Year 3/4

Year 3/4 Term 4 - 2020

Welcome back all to the start of Term 4! We hope everyone enjoyed the two week break and that you are feeling refreshed and ready to return to school. We are so happy to have our students returning to onsite learning next week. It will be so exciting to have all our students together in the classroom again.

Our aim will be to ensure that all students have a smooth transition back to school and that we use the time we have in Term 4 for as much teaching as possible. We want the students to be engaged and excited about the learning and make the most of our 10 weeks together. Thank you so much for your support as we transition back into our classroom learning.

RE/Inquiry (Science and Design and Technology)

This term our Inquiry unit “Beyond the Backyard - Our Responsibility” will be relating to Science, Design and Technologies curriculum. Students will begin by examining the criteria for living things. Students will then group living things according to their observable features. Students will explore the taxonomy of living things with a  focus on life cycles of animals and plants. The students will gain an understanding of relationships between living things in their environment, to enable survival and whether or not animals are producers, consumers or decomposers. 

This unit will conclude with students designing and creating a model of an environmental bubble. Students may need to use small boxes and other art craft supplies for this task. If you have some of these at home could you please bring them to school. Students will need to consider climate, physical land features (topographic) and viable living things when creating their environmental bubble.

The unit will also cover the religious dimension of Stewardship of Creation through Catholic Social Teaching. Stewardship proposes that human beings are entrusted with the earth to cultivate it and at the same time, to care for and protect it. Students will delve into the concept of creation being a gift from God, and how they might look after it by making good choices in their own lives.

English

In reading groups, students will engage in a range of comprehension, spelling and handwriting activities. We will be further utilising Reading Eggspress through weekly comprehension tasks individually set for students to complete during reading rotations. We will be rotating focus group activities where students will be improving their comprehension skills by making predictions, improving vocabulary, developing meaning of words in context and making inferences. They will critically analyse the text, using prior knowledge to form opinions and discuss a particular point of view.  

In Writing, students will continue to look at non-fiction writing. They will analyse what makes a strong information report, self assessing and conferencing, to identity positives and next steps in their learning. Later in the term we will look at procedural texts by identifying their purpose and structure, before creating a range of our own. 

We will also be focusing on poetry. Students will be given the opportunity to read and create a wide range of different styles of poetry and use figurative language, alliteration, assonance, personification and onomatopoeia. Students will experience poetry styles such as Haiku, Limericks and Narrative poems. 

Mathematics

Through independent, small and large group activities students will explore the following concepts:

Chance and Data

-Describe possible everyday events and order their chances of occurring.

-Identify events where the chance of one will not be affected by the occurrence of the other (for example, flipping a head or tail in a coin toss

Money

-Solve problems by adding amounts of money or shopping products together. Work out the change given when purchasing products.

-Use a combination of coins and notes to represent money values in multiple ways.

Division / Multiplication

-Recognise and understand the inverse relationship between multiplication and division. For example: 3X4=12 therefore 12➗ 3 = 4.

-Recall multiplication facts up to 10 X10. Develop efficient mental and written strategies for multiplication and division where there is no reminder. Understand the relationship between multiplication and division.

-Use a range of strategies to solve multiplication and division equations.

Fractions and Decimals

-Count, order and represent fractions and decimals on a number line. 

-Investigate equivalent fractions and make connections between fractions and decimals.

Mass / Capacity 

-Measure, order and compare objects using familiar metric units of mass in grams, kilograms and tonnes.

-Measuring the area of rectangles (including squares) by counting the number of square centimetres

-Use scaled instruments to measure and compare lengths, masses, capacities and temperatures

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)

During term 4, students will explore positive relationships. They will describe and demonstrate what respectful and inclusive behaviours look like in action and assess conflict situations, considering possible responses. To further this knowledge students will describe and practice help-seeking, problem solving skills and strategies, that can be used when encountering uncomfortable or unsafe situations.  

Home Learning

The Year 3/4 students will be receiving a fortnightly home learning sheet containing tasks relating to the areas of learning covered at school. There will be some compulsory Reading and Mathletics tasks and some free choice activities. Students are also encouraged to read nightly at home, both independently and aloud to a family member, recording this information in their diary. When reading together, we encourage parents to initiate discussions about the characters and plot of the story, to build connections and deepen their understanding of the text. 

Timetable

Performing Arts, Visual Arts, PE and Italian are on Thursdays. 

Library and Sport will be on Mondays. 

Students may wear sports uniforms on Mondays and Thursdays only

Students are expected to wear school summer uniforms on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

Please remember to wear the school hat as it is part of our uniform and sunsmart policy. 

Communication

Effective communication between family and school is an important factor in students’ learning. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, comments or concerns.  

tjackson@sjmitcham.catholic.edu.au                     

kcumming@sjmitcham.catholic.edu.au

moshannassy@sjmitcham.catholic.edu.au 

Please make sure that you have the Skoolbag App, as many school notices and reminders will be sent via the App. 

https://skoolbag.com.au/web/?schoolid=22726

Many thanks,

Tom Jackson, Kellie Cumming and Monica O’Shannassy