Year 4 News 

English

Reading - The grade 4’s will start the year by re-igniting their passion for reading after the holidays and creating their classroom libraries that are filled with just right texts and books of interest. From then on, we will be focusing on Inferring where students will begin to learn and explain the literal and implied meanings from texts. Students will be able to identify the key message of a text and infer the cause and effect that creates change in a characters motivations, feelings, beliefs and actions. Throughout the unit, students will be justifying their inferences by using evidence from the text and their prior knowledge. Students will then compare their inferences with their peers and discuss how or why they may be different.

Writing - We will be starting the year by completing a writer’s workshop to spark creativity and build a bank of seed ideas for future writing. The grade 4’s will then move onto writing Explanation Texts, pieces of writing that explain something. They might tell you how or why something happens or give information on how to do something. Students will work through the writing process of planning, drafting, editing and publishing highlighting the control that they develop over the structure and language used. Students will use a range of print and digital resources to gather information to form a comprehensive text. Throughout their text, they will demonstrate their understanding of grammar, subject specific vocabulary, spelling and punctuation. 

Mathematics

Throughout term 1, the grade 4’s will be covering several units. We will start the year by focusing on Time, students will be able to identify o’clock, half past, quarter past, 5 minute interval and minute interval times while using am and pm notations. Then we will focus on Place Value where students will learn to skip count and build up to 100,000 using place value. Moving on to Financial Maths and Data; students with create and represent their data in a variety of tables and graphs including through digital technologies. Then finishing the term with Length, including measuring objects using an appropriate metric unit and comparing and ordering different sized objects.

Inquiry

 In Inquiry this term, the 3/4 students are beginning the term by practicing using core thinking routines, such as Think, Pair, Share and See, Think, Wonder during our Learning to Learn program. Students will use these core thinking routines to strengthen and support their ability to learn and form positive relationships, develop a growth mindset, and recognise and nurture their character strengths. We will then begin their Stay Safe Inquiry unit. The students will investigate how they can use strategies and skills to reduce harm, prevent accidents and create safe environments through the key question: what strategies can we use to make familiar environments a healthy, safe space (classroom, playground, home)?

I look forward to a great year!  Mrs Amanda Marshall

Science

Biology: Grade 4 students have an exciting start to the year in 2022 with the first term focussing on Biology. Students will explore plant life cycles, the internal components of flowers and how animals and plants are linked to the pollination process. Hands-on experiments are going to be a big part of this term with students having a chance to plan and conduct their own experiments such as growing plants.  Mr Aaron Rasmanis 

LOTE - Chinese

Welcome to all our 4 students! I am looking forward to seeing all the Grade 4s in our weekly Chinese session. This term Grade 4 students will start with the Chinese New Year —- the biggest festival that is celebrated in China. They will also know the culture and traditions of Chinese New Year. Then, they will learn the names of fruits, vegetables and stationery. They will copy and trace characters and gain an understanding of the correct stroke order. Meanwhile, one of the important parts for Grade 4 is that they will start to form simple sentences and be able to identify the similarity and differences of sentence order for English and Chinese with related topics. Throughout the term, students will be involved in many interesting activities, along with some hands-on activities, singing and dancing, which will provide them with a great introduction to Chinese. I hope Grade 4 students can reach their full potential to learn Chinese in this term!   Ms Joey Wang

Art

The 3/4 students have started the semester decorating their art folios. They have been able to choose a design that best reflects themselves! Moving into the term the students will also be working with collage; an art technique that uses torn pieces of paper and photographs to create a design - this design will depict the likes and interests of the student, using words, images, photos, colour and design. 

One of the main focuses of this term is colour theory. Colour theory will be incorporated into designs, building on previous years of learning, such as re-visiting primary and secondary colours and pairing these theories with artists that use them, such as Mondrian and Andy Warhol. The students will learn to use the colour wheel, to make informed decisions about colours that complement each other. The 3/4 students will also be experimenting with a range of colouring materials, such as Posca paint pens, sharpies, pencils, texter, crayon, chalk pastel and, hopefully, paint this term. 

I really look forward to a fun and creative time with the 3/4 students this semester. 

Mrs Sally Shoebridge

 P.E.

This term in PE, Year 4 students will be focusing on getting to know one another and building relationships through being active. They will be learning how to participate safely and actively role model the expectations in the PE spaces. They will be following instructions to play a variety of games, learning the boundaries of the games and to follow and understand the rules of each game. They will have opportunities to develop their individual skills in Tennis, Cricket and Tee-ball and how to participate positively in the games.  -  Ms Aira Agarano

The grade 4 teachers are so excited to welcome the students back into the classroom and are eager to begin building relationships and learning with them.

We look forward to a productive and enjoyable term! 

Mrs Lockwood, Ms White, Miss Stephenson and Ms Stamoulis.