Years 3 & 4

In Year 3&4 we continue to build on the foundations that they have had in the junior school and to work with the individual child and encourage them to become independent learners. We use our School Wide Positive Behaviour program and Respectful Relationships to support student’s wellbeing and to develop a positive sense of self and relationships with their peers. We continually use our school values of Respect, Responsibility and Learning to reinforce expected behaviour in our classrooms and in the playground.

Literacy

Our focus for Year 3 & 4 students is to:

Have a love of reading and become life-long readers
Focus on comprehension strategies – making connections, predicting, visualising, questioning, inferring and summarising
Use VCOP (Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers & Punctuation) including punctuation, such as capital letters and full stops, and experiment with other forms such as speech marks, question marks etc. In their writing we encourage them to include ambitious vocabulary, cool connectives and openers and powerful punctuation.
Use the Seven Steps to Writing Success Process (Plan for Success, Sizzling Starts, Tightening the Tension Ban the Boring, Dynamic Dialogue, Show Don’t Tell, Exciting Endings) to help develop their writing.
Provide opportunities to write using joined letters that are clearly formed and consistent in size.
Provide opportunities to listen to other members of the class and to give oral presentations.

Maths

Our focus for year 3 &4 students is to:

Explicitly teach maths concepts and provide real life investigations.
Provide concrete/hands on materials and move towards mental computation.
Recognise, model and order numbers to at least 10 000 and place four digit numbers on a number line.
Develop their automatic recall of simple addition and subtraction number facts and multiplication facts up to 10 x 10 and related division facts.
Model and represent units of fractions, investigate simple equivalent fractions and count by halves, thirds and quarters.
Represent money values in different ways and to solve money problems including total cost and change
Use scaled instruments with metric units to measure and compare length, mass, capacity and temperature.
Make 3D objects and describe the features.
Identify and compare angles
Tell the time in minutes and convert between units of time.
Use simple grids in maps and identify symmetry.
Collect data, including surveys and construct suitable data displays with and without the use of technology.
Conduct experiments involving chance, describe possible outcomes

Integrated

In Years 3 & 4 our topics for the year are:

Marvellous Melbourne –the change of Melbourne and the multicultural celebrations we celebrate (Civics and Citizenship, History, Geography)
Inventions and Inventors – the genius inventions created to change our lives and make it easier (History and Design & Technology)
Roots, Shoots & Muddy Boots –the sustainable food and fibre production used to grow our foods (Design & Technologies)
Amazing Creatures –how do animals adapt to their environment to survive (Science)

Throughout the year we have sport and science rotations. Students can be involved in Code Club, Chess Club and GATEWAYS challenge.

An exciting part of Year 3 & 4 is attending their first school camp (3 days/2 nights) which is a great opportunity to challenge themselves and participate is some amazing outdoor activities.

Digital Technologies

Students will learn about:

Applying safe practices to protect themselves and others as they interact online for learning and communicating
Programs such as Microsoft Word and their features e.g. changing font, inserting pictures and saving their work into folders
How to use technology to display and sort data, such as making tables and creating graphs in Microsoft Excel, or taking photos with an iPad and using the app PicCollage to produce a poster
How to search for information using concise terms.
Using coding programs to develop problem-solving skills
Using ipad apps such as seesaw to share work with teachers and parents, as well as interact with their peers safely.

Essential Assessment - this is an excellent resource to revise what has been taught in the classroom. Students can access this from home to practise tasks targeted at specific areas in maths. Sunset Maths is also part of Essential Assessment and provides fast fact practice. Students have an individual log on which they know and can complete tasks both at school and at home.