Class 3/4 Steiner

Celebrating Learning

What we’ve been up to

After a great extended break over the long weekend, students have returned to school refreshed and ready to learn. We are so proud of all our Year 3 students for getting through their first NAPLAN experience, there was a great feeling of accomplishment once it was over. While Year 3 students were completing NAPLAN, the Year 4 students engaged in a drama unit that focused on using their speaking and listening skills to present to an audience. They practiced using intonation to differentiate between different character voices, projecting their voices and using gestures to emphasise emotion. They performed the plays they had been working on to their peers in their small groups. 

Maths

In Mathematics, students have been exploring fractions; including quarters, thirds, fifths, sixths and tenths! Students have been practising to count beyond a whole into mixed numbers and improper fractions, while making links between the different ways we can write fractions. Students have been making fractions shapes and animals and labeling the parts in different ways. Some questions that have arisen are:

• How do we represent fractions that are larger than one whole?
• How might one person who created a shape using thirds, create the same shape using fifths?
• Where do we see and use fractions in the real world?

Literacy

In Reading, students have been exploring the four roles of Reciprocal Reading. Reciprocal reading is where students work in small groups to explore different types of texts and respond or engage with these texts by applying a particular role. Currently, students are practising the role of the ‘Clarifier’. They read and listen to texts, identify the words they are unfamiliar with and then use a dictionary to find the definition. We are exploring how synonyms can help us to develop our own understandings and definitions of a word to help us remember its meaning. Additionally, we are learning to use ‘context clues’ to build our understanding of different words and phrases by using the rest of the information within the sentence to figure out its meaning. Next week students will practice the role of the ‘Predictor’, before, during and after reading. 

In Writing, 3/4 students have been creating posters to convince a chosen audience to take action. They’ve utilised their understanding of persuasive devices such as rhetorical questions and emotive language to support their issue. Students have continued practicing writing various sentence types, including questions and statements. They have also been reviewing the Writers’ Workshop process- as they use the ARMS acronym to support them in revising. While revising their own writing they’ve been exploring Adding, Removing, Moving and Substituting words to help enhance the meaning of their writing.

A big thank you to our recent parent helpers during Craft! I know the extra hands were very much appreciated (and always welcomed) by Antoinette. 

What’s coming up:

• In Reading, students will continue practicing their Reciprocal Reading roles with a focus on predicting.
• In Writing, we will continue to revise and edit our writing to make it engaging for our audience. 
• In Mathematics, students will be investigating how to tell the time to the minute on an analogue clock. 

Things families can talk about at home:

• Have discussions convincing each other to agree with a topic that they wouldn’t usually agree with. 
• Practice reading the time on analogue clocks. 
• Read a book together that has different characters and use a different voice for each character.