Year 4 News

Learning in Year 4

with Mrs Coulter

and Mrs Keough

Learning Snapshot

We can not believe that it is almost the end of another term, and what a very full term this has been! We have celebrated the Eucharist, participated in a tennis gala day and of course we had Book Week.

Over the course of Term 3, we have been incredibly busy writing informative texts and journal entries to compliment our Storyline learning journey. Students have taken on the persona of an 18th century convict in order to connect and relate to their writing. We have also engaged in refining our cursive handwriting skills with the hope of being ready to earn our pen licence in Term 4.

We have been learning about explorers, life in England and in Australia prior to colonisation and the journey of the First Fleet during our History lessons. As part of this learning, we have connected with the Australian National Maritime Museum. Students have explored clothing, living conditions, occupations and gender roles during this era, which has provoked much conversation. We were immersed in a simulated court experience where a very grouchy judge from the 18th Century and an incredibly stern marine appeared in our classroom.

During Religious Education we have been learning about the sacraments of initiation, with a specific focus on the Eucharist. Year 4 visited Father Loi in the church to ask questions and learn about the importance of reverence and respect when visiting God’s house.

We also travelled to Carroll College to participate in a retreat day. This was an excellent opportunity to work alongside our peers from St Mary’s and connect with role models from Carroll College. We played games, created mascots and made rosary beads. It was a fantastic experience for all of the students.

We have connected to our learning about the symbols of the sacrament of Eucharist by creating Kandinsky inspired artworks. You can see these hanging up in the church.

We also came together as a community at the Church to celebrate our candidates of the First Eucharist last Sunday. A big thank you to Mrs Beashel and Father Loi for all of your guidance and support during the term.

In addition, students have created various art works to compliment our Storyline unit of work. We have used clay to sculpt Indigenous artefacts, sketched 18th Century ships, created paper bag journals using calligraphy and made a collage portrait of our storyline character. It has been wonderful to have Trish as an expert to support us with this learning experience.

Our Mathematical learning has been rich and diverse. We have explored fractions and decimals, learnt about a variety of multiplication and division facts and consolidated learning around addition, subtraction and multiplication algorithms. Recently, Year 4 have been revising concepts of measurement, including the importance of formal units of measurement in context.

Our class Sport lessons have been excellent. We have played lots of games to help us connect and build our teamwork skills. We have also explored healthy life choices during Health such as exercise, food choices and rest.

During our iCentre time we have been improving our ICT skills by working with the Microsoft Suite to publish on Microsoft Word and then present using Microsoft Powerpoint. We have also used Flip to present learning via an audiovisual medium. It has also been a lot of fun constructing our own virtual Sydney Cove colony using Minecraft.

In addition, Mrs Holmes has been helping us to use Scratch to program our own First Fleet inspired game, whilst Mrs Tyler has been inspiring our STEM minds with creating First Fleet ship replicas. We can’t wait to share these with you when you visit our classroom in Week 10!

Our learning has certainly been diverse and we look forward to the adventure that Term 4 will be!