about an Aboriginal soldier’s experience. To conclude, students crafted their own paper poppies, carefully folding, cutting, and assembling them to create a meaningful symbol of respect and remembrance.