Independence Centre

Curriculum

Selamat siang!

How good was the Disco last Friday night? It was amazing to see so many students and families come along and share in some dancing through Zoom. The teachers really enjoyed seeing all the different dance moves and different costumes that were worn. What a great way to spend our Friday night! Thank you to everyone for coming along and joining in the fun.

Last week in Maths, students continued to build on their ever improving multiplication and division skills. Teachers have been impressed with the effort students are putting into their tasks and the strategies they are using to solve challenging problems. Some of the strategies that we have been focusing on are the vertical multiplication strategy and the short division strategy. On Thursday, students combined their knowledge of multiplication and division to solve ‘multi-step’ worded problems. They showed their understanding of the word problem and what it was asking using the CUBES strategy, and determined the steps they needed to take to solve the problem. On Friday, the students were challenged with an interesting problem solving question - how many leaves are on a tree in your backyard? This problem was not about finding the exact answer, but rather using strategies such as estimating and rounding to help find a reasonable answer. The teachers enjoyed seeing the different ways that students tackled this crazy problem. The Maths Masterclass Zoom at 10:30am each day (except Tuesday) is a fantastic way for students to collaborate with their peers and their teachers while solving maths problems. We strongly encourage students to attend these Zoom sessions where possible.

In Literacy sessions, the students completed a recorded reading task. For this task, they were asked to record themselves reading a given text and answering some questions. These videos have been uploaded to Seesaw, so keep an eye out for them there. This task was a great way for teachers to hear how students are going with their reading and understanding of texts. After the amazing work writing our narratives, last week we began looking at procedural writing, and it will continue to be our focus this week. Recipes are a great way to incorporate procedural writing into everyday life at home. You could ask your children what steps they need to take to complete a task in the kitchen.

Unfortunately we have not been able to complete our swimming program as usual this year, so we have started our ‘dry swimming’ program activities with the students. Last week, the students watched some videos about Life Savers, the different flags used at the beach, and how to stay safe in the sun. We will be completing more dry swimming tasks over the coming weeks.

Once again, we remind students to aim to keep working for the allocated times for each activity. If they finish early we have provided a range of ideas and activities they can continue on with. We also have a list of strategies and activities for students and parents looking for a next step. These can be found in the previous newsletters and on the MPRPS Learning From Home website which is linked below in the reminders section. We also suggest using a timer to help show how long they have been working for, and how much more time they could be using.

From your 3/4 Teachers :)

Student Voice

Sasha 3/4M - “I’m grateful for reading because I found a solution to my “can’t screen record” problem. Of course I didn’t fix it, I just found another way.”
Sheldon 3/4D - “Thanks for a great day, hope all the teachers are feeling happy :)!”
Jenny 3/4R - “Maths was challenging. Thank you for the great feedback 😊”
Maitri 3/4G - “I enjoyed seeing all the different examples that they teachers gave for the problem solving task.”

Reminders

3/4 Camp will now be on Monday 30th November to Wednesday 2nd of December. (restrictions permitting)
Masterclass Zoom is at 10:30 each day (except Specialist Days) and all students are welcome
Handwriting packs are at the front of the school and available for pickup during school hours
Zooms start at 9am
If your child will be absent from learning or Zoom sessions, please notify your classroom teacher or the office as usual
Stick to the suggested durations for subjects each day
Learning from home website https://sites.google.com/education.vic.gov.au/mprps4808/grade-34/maths?authuser=0

Pupil of the Week

3/4D: Kaitlyn S -

Great work on using your love of learning when demonstrating your thinking and strategies to solve problems in maths. Keep up the excellent work when justifying and explaining strategies that you have used Kaitlyn!

3/4G: Ann Maria B -

For consistently showing Zest and Love of Learning in all your school work. You complete everything to the best of your ability and always bring a smile to my face when you share your learning each day. Keep up the amazing effort, Ann :)

3/4K: Witcha C -

For demonstrating creativity and confidence during our small group writing sessions. You shared some engaging narrative ideas with your peers to spark everyone’s imagination and also provided some constructive feedback on how we might improve and up-level our class narrative. Keep up the amazing work Wit!

3/4M: Velouria N -

For demonstrating perseverance when attending the Maths Masterclass Zoom. It was great to see you coming along to the Zoom and listening to different ideas about how to complete the challenging task. Well done! :)

3/4R: Hussain K -

For demonstrating a love of learning when finding a solution to the Maths Problem Solving task. You did a great job explaining your thinking using mathematical key words. Keep up the outstanding work Hussain!