Year Four

Dear Year four families,

Can you believe we are already more than half way through Term Three. What an amazing term it has been so far and we can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings.

Our Fourth Unit of Inquiry 'How We Organise Ourselves' with the Central Idea " Urban planning reflects community values and aspirations for future growth" is coming to an end. The Year Fours have enjoyed every part of it. The final stage of the inquiry is where the students become Urban Planners. Students investigated needs and opportunities, generate and evaluate ideas, plan, manage, produce and evaluate designed solutions. The Year Fours became engineers for the day and were prompted to consider environmental, social and economic factors as well as consider aesthetic and functional requirements when building their city. This was such a fun day, and all the students should be proud of themselves as they demonstrated being balanced, inquirers and knowledgeable throughout the day.

We sincerely appreciate the Spire team's visit and the attendance of all the families, who came to see the cities the students had constructed. The support was very appreciated because the Year Four students put so much work into their cities.

Writing

Writing workshops have proven to be a success with students showing a great engagement in lessons. With varying abilities, these workshops have targeted students specific learning goals where they can work through the writing process over a few weeks. The Year Four students have used image prompts based on news within our very own community. Some students came up with the headline "School in the West breaks the bank!" and "Tunes rock students in".  Make sure to pop in front of your child's class or check their portfolios to read their wonderful news reports.

Mathematics

In Mathematics students continued to learn about the operations- Multiplication and Division incorporated with money and financial problems. Some of the concepts covered were estimation, index notation and worded problems. Students were challenged by open-ended questions in the Launch, Explore, Discuss lessons. Students were able to demonstrate their learning in various ways and justified different ways to solve a problem.

Reading

We have started delving further into the various comprehension techniques when reading. Students have been concentrating on inferential inquiry for the past two weeks. Students in Year Four are now aware that inferences must be drawn using both textual cues and prior knowledge. This is also referred to as the author's message. We studied a number of Chris Van Allsburg's books in class, including "Two Bad Ants" and "The Stranger."

Science week

National Science Week is Australia’s annual celebration of science and technology. Every class in Year Four has developed into outstanding scientists, doing experiments on everything from paper aeroplanes to developing new farming technologies using Lego and MineCraft. Windmills, water tunnels, and satellites in orbit are a few inventions that have been made to inform farmers in advance whether or not there will be a drought.

Reminders:  

Technology/Macs: Please ensure children’s device are fully charged every day, ready to use for their learning.  

School Uniform: If your child is out of school uniform we advise parents/guardians to please provide a written note explaining this to the classroom teacher. 

Homework: Students should still be completing nightly reading for a minimum of 20 minutes each day (this includes reading on online apps such as Epic).  

Year Four Schoolbox Page: Please remember to visit the Year Four page for important updates.

If you have any questions, please reach out; Year Four teachers are always more than happy to help.  

We are looking forward to a successful Term Three as it has been so far! 

Kind regards,

The Year Four Team