Week 8, Term 3
Dear 4Z Parents,
Here goes the last fortnight (and a bit) of Term 3! With a few events coming up, it's sure to be a busy time!
We hope that our 4Z Dad's had a truly special Father's Day last Sunday. Here are some of the completed cards that we created for our Dads (we hope that you received them on time)! 4Z Dads - YODA BEST DADS!
We had a lovely morning on Wednesday with our visit to the church and joining in the parish mass with Father Archie. Eddie and Harry did an excellent job as volunteer altar servers and our wonderful behaviour and reverence received praise and a even some claps from some regular parishioners. Well done Year 4 crew - its been a while since we have last made it to church with wild weather cancelling our other two scheduled visits and it was nice to spend our morning fulfilling an aspect of being members of a Catholic school.
SeeSaw Updates
We are currently in the process of uploading our amazing rosary Power Points as a part of our religion unit. Seesaw is a great way to keep informed about what your child has been learning and their achievement. Please check in to your child's seesaw journal to keep updated on their learning. A great way is to turn on notifications so that you are aware when new work samples are shared.
Learning Journey
Another great way to see more about your child's learning is the open classrooms event next Wednesday after school. In 4Z we will put out a sample of work such as our published writing copies, art, Religion and miscellaneous scrapbooks and other subject areas for you to peruse and discuss learning with your child.
Homework
Just a reminder that our fortnightly homework set is due tomorrow (end of even weeks of each term) for Week 7 and 8. Please continue with regular reading on week nights and fill out the log. The students are still asked to complete the four Maths columns across the fortnight and we will be discussing some of the answers and strategies in class every second Friday. Those who have completed and brought in their homework will be rewarded again in the form of BANQER dollars. We are very impressed with the effort and increased numbers of homework completed this term in comparison to earlier this year.
Banqer
We have been using this fantastic website as a part of our class rewards program. The children are awarded dollars for on task behaviours, completed homework and demonstrating school values. We have been auctioning off some great rewards such as no homework for a fortnight and free choices of activities and items to wear to school.
A Learning Snapshot...
We are just finishing up our learning unit in mathematics on multiplication and division. Being able to recall multiplication and associated division facts up to 10x 10 is a part of the Year 4 mathematics curriculum. We practise daily mental maths to build up these automatic recall skills throughout the year but if would be greatly beneficial if you also ensure your child is practising their table facts most nights. It is a big jump from Year 3 expectations (2x, 3x, 5x 10x only) so additional practise using verbal recall games, flash card flip, online games would greatly benefit students who are not yet able to state their times tables facts. Saying them in the car on the way to school or sport or preparing dinner is another great way to squeeze in extra maths facts each day. Please feel free to email me if you would like me to send home a particular set of times table flash cards to practise. As your child may have mentioned, I love teaching maths and we are all so proud of ourselves and how far we have all grown in our numeracy skills this year.
We have just finished up our learning unit on multiplication in mathematics. Students have learnt and practised many strategies they could use to solve 2-digit multiplication worded questions. We have now moved onto division. Please keep an eye on OneNote if you are interested in the strategies being taught in class. It would be great if you could practice your child’s times table recall facts most nights up to 10x10. Our 6's, 7's, 8's and 9's are of priority to consolidate. Fast recall assists the students when completing year 4 multiplication and division problem solving. It is a big jump from Year 3 expectations so additional practise using verbal recall games, flash card flip, or other online games would greatly benefit students who are not yet able to state their times tables facts. Saying them in the car on the way to school or sport or preparing dinner is another great way to squeeze in extra maths facts each day.
We have finished our novel study of The Twits where we have completed vocabulary tasks and are about to write our own plan for How to get Revenge on The Twits. We have enjoyed reading and learning about Roald Dahl’s characterisation and have also liked listening to another short story of his, Esio Trot, as our class novel during crunch and sip times.
In writing, we have completed our Procedural text unit and we hope you have had the chance to read your child's Hot Task that was posted on Seesaw. We hope you have experienced reading their procedure for their mythical creature, which most have completed typing on their laptops. We have now started our Explanation Writing unit and are well into writing our life cycle explanations.
Lots of fun has been had so far in Design and Technology as we worked collaboratively with our peers to design, build and appraise a bridge for the Three Billy Goats Gruff. Our creative skills are now working on saving Rapunzel from her tower, so stay tuned as we have a few more fairytale engineering projects ahead of us! In Digital Technology, we are nearing the end of our online safety unit and will be continuing with our technology focus on data information and programming.
This term's artist focus is a WA's own Sarah Robey, and we are midway through creating our own pieces inspired by her work in visual arts.
We are focusing on protective behaviours this term in health, including topics such as relationships, right to privacy, trust and abuse. This will include some lessons using anatomical names for private parts. We follow the mandated Protective Behaviours unit by CEWA that is implemented in all primary school years. If you would like to discuss this or have any questions, please feel free to email us with any questions and I can forward you more information about this program.
In religion, we are completing our prayer unit, including learning about St Mary, the rosary and beginning our study on the confirmation sacrament.
- Please continue to charge laptops every night to ensure that they come to school 100% charged. The coloured lights on next to the plug in section of the laptop tell you if it is fully charged or needs charging, changing from an orange light to a white light. A great method is for kids to come home, put on charge and then place in bags fully charged after dinner so they are ready to go. It is also a great habit to encourage students to keep their laptops in their bags when they aren't being charged as they will notice the weight difference in their bags when picking them up in the morning and they won't be forgotten. Unfortunately there is often several kids each day who are coming to school with uncharged laptops which will result in a few BANQER fines for repeated offenders as it hinders their daily learning especially with it happening to multiple students at the same time.
- Library bags are required on a Monday and the students are expected to borrow each week. We are encouraging students to try and include a variety of books each week to try out some new literary genres they may not normally choose.
- Please take some time to check in with our school policy on our schools webpage around hair cuts and uniform expectations for the last couple of weeks of school - this includes socks or incorrect shoes and jewellery.
Social Intelligence...this is a big one to have a handle on in a busy classroom...when a person knows what makes other people tick, he or she is displaying social intelligence.
They’re aware of the motives and feelings of themselves and others, and how to fit into different social situations.
Important Dates:
Thank you for your continued support,
Megan and Amy
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