Curriculum Overview - Term 2

Curriculum Overview Year 4

Term 2, 2016

Dear Parents and Carers,

This overview outlines the content that will be covered during this term with your child. It is a great reference to keep somewhere prominent so that you can refer back to it with your child and discuss specifics of their learning.

Religious Education

Sacraments of Initiation: In this unit the students will relate their entry into various communities and groups with their welcome into the Church through the sacraments of Initiation. Students will study the various sacramental rituals and symbols of Christian initiation and explore their meaning.

Eucharist: The Structure of the Mass: The aim of the unit is to promote the students’ full, conscious and active participation in the celebration of the Eucharist by learning more about the liturgies, rites and symbols of the Mass.

English

Reading, writing, talking and listening skills are strategies learnt through modeled, guided (small group), shared and independent experiences. The new English Syllabus states the key processes of responding to and composing texts are central to students using language purposefully and meaningfully, while engaging with a wide range of texts. This year students will study examples of spoken texts, print texts, visual texts, media, multimedia and digital texts. The students will create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts using a growing knowledge of text structures and language features. They will gain practice in understanding the process of planning, drafting and publishing these imaginative, informative and persuasive texts.

Mathematics

Students will be challenged to work mathematically in the areas of:

Whole number: Apply place value to order, read and represent numbers of up to five digits.

Addition and subtraction: Use mental and written strategies to add and subtract.

Patterns and algebra: Generalise properties of odd and even numbers, generates number patterns, and completes simple number sentences by calculating missing values

Area: Measures, records, compares and estimates areas using square centimetres and square metres

2D shapes: Manipulates, identifies and sketches two- dimensional shapes, including special quadrilaterals, and describes their features

Angles: Identifies, describes, compares and classifies angles

Chance: Describes and compares chance events in social and experimental contexts

                       

Science

Students will investigate the features that distinguish living things from non-living things. Students begin to consider how their interaction with the environment impacts the survival of all living things.

They will begin the unit by exploring a range of objects and classifying them in one of two categories: Living or Nonliving.

Students will then come to an understanding that Living things have life cycles. This will be unpacked during Literacy with a range of graphic organisers used to explore the life cycle of different living things in particular plant life.

They will consider the impact they have on the living things around them. They will begin to develop a product or service that will aim at educating and advocating for the protection of all living things.

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education

In term 2, Year 4 will have their sports day on Thursdays. In PE, students will be participating in a series of invasion games and sports. This unit specifically identifies sports that require a team/player to enter opposition territory to score points. Sports included this term will be Netball, futsal, AFL and oz-tag. Students will participate in skill develop and modified games.

In PDH, Students will focus on the “Safe Living” unit , in which students will learn to discuss the relationship between safety hazards in their environment and their health.  Students will develop the ability to create a safe environment and make a plan for what to do in a dangerous situation.

Creative Arts

Visual Arts will be taught in class and will explore the use of recycled materials to create an artwork. This will be integrated with our Science unit on sustainability and is a follow up activity to our excursion earlier this term to Scenic World.

Music will be taught by Mr Thanh Nguyen each Thursday.

Dance: Students will be involved in the Dance Fever program every Tuesday.

They will also be involved in the CEO’s Captivate program. CAPTIVATE is the exciting Creative and Performing Arts program for primary and secondary Catholic schools in the Diocese of Parramatta. CAPTIVATE gives students the opportunity to participate in creative and performing arts projects with students from other schools in the diocese. This will occur during music lessons in odd weeks.

Drama will not be taught this term

Library

Library borrowing day is Monday for both classes. Students are to bring their library bag each Monday in order to borrow.

Please don’t hesitate in contacting us should you have any queries. Keep an eye out on our Class Dojo Class Story for regular updates on Year 4's learning. 

Mrs Sonia Awkar (4G)

Mr Patrick Mackey (4W)

Sheila Rae - The Brave - Year 4 Readers Theatre

On Monday, just after recess, Year kicked off a week long festival of reading aloud. Year 4 were broken into teams of 5 and were assigned a character from the story. The story the children read was called "Sheila Rae - The Brave". The following link will lead you to read the whole script with your child along with other scripts throughout the week. 

Gold and Fold Mufti Day - This FRIDAY!!

This Friday our school is participating in a fundraising initiative. In 2013 a devastating earthquake struck the Diocese of Tagbilaran  caused widespread destruction and levelled many houses and buildings in the region.  3 years on and the rebuild continues. Later this year a group of young people on their way to World Youth Day will be visiting this Diocese and assist in the rebuilding process. Mr Lendvai and Mr Mackey are both taking part in this pilgrimage. This Friday all students are encouraged to wear Gold mufti. They are asked to donate either a gold coin or a note that folds.

Curriculum Overview - Term 1

Curriculum Overview Year 4

Term 1, 2016

Dear Parents and Carers,

This overview outlines the content that will be covered during this term with your child. It is a great reference to keep somewhere prominent so that you can refer back to it with your child and discuss specifics of their learning. Please don’t hesitate in contacting us if you have any queries or concerns about your child.

Religious Education

Lent: A Time For Reconciliation

In this unit there is an in ­depth analysis of the parable of the Prodigal Son in the context of a study of Lent as a season whose liturgy challenges and invites us to conversion and reconciliation with God and others. Students will interpret the parable's purpose/message within the context of the Lenten liturgy and the celebration of the sacrament of Penance.

Easter Triduum Passover: Exodus                                                                                      In this unit, students study the Exodus story and its celebration in the Jewish Passover meal drawing upon the experience of refugees and immigrants to Australia. The unit seeks to develop students' understanding of the new meaning Jesus gave to the sharing of bread and wine at the Last Supper and to relate the Church's celebration of the Eucharist to its hospitality and service to refugees and immigrants.

Easter Season: New Life                                                                                                     In this unit, students will explore experiences of ' death' and 'new life' in their lives and how this is related to the Church's celebration of the mystery of Jesus' rising and dying in the liturgies of Holy Week and the Easter season.

English

Reading, writing, talking and listening skills are strategies learnt through modeled, guided (small group), shared and independent experiences. The new English Syllabus states the key processes of responding to and composing texts are central to students using language purposefully and meaningfully, while engaging with a wide range of texts. This year students will study examples of spoken texts, print texts, visual texts, media, multimedia and digital texts. The students will create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts using a growing knowledge of text structures and language features. They will gain practice in understanding the process of planning, drafting and publishing these imaginative, informative and persuasive texts.

Mathematics

Students will be challenged to work mathematically in the areas of

Multiplication and Division: Recall multiplication fact up to 10x10(and beyond) and related division facts.

Whole Numbers: Recognise, represent and order numbers to at least tens of thousands.

Addition and Subtraction: Apply place value to partition, rearrange and regroup numbers to at least tens of thousands to assist calculations and solve problems.

Patterns and Algebra: Use equivalent number sentences involving addition and subtraction to find unknown quantities.

Three Dimensional Space and Position: Investigate and represent three dimensional objects

HSIE

Community and Rememberance

This topic provides a study of identity and diversity in both a local and broader context. Moving from the heritage of their local area, students explore the historical features and diversity of their community. They examine local, state and national symbols and emblems of significance, and celebrations and commemorations, both locally and in other places around the world.

Personal Development, Health and Physical Education

This term students will participate in a Peer Support program called 'Better Buddies'. They will meet regularly throughout the term in K-6 groups to interact with their buddy leaders and peers. The program focuses on the strand of Interpersonal Relationships and links to our whole school social skills program. The focus of Better Buddies is to create friendly and caring schools, fostering an environment where all students feel safe and happy. Younger students are supported by older students and learn about respect, responsibility, valuing difference, including others, care for others, friendship, negotiation and managing positive relationships with peers.

Miss Mel McCauley will teach Physical Education to both classes each Wednesday.

Visual Arts

Visual Arts will be taught in class and will explore various materials to create artworks. It will be integrated with Religious Education, English and History.

Music

Mr Thanh Nguyen will teach Music to both classes each Wednesday. In the music program this term, students will be learning how to play the ukulele. As a part of this study, they will be learning pitch and rhythm through the use of the ukulele. Students will all have an opportunity to learn basic chords on the ukulele and combine what they have learnt to perform songs on the instrument.

Library

Library borrowing day is Thursday for both classes. Students are to bring their library bag each Wednesday in order to borrow.

Homework

Homework in Year 4 will consist of the research and presentation of two speeches per term.

The students will be given three weeks to prepare their speech, and presentations will then take place the following week in class. Along side the speeches, students will be assigned a small Mathematical task each week.

Class Dojo

This year we will be using ClassDojo to encourage important skills, like working hard and participating. We will also use it to communicate to parents. More information will be going home in the coming weeks.

Please don’t hesitate in contacting us should you have any queries.

Mrs Sonia Awkar (4G)

Mr Patrick Mackey (4W)

Today we skyped with the author, Max Brallier the author of Galactic Hot Dogs.  It was so much fun!  We asked lots of questions and Max answered them.  He told us there would be a book two and three for Galactic Hot Dogs.  The characters are Cosmoe, the earth boy, Humphree, Cosmoe's best buddy, Princess Dagger, Evil Queen Dagger and General Krax von Grumble.

We spoke to Max Brallier because we wanted to know more about him.   He lives in New York and he is a really big fan of comic books.  We asked him where he got his ideas from and Max told us that when he was our age he would get his ideas from movies.

By Jocelyn and Noah

Maths in Year 3

Learning Intention: to model and show commonly used fractions.

On the 27th of May, Year 3 have been using fractions to our pizzas equally. We have a pizza shop where we have been visualising how to cut our pieces of pizza so everyone gets an equal share. We have been using fractions such as halves, quarters, thirds, eighths, thirty seconds and sixty fourths. 3W made a number line from 0-1 using the fractions of pizza. We found the bigger the denominator the closer the fraction is to 0. 

By Nicholas F and Jiivan

Footy Knock Out

On Friday the 29th of May 2015, Lewis W and Darragh M went to the Footy Knock Out with a number of other Year 3 students. We got to school at 7:45am and left on the bus at 8am.

According to Lewis and Darragh the day was great because Liam scored a try in his 3rd game ever and we had a draw against the hardest team in the competition. The boys agreed that Darragh having a head clash with a friend from baseball and losing three games were not a good parts of the day.

By Lewis W and Darragh

A NAPLAN Message to Year 3

As this is NAPLAN week we will not be setting homework instead please have your child read each night and enjoy some down time.

Mrs Law and Ms Robertson