Grade 4 Term 3 Curriculum News

This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your children’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

WELCOME TO TERM 3, 2022!

We hope you enjoyed the school holidays and are staying warm. With half the year behind us, the Grade 4 team is looking forward to another fantastic term of learning! We would like to thank you all for supporting us through a great first semester. We are sure you would have been able to celebrate your child's achievements recorded in their first semesters reports and know that you will encourage their continued efforts in striving for their best.

As always, Term 3 is an exciting time of the year. Not only are students well-versed in classroom routines and expectations, but a number of exciting activities await students in the weeks ahead! Please note that Book Week will be held again this year in August as will the Book Fair. Whilst dates are TBC, our annual Book Parade will take place during this week (so start thinking about those costumes!)

Reading:
Students will be setting up their new Classroom Libraries for Semester 2 with a new range of books early this term and we will continue to work on their individual reading goals. As teachers, it is always incredibly rewarding to see our students reading independently for a sustained period of 30 minutes or more each day! As always, we encourage students to borrow frequently from both the school and classroom libraries so that they can enjoy a variety of rich literature when completing their reading at home.
Over the next few weeks, we will be working with students to develop their ability to ‘monitor their understanding’ of what they read, identify the author's message of a text, differentiate between facts and opinions, identify the main idea of a text, as well as ask questions about the text and author.

Writing:
Students will continue to follow the steps of the ‘Writing Process’ throughout Independent Writing sessions. Students will also explore and write a variety of text types including information reports, discussion pieces and persuasive texts.

Maths:
The Term 3 Mathematics topics for Grade 4 are - Multiplication and Division, Fractions, Decimals and Percentages, Chance, Data Representation and Interpretation. A major focus of our Mathematics program is to involve students in ‘real life’ numeracy problems where they are able to apply their skills and knowledge to discover solutions. An important yearly focus for Grade 4 students is for them to know their times tables. All classes will spend time on a variety of activities and games to allow students to develop an understanding of multiplication and number facts.

Inquiry:
This term our inquiry topic is ‘What a Wonderful World’. Key understandings will relate to the following:-

The earth is divided into large areas of land that are called continents. There are natural and human characteristics of continents; climate and weather, habitats, flora and fauna, population, geographical features, natural resources, and industry. Children will investigate how Australia has similarities and differences with other continents. Children will investigate how they are able to share their understandings and learnings of comparing and contrasting Australia with another continent.

A friendly reminder that coming up to Term 4 we have our Grade 4 camp. Camp Wilkin is between Monday the 21st of November and Wednesday the 23rd of November. Please make sure you have those dates in your calendar! Details about Camp Wilkin can be found as an Event on Compass. There will be lots of information to come, so keep an eye out.

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.

Kind Regards,

Simone Confait, Leigh Robinson, Ellie Johnson, Blake Freeman and Lauren Maslen.