13 Sep 2019

Yr4 Curriculum Update – 13/09/19

Working together to achieve success for every child

Unit of Inquiry

The Year 4 students have begun their new inquiry under the transdisciplinary theme ‘How We Organise Ourselves’ with the Central Idea:

Digital media impacts the way in which people access information and connect to each other.  

This will certainly be an exciting unit of inquiry for the students with them being able to use the new ‘Chromebooks’ to promote and record their learning.

They will gain an understanding of how digital media is used and organised (using the key concept of function), They will be evaluating information accessed via digital media (causation key concept) and also developing their responsibility as a digital citizen (responsibility) in this global age of digital communication.

Driving this unit will be the Learner Profile traits of being ‘Principled’ and ‘Knowledgeable’. Each of the Year 4 classes have taken time to agree an ‘Essential Learning User Agreement’ in which students acknowledge the need to respect ourselves, respect others and respect our environment whilst we use the computers and access information online.

 

Literacy

After listening and laughing along to Roald Dahl’s ‘The Twits,’ we have been inquiring into what makes a successful writer. We used a page from the story to analyse, then wrote our ideas onto post its.  In small groups we were able to sort these post its into groups with similar ideas.  Each group of post its was given a heading and we collated these with the rest of the class.  Amazingly, we came up with very similar ideas for what makes a successful writer.  We are calling these ideas the ‘6 traits of writing’ and consist of: organisation, ideas, word choice, conventions (spelling, punctuation, grammar and presentation), sentence fluency and voice. We will focus on these traits throughout the year, kick starting Year 4 with ‘conventions.’  We have begun to inquire into conventions by trying to read a piece of writing with no conventions.  The noises of surprise and difficulty coming from the classroom was deafening. We are realising that writing is like a gift, it needs to be carefully wrapped, neatly and tidily to give to the reader.

We have continued our inquiry into what makes a successful reader. A focus this week has been ‘Monitoring Comprehension’ by listening to our inner voice. We have read texts related to our new unit using Epic and Newsela to notice and ‘track’ our thinking on post-its. We have noticed that our thinking could be questions, connections to our lives, new learning and reactions. When listening to your child read, please ask them what their inner voice is saying.

 

Maths

We have begun exploring the base-10 place value system, through games, rich tasks and the use of manipulatives. We are learning to develop our number sense through thinking about numbers and their relationships.  We will use a variety of strategies to order,  partition, rename, represent and round numbers. We will be making real world links and how these strategies can help us in our everyday lives.  The following link has many fun and engaging activities that your children can do at home.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/place-value

We are focusing on developing our Maths Mindset to enable the children to create a love of learning and resilience when solving maths challenges. Here is a link to some of the Maths Mindset videos we have been watching to help us boost our mindsets.

https://www.youcubed.org/resource/mindset-boosting-videos/

 

Reminders

  • Due to severe nut allergies in Y4, please do not send any food with any type of nut. Thank you for helping keep all of our students safe!
  • Students are reminded to only use the central staircase in the morning and to wait until 8:15 before coming upstairs to ensure there is supervision in all the classrooms
  • Sun safety is very important to us! Students need to bring their hats every day, as children who do not bring their hat will not be allowed to take part in snack or lunch play
  • Students will not be permitted to check out library books without a KJS book bag. If your child does not have one, they can be purchased through the KJS PTA for $65
  • Students also need to bring a reusable water bottle every day, labeled clearly with their name
  • Please help us in making sure students are given the opportunity to read everyday, either on their own or with someone at home

 

Important Dates

September 12                        KJS Staff CPD – No school

September 30                        KJS Staff CPD – No school

October 1                               National Day – No school

October 4                               Day before Mid-Term Break – FULL Day Classes

October 7 – 11                        Mid-Term Break

October 31 & November 7     3 Way Learning Conference