Watch them go!

Measurement Day

First Aid for Year Four

Our office display!

Computer time

Inferring, draft reports and Aboriginal Art...

Today we started with learning what 'inferring' means and how to 'infer' what is happening in an image. We looked at some images together with 4S and then we 'inferred' what was happening in them. The first image we looked at was the one with someone with sunburnt feet. We inferred that the person had forgotten to wear sunscreen while wearing thongs and was at the beach during the day. We took some discussion to work out why the feet were red and there was a few suggestions given such as, too tight footwear. We then did some ourselves. We had to look at the 'clues' or 'evidence' we could see in the picture that would help us work out what was going on.

After we had reading groups we began the draft of our information reports on an Australian animal. We could see what information we still needed to research and then during computer time most of us were able to complete our research and find some images to print for our published work. A lot of work goes into writing an information report!

After our whole school 'off site' evacuation drill we came back to do some art. We had started drawing some Aboriginal inspired drawings of an animal ready to copy onto 'scratch' board. This is board that can be pressed into with a pen and it leaves a mark. We will then roll paint onto our boards and create prints out of these pictures. They should look fabulous when they're finished!

Volume

We looked at volume the week before we went away to camp. We learnt that volume is measured in cubic units and also how to draw the 3D shapes we created. It seemed really hard when we started, but soon we were all doing a great job! Some of us even learnt how to use the formula to work out the volume of a shape. Volume = length X breadth X width

The Gruffalo

I was so pleased to be going on a special excursion to 'Glen Street Theatre' with my beautiful year threes after being away from them for three days because of the Earthkeeper's Camp. We got to see 'The Gruffalo' on Thursday and join the rest of the audience in being 'the deep dark woods' and shouting out 'over there' or 'Gruffalo' as we joined in with the characters on stage to trick the sneaky fox, owl and snake. Lots of smiles and laughs and then before we knew it we were on the bus back to school. What a great afternoon!

Earthkeeper's Camp 2014

What an absolutely wonderful camp! We all had a great time while we were away and learnt so much about the environment, the connections in nature and what we can do to lessen our impact on our world. In between learning and eating (Oh - did we do a lot of eating!!) we had lots of fun and participated in many new activities many of us hadn't done before.

Below is the camp in photos...

A Term 3 Catch up

This term has raced ahead with my first ever Boronia PS Concert! I must say I was really impressed with it and everyone did such an amazing job performing. Of course I think that our class was the best, but I'm probably a little biased!!

Another pen licence!

A pen licence is something that is not taken lightly in year 4! I'm just delighted to say that another pen licence has been given out. A big congratulations!!

Week 3

Week 3 was a busy week as we continue to practice our concert item and had an open classroom evening in amongst our learning. We have continued to read Alison Lester's book, 'Are We There Yet' and discover significant sites and places of interest around Australia. We then transferred these to our map of Australia using compass directions such as north-west and south-east. We had to describe the direction of these cities and place names in relation to other places. During library research we used atlases to help find the oceans that surround Australia and the countries that are our nearest neighbours. Using atlases is a lot of fun! 

As we read our class book we have been looking for vocabulary that we don't know the meaning of. We've found words such as: gorge, plain, range, tapestry, telegraph. We've learnt about alliteration and have found more phrases using alliteration in the text as well as similes, such as busy as a bee. We used pictures from the book, 'Are We There Yet?' by Alison Lester and described them using similes, alliteration and as many descriptive phrases as we could to try and build a picture in the audience's mind. To check our work we had to underline nouns and check that we had used adjectives to describe most of the nouns. Some of us even looked at the verbs we had used and tried to add adverbs to our writing to describe the verbs. Our wonderfully descriptive paragraphs are almost at the point of being ready to publish. We've shared many of our best sentences with our peers and are in the process of editing our work to make it the best it can be. We should be able to share some of these with you shortly!

In maths we have continued to work on our tables and learn more about time to the minute as well as some early algebra and problem solving. It has been great to make connections with our learning in maths. Some of us recognise that a clock is broken up into equal parts like fractions are. There are also the words like half past and quarter to and quarter past that make us think of fractions. Making connections with our learning helps to make the concepts we learn stick! 

We learnt about main ideas in reading groups this week and got to practice finding the main idea of articles we read, a behind the news segment we watched and some stories we read. We used the idea of a table to help us find the main idea and then used the four legs of the table to show that the supporting details are there to hold the table top up or the main idea. We also used a hand outline to help us find the main idea. The palm of the hand was where we wrote the main idea and the fingers were where we wrote the supporting details of the text we had read.

Our beautiful underwater artwork is slowly coming together. We have learnt about the Great Barrier Reef as part of our look at significant sites around Australia. We had to draw tropical fish that you would find in the Great Barrier Reef and stick that on a painted background. We're now including coral in our painting and have Sienna bringing along some real coral for us to look at. We are so lucky!

The posters we are creating in our computer lessons are almost ready to print! We have had to research a significant land form and find out interesting facts about it, the way it was formed and a dreamtime story related to it if there was one. I love the three sisters dreamtime story! I look forward to sharing these great pieces of work with you all soon.

What a great week of learning!

Week 2 in pictures

Reading Groups

We started straight back into reading groups this week. Here we are writing a book review of our favourite novel...

Where is the year going?

Term 3 and right back into the swing of it! After a quick catch up in the morning we got straight into work!  As part of our HSIE unit 'Australia You're Standing In It' we are looking at literature from Australian author's that focus on our wonderful country. We found out what the class knows about Australia before we start Alison Lester's beautiful book, 'Are We There Yet?' which takes us on a journey around Australia. The book is illustrated with rich, colourful pictures that add more meaning to the text and give us a chance to not only look at a range of figurative language in the book but also at visual literacy and the meaning of the pictures.

We also started our class novel by Emily Rodda, titled, 'Bunga Witta'. This is a story about a small outback community of 12 who are living through a drought and their journey to bring money to their town. They decide to create a festival to encourage tourists to come to the town and bring their tourist dollars with them which should hopefully stop the town from dying. We discussed many experiences in the book and without students realising they had made many connections to the text and themselves. A perfect opportunity to remind students about the different types of connections you can make with a book which helps with comprehension.

Luckily the rain held off and we had recess outside. Everyone was so happy to be catching up with friends! We came in and it was time for computers and some poetry writing! We used a poetry intereactive site which helped us think of phrases and then put these together to write a poem that fit into a shape. We had lots of soccer balls, netballs, trees, clouds and hearts. Here is a link to go and check it out:

www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/theme_poems/

As it was the first day back we weren't rushed out of the computer room which gave us a chance to finish our poems and print them out. Back to the classroom we went to cut out our shape poem, decorate it and then stick it onto orange card. They look fabulous!

After lunch we gave out the Earthkeeper's Camp Note and then the newsletter before beginning our maths lesson on numbers, the meaning of expanded notation and a discussion about the biggest numbers we knew. We got to a trillion! What a big number that is! It's not even one we can imagine!!

What a great first day back!

Pen Licences

In year 4 students can earn their pen licence. We have handed out our first four pen licence certificates today and I've just finished putting together their official licences so that they can start writing with pen tomorrow. It is very exciting! The laminated licences will be handed out tomorrow...

I see some pen shopping in the future for our four graduates!!

Pastel and watercolour

Over the last week we have drawn buildings, traced over our lines carefully with a black oil pastel and are now beginning to use vibrant water colours to paint our creations.

Plant Diary

Our broad beans have been growing primary and secondary roots and recently they have been growing their stems and leaves. We've found that forgetting to water your plant means that it doesn't grow as well and that too much water can kill a plant. Here are some of the fabulous diary entries and diagrams we have been doing in science lessons.

Graphing and computers

We learnt to make a graph using Microsoft word. It meant that we were doing computers and maths at the same time! We had to open a word document and then go to the insert tab at the top of the page and insert a chart. That is the little coloured picture with three cylinders next to each other. We then chose a column graph in the pop-up menu, entered our data in the excel sheet that automatically opened on the right of our screen and then watched the graph magically take shape.

We all managed to create our own labelled column graph and most of us also got to print it out. Some of us even tried our hands at making a 3D column graph and a pie graph.

What does a million look like?

During maths we talked about a million. What does it look like? Where do we see the word million? What does it mean? What does a million lots of things look like?

There were so many great answers. We found out that a million has 7 digits and that it is a very large. We practiced reading numbers with millions and thousands. We found that after the first number in a million we say the word 'million'. We then read the next three numbers and say 'thousand' after that. Finally we read the last three numbers.

For example:

1 235 778

We say:

one 'million', two hundred and thirty-five 'thousand', seven hundred and seventy-eight. Some of us practiced reading numbers in the millions and some of us practiced reading numbers in the thousands. We all did really well.

After that we practiced breaking numbers into parts. We had to work out how many thousands, hundreds, tens and units in a number. 

Reading and Writing up a storm

This morning we had some time to do sustained silent reading of our novel. We found out that the word sustained means maintained or continuous without interruption. We enjoyed the chance to read in class and really found it hard to stop when it was time to write our summaries. We talked about the parts of a summary and remembered that a summary retells a story or text in a short way using the main ideas. We had to think about who (the characters in our story), the what (plot and what is happening) and the setting (where is the story mostly told).

We brainstormed under these headings and then tried to put our planning into sentences that made sense. Some of us had a chance to share our summaries. We are thinking about ways to start our writing all the time to make it interesting.

After our novel study time was over we looked at using sizzling starts to make our writing more interesting. We wanted to see if authors also use interesting beginnings to draw the reader in. We got into groups and began searching for sizzling starts. Some of the novels had wonderful beginnings to the book or the chapter. Others were not as well written. We chose the best sentences and then shared them. Some of us used these to write our own sizzling starts.

The Beatty Clan

Today the Beatty Clan came to perform at our school. Our class sat at the back of the hall, after a kindy, year 1, year 2 and year 3 class. We got to sing songs with actions, find out about both the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island flags and what the colours and shapes on them mean and learn the names of some new instruments.

Year 4 in our class got to go up on stage and sing a song in front of the rest of the students in the hall. They were so happy and grinned throughout their performance.

The teachers even had to have a go!

3 Dimensional Objects

Three dimensional objects have edges, faces and corners. They have names like cubes, cones, pyramids, prisms, cylinders and spheres. Exactly where can you see these? We went on a mission to find some of these 3D objects in our playground. We found many cylinders. Everything from the posts holding up the bridges to the monkey bars and tubes protecting the chains on the climbing frame. Rectangular prisms were the steps on the fort and the pieces of wood on the bridge. We even saw some balls which are called spheres. We had to draw diagrams of these in our maths books and then describe them using the correct mathematical terms.

Literacy

We listened to the story 'Nail Soup' and just before the ending we stopped the story and then had to create an alternate ending. We talked about the different ways we could begin our paragraphs. Mrs Taylor keeps telling us to write our stories starting right from the action, with people speaking or with a sound. These 'sizzling starters' help to make our stories more interesting and make the audience want to keep reading.

NAPLAN week

This week has been a week of NAPLAN  tests for year 3 and 5. We've done the language conventions, writing and today the reading tests. Students have been really calm and focused and the rest of the school has been really quiet and allowed us to go on with our tests with no interuptions. The NAPLAN

 tests have been in the morning sessions, except for the first day where there were two tests to fit into the day. That has meant that we have been fitting our literacy and numeracy lessons around the rest of the day as best we can. Finishing NAPLAN this week will let us get back to our reading groups and novel study in the mornings, maths in the middle session and our science, art and yoga in between these.

Reading groups have changed for this term and students have begun a novel of their choice with a little encouragement and guidance from their teachers to make sure they have the perfect novel for their ability. The compromise has meant that everyone is pretty happy with their choice. We have a range of novels from the classic 'Charlotte's Web' to the fantasy novel, 'Rowen of Rin'. We will be using the super six comprehension strategies from last term to help us work our way through our novel and also be looking at the setting, characters and plot.

This has been the second week of Yoga. Year 4 had their lesson without year 3 this week because of NAPLAN. Mrs Stanford stayed with year 4 while they were at their Yoga lesson as Mrs Taylor was with year 3 supervising their NAPLAN test. Year 3 will get to catch up on their lesson later in the week. The comments after our Yoga lessons have been very positive! Everyone seems to love it!

The week in pictures...

A ship made out of a shoebox?

A last First Fleet project made out of a shoebox. Wow!!

Our blogs and the 100WC

Have you had a look at some of our fabulous 100 word challenge posts on our own blogs. We have begun to publish our writing to our own blogs instead of to our class blog. We are also beginning to comment on 100WC posts on some class blogs from schools around New South Wales and they are beginning to comment on our work. It gives us a huge audience of people interested in our writing. We're not only writing for Mrs Taylor anymore, but rather for a huge audience on-line. Have a look at some of our blogs!

http://jemmat2014.weebly.com/1/post/2014/03/100-wc-night-zoo-keeper-27.html

Parts and Wholes

We opened a brand new box of fraction equipment today that had 30 individual plastic ziplock bags with fractions for us each to play with. It felt like we were just playing a game when we matched up the fractions together. We could see that as the denominator got bigger the fraction got smaller. We remember that the denominator is the bottom half of a fraction because it starts with the letter 'd' that reminds us that the denominator is 'down'. The top half of a fraction is called the numerator.

How do you remember what the fraction parts are called? Do you have a different way of remembering what the top half and bottom half of a fraction are called?

Year 3 looked at equivalent fractions. Here is some information from: http://www.aaamath.com/fra42ax2.htm that tells us a little about equivalent fractions.

Identifying Equivalent Fractions

Equivalent fractions are fractions that have the same value or represent the same part of an object. If a pie is cut into two pieces, each piece is also one-half of the pie. If a pie is cut into 4 pieces, then two pieces represent the same amount of pie that 1/2 did. We say that 1/2 is equivalent to 2/4.

Fractions are determined to be equivalent by multiplying the numerator and denominator of one fraction by the same number. This number should be such that the numerators will be equal after the multiplication. For example if we compare 1/2 and 2/4, we would multiply 1/2 by 2/2 which would result in 2/4 so they are equivalent.

To compare 1/2 and 3/7 we would multiply 1/2 by 3/3 to produce 3/6. Since 3/6 is not the same as 3/7, the fractions are not equivalent.

• Fractions equivalent to 1/2 are 2/4, 3/6, 4/8, 5/10, 6/12 ...
• Fractions equivalent to 1/3 are 2/6, 3/9, 4/12, 5/15, ...
• Fractions equivalent to 1/4 are 2/8, 3/12, 4/16, 5/20, ...
• Fractions equivalent to 1/5 are 2/10, 3/15, 4/20, 5/25, ...
• Fractions equivalent to 2/5 are 4/10, 6/15, 8/20, 10/25, ...

In year 4 we found out what decimal fractions are and how they relate to decimals and fractions. School A to Z is a really great resource to help you at home to. 

http://www.schoolatoz.nsw.edu.au/

https://www.det.nsw.edu.au/eppcontent/glossary/app/resource/factsheet/4005.pdf

Here we are working really hard with our fractions and decimal fractions!