Year Three/ Four
Communicating with the Year Three/Four Team
We look forward to partnering with you in 2021, and welcome your input:
Mel Rowe (Class 34A) Melinda.Rowe@education.vic.gov.au
Rebecca Tilley (Class 34B) Rebecca.Tilley@education.vic.gov.au
Michelle Wright (Class 34C) Michelle.Wright@education.vic.gov.au
INQUIRY in Term Two
In Inquiry this term, the students will be learning about First Australians and The First Fleet. We will use the following questions to guide our learning:
- Why did the great journeys of exploration occur?
- Who were the members of ‘The First Fleet’ and what are their stories?
- Who lived in Australia first and how do we know?
- What was life like for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples before the arrival of the Europeans?
- What was the nature and consequence of contact between Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Peoples and early traders, explorers and settlers?
- How are people connected to places?
To consolidate our learning in this topic, 'The History Box - Ballarat' are coming to Upwey South Primary School to present two interactive shows/workshops. The shows are titled, 'First Australians' and 'First Fleet'. This will take place at school on Monday 24th May. Information regarding permission and payment is now on Compass.
MATHS in Term Two
Throughout the term, we will be looking at the following topics in Maths.
- Multiplication
- Division
- Chance and Data
- Fractions
- Time
- Location and Mapping
- Symmetry
- Place Value
As part of our weekly homework, students have a focus on learning their times tables. Our aim is for the students to be able to have an automatic response to all answers in a given times tables set. When your child feels they know the set they are working on, they should inform their class teacher that they are ready to be tested.
English in Term Two
We are continuing our dedicated approach to spelling through the Multilit program. This program delivers a systematic phonics approach and we are seeing some wonderful growth with our students' spelling.
Our focus in our Writing sessions this term is predominantly persuasive writing. Students are learning the structure of this genre and are using the 'hamburger model' to effective plan out their opinion, reasons and supporting evidence. Some great persuasive pieces are in the pipeline and we look forward to sharing some of them on here soon!
We are continuing with our Reader's Workshop model during our reading sessions. The main focus during our mini lessons this term is 'Thinking within the text'. These skills include:
- Searching for and using information
- Monitoring and self-correcting
- Solving words
- Maintaining fluency
- Adjusting
- Summarising
Each class is reading the text "Charlotte's Web' as a mentor text to help teach the reading skills above. At the end of the term, we will be watching the film 'Charlotte's Web'.
Wellbeing in Term Two
A big focus this term is increasing the number of brain breaks for our students throughout the day. Some brain breaks include dancing, singing, and mindfulness colouring.