BOROONDARA PARK PRESS

News from the 3/4 Team...

Welcome to Term 4!

The Year 3/4 students have a very exciting term of engaging learning and wonderful extracurricular activities planned. Here is an overview of what your child will be experiencing.

 

Reading

Students will be developing their reading by practising the following skills:

  • Making connections
  • Questioning
  • Identifying the author's purpose

They will also be exploring the language and structural features of both narrative and persuasive texts throughout the term.

 

Students will continue to work on their Expanded Vocabulary goal from last term for their independent reading. As part of this goal, students are to regularly identify new words to add to their 'Word Jar' for use at a later time to improve their reading, writing and speaking. We encourage our families to continue to 'collect words' at home, whether this be by reading together or through watching TV.

 

Writing

Students will be spending the first five weeks of term improving their narrative writing, as they develop their skills before creating a story that will go along with their Stop Motion animation. As part of their learning, students will be exploring character, setting and narrative organisation before drafting and publishing their text.

 

In the second half of the term, our focus will transfer to persuasive writing and how we can convince a reader of our opinion with quality arguments.

 

Our writing goal focus for the term will be Sentence Fluency. Students will choose between to following options to improve the quality of their writing:

  • to use sentences of different lengths - some long, some short
  • to use different sentence starters
  • to use a variety of punctuation to help my sentences flow
  • to check my sentences by reading them out loud

Students will also have a weekly spelling focus that we encourage families to practise at home too.

 

Maths

Throughout the term, students will expand on their knowledge developed during the year by exploring the following concepts and skills:

  • Time
  • Mapping
  • 2D and 3D Shapes
  • Symmetry, Asymmetry, Patterns and Angles
  • Measuring Temperature
  • Graphing
  • Place Value and Number Patterns

Our aim is always to engage students with each maths lesson that we teach and to target every individuals point of need. Students will be participating in open-ended activities and targeted mini-groups.

 

Integrated

The Year 3/4 students have been very excited about this unit that focuses on 'creativity' titled 'Frame by Frame'. As part of the unit, students will write a narrative story (as mentioned earlier) and will be creating a paper animation using the app Stop Motion that the students have on their iPads. We have been practising in class with some support from the Year 6 STEM Pillar leaders because whilst this is an engaging and exciting activity, it can also be very tedious. The students are very much looking forward to sharing these videos with the families and the teachers have loved hearing about the students putting in extra practise at home.

 

Here are some photos of 3/4B learning how to create Stop Motion animations.

 

Home Learning

A reminder that students are encouraged to complete the following each week for home learning:

  • 2 Essential Assessment My Numeracy tasks - classroom teachers will inform their students which tasks are to be completed for the week that will match-up with learning at school
  • Spelling Practise - students will bring home a copy of their spelling words. These are typically on their iPad
  • Reading - Students should be reading independently each night. We also encourage families to get their children to read out loud at times or for parents to model how to read.

Extracurricular Activities

Here are some of the exciting events that the Year 3/4 students will be involved in this term:

  • 3/4B and 4JT Swimming Program - Monday 16th to Friday 20th October
  • 3AT, 3RO and 3/4R Swimming Program - Monday 23rd to Friday 27th October
  • Maths Incursion/Celebration Day - Wednesday 8th November
  • Whole School Expo - Friday 8th December
  • 2024 Transition Day - Tuesday 12th December

If you have any questions about this term, please make sure that you contact your child's classroom teacher.

 

Regards,

The Year 3/4 Team

Cameron Batt, Ray Owens, Claire Brennan, Sarah Jacobs, Lisa Trevorrow, Lyndsey Thwaites, Sarah Amiconi, Paul Roast and Philip Wickham