Grade 4 Term 1 Curriculum News 2020
GENERAL
WELCOME TO TERM 1, 2020! We hope you have all enjoyed a safe, relaxing and happy break with your families and friends. The Grade 4 team is excited to be back and has thoroughly enjoyed getting to know your child both personally and academically. We have such a busy term ahead full of fun-filled learning! The students should be congratulated for the settle start they have had to the year. We have noticed the students are in full school uniform and are turning up to school each day organised and ready to learn.
This year, the Grade 4 team consists of Ms. Barnwell, Mr. Ian Robinson, Mrs. Torney as well as our valuable Education Support team member Mrs. Bernoth.
The Grade 4 team believes that open, honest parent-teacher communication is vital to ensure your child is safe, happy and learning. If there is any correspondence that requires the attention of your class teacher, feel free to contact us via the Compass app. Alternatively, you can still choose to write us a quick hand-written note and place it in your child’s take home pouch. For more urgent matters, please contact the office directly. The team will endeavour to reply to any queries as soon as possible. We look forward to an exciting term of learning.
LITERACY
One of the best things about a new year in a new classroom is for students to participate in setting up their classroom library! This involves students previewing a wide variety of texts as well as categorising and labelling these. Students are currently learning about the expectations of the daily Reading program within their classroom including ways to select texts which are ‘Just Right’.
DID YOU KNOW that a child who reads for 67.3 minutes a day will read a total of 4,733,000 words a year? This puts them in the 98th percentile rank! This includes any form of reading such as signs, books, notes etc.
In Writing, children will begin to personalise and set up their Writer’s Notebook. Students have been asked to bring along photos or copies of photos they can use to personalise their own Writer’s Notebook. Please be mindful that the photos students bring will be cut and pasted onto a book.
During the first few weeks of this term, students will begin participating in Writing Workshops, where they will be supported to plan, draft and publish their own texts as well as celebrate their texts with different audiences. Writing Workshops will continue throughout the year with students writing ‘Just Right’ texts on a daily basis.
NUMERACY
Students have a higher chance of being engaged and successful in Mathematics if the content we teach is linked to real-life problems.
In Term One, students will be focusing on developing their understanding of Place Value and the Four Processes (Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division). Before students are able to understand and solve more complicated maths problems, they need to develop a firm grasp of some of the fundamental aspects of Mathematics. Students will be supported to develop and use a number of mental and written strategies to solve a variety of mathematical problems.
Students will also develop their knowledge of measurement via hands on activities and investigations both within and outside of the classroom.
INQUIRY
Our Term One Inquiry unit is ‘Learning Together.’ Interwoven closely with the school’s prosocial program ‘Play is the Way’, this unit encourages students to explain the consequences of their emotional responses across a wide range of social situations. The unit will refer closely to the Play is the Way Life Raft values to help students develop their resilience, persistence, confidence and getting along skills.
Throughout the term, students identify their personal strengths and areas of future development. They suggest strategies for coping with difficult situations, investigate and discuss which behaviours lead to positive relationships with peers, other people at school and in the community. Finally, students will identify and discuss a range of conflict resolution strategies to develop their independence and ability to negotiate positive outcomes to problems.
SCIENCE
This Term, our Science topic is ‘Smooth Moves’ where students will investigate and explore forces and motion through hands-on activities. They will learn to identify forces that act at a distance and those that act in direct contact, as well as investigate how different-sized forces affect the movement of objects. Who knows, we may just find our next great engineers and scientists who will use their new knowledge to design new things for our school and their home.
iPads
iPads are an essential learning tool in Grade 4, and we remind all students to bring their iPad to school fully charged every day. Teachers have begun setting up their new Google Classroom and students will start to receive digital copies of worksheets as well as the option to complete tasks digitally.
New Department of Education guidelines stipulate that no mobile phones or smart watches can be used on the school premises during school hours. For further details please refer to the policy documents on Compass and the Lara Lake PS website.
HOMEWORK
Homework is handed in to the classroom teacher every Thursday and the expectations are that our students are reading every night as well as completing self-selected maths tasks (Mathletics, Prodigy, Sunset). Should you be experiencing any difficulties, please do not hesitate to send a handwritten note through to the classroom teacher or send an email via the Compass app.
SUPPLIES
Thank you to all the families who have so far donated much needed tissues and hand sanitiser. These are essential items for the classroom and we thoroughly appreciate the donations. If you have not yet sent in your donation, please do so at your earliest convenience.