Grade 3 Term 4 2022 Curriculum News

Dear Parents/Carers,
This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your children’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. To find out what other year levels are doing, please refer to the school’s website. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

GENERAL
Term 4 is upon us already and we’re sure it’s going to fly by, it will no doubt be a busy 11 week term. Last Term we farewelled Mrs Boyd as she began her maternity leave, and we are please to announce that she has had a beautiful baby girl. Miss Michelle Lamont is now working in 3BK on Tuesdays and Wednesdays along side of Mrs Kelson.

We will be continuing to focus on the wellbeing of our students through the Respectful Relationships program. We will be helping them to identify their emotions and any triggers that may cause changes to their emotions, good or bad. We will also continue to support our students to find strategies to cope with these emotions and recognize people who they can seek out for support.

We ask for your continued efforts in Term 4 supporting your child with their homework. We ask that students complete both Reading and Math homework during the week. Please continue to encourage them to read every night and fill in their Reading Journal and return their Math homework along with their Reading Journal each week for their teacher to check.

LITERACY
This term, we will continue to encourage our students to develop their love of reading and emphasise the importance of selecting ‘Just Right’ books to enable them to practice the comprehension strategies as well as their personal reading goals. We will continue to further develop our comprehension skills to help with understanding different fiction and non-fiction texts. We will also continue to use Student Reading Journals to serve as a tool to track their individual goals and daily reading, while the Reading Response section will enable students to provide evidence of how they are working on their reading goals.

In Writing, the students will continue to explore the Writer’s Workshop and emphasise the importance of using our Writer’s Notebooks to develop and stretch our ideas. We will continue to build our knowledge of the 6 traits of Writing and use what we have learnt about Ideas, Voice, Word Choice, Presentation, Organisation, Conventions and Sentence Fluency to further develop our writing. We will continue to investigate the importance of using correct punctuation and proper nouns to create coherent pieces of writing. We will continue to encourage students to find authentic purposes for their writing and encourage them in working towards publishing their writing efforts.

A reminder that the following resources are available for home reading support:
Epic: https://www.getepic.com/
Your child’s teacher will have sent home your class Epic code.
Sunshine online: https://www.sunshineonline.com.au/

NUMERACY
In Mathematics this term, the children will learn about a range of concepts, skills and strategies with a specific focus on Length, Time, Money, Mass and Capacity. We will also be revising various concepts learnt throughout the year. Students will be encouraged to use their problem-solving strategies to build a toolbelt of skills to help them solve a range of mathematical problems. Students will also continue to focus on recalling basic number facts quickly and accurately (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). It would be appreciated if you could help your child to learn these facts at home in addition to their homework. Families can also support at home by encouraging your child to play games involving counting and number facts.

A reminder that the following resources are available for home reading support:
Hit the Button: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
Essential Assessment: https://www.essentialassessment.com.au/
Your child’s teacher will have sent home the log in details for this, if it has been misplaced, please email your child’s teacher.

INQUIRY
During Term 4, students will be working collaboratively on our topic, ‘Special Places’. As part of this unit, students will develop the following understandings:

• Different parts of Australia have a special significance to indigenous people
• Natural landmarks have a special meaning to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
• Oral traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were used to describe Country/Place
• Australia was (and still is) divided into many Aboriginal Countries and Torres Strait Islander Places

At the end of this topic, students will work in small groups to show their understanding of the significance of a special place to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The students will present their understanding and knowledge in a variety of ways such as dioramas, models, posters, brochures etc. The students will present this information to an audience to educate them about the natural, indigenous landmark within Australia that they selected.

DEVICES
A reminder that Department of Education policy stipulates that phones, watches or other devices with communicative ability cannot be carried by students while on the school premises during school hours, without Principal approval. For further details please refer to the policy documents on Compass and the Lara Lake PS website.

KEY DATES:
Wednesday the 19^th of October – Geelong Cup Public Holiday (pupil free)
Monday the 5^th of December to Friday the 9^th of December – Swimming Program

We look forward to continuing the connection between school and home in Term Four. Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher. Compass continues to be our main form of communication. Alternatively, you can contact the office directly for more urgent matters. We ask that if you need to speak with your child’s teacher, that you organise a phone call at a mutually appropriate time. The team will endeavour to reply to any queries as soon as possible.
The Grade 3 Team
Ms Scrivener, Miss Mase, Mr Hargreaves, Mrs Kelson, Miss Lamont, Mr Sullivan