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

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

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. 

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.

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!

Multiples and Factors

We looked at the difference between factors and multiples today. A factor is any whole numbers that are multiplied together to get a product. The factors of 12 are 1, 2, 3, 4 and 12.

The factors of 16 are 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16.

http://youngteacherlove.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/factors-and-multiples.html

Multiples are the product of any quantity and a whole number. A multiple is when a product is multiplied by any whole number. Multiples can be listed in a series.

The multiples of 3 are 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18...

The multiples of 5 are 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30...

http://youngteacherlove.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/factors-and-multiples.html

We made an 'egg-cellent' multiples egg that listed all the multiples of numbers from 1 to 10. We knew that this was the same as skip counting and practiced skip counting by twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes. We were a little slower skip counting by sevens, eights and nines but were able to use different strategies to work out the multiples of larger numbers with a few handy tricks. 

Holly's Post

Yesterday and this morning we had reading groups and we were reading our books for ten minutes and then we did an activity. Today we learnt about summarising. With whiteboards we had to approximate or guess how long a centimetre was, 5cm and 10cm and draw them without a ruler. Then we had to write everything we knew about measurement. First I copied off of Mrs Taylor and then I did two by myself. Then we listened to our class novel, 'The Goat Who Sailed The World'. After that we had library. We got into our groups and we had to try and find everything we could about one explorer. For example, Dampier. Then we packed up and had a story.

Jake's Post

Today we started the day with reading groups. We first talked about how to make connections with a book when we're reading it. Then we got split into our reading groups and read a book and we had to make connections with the book and ourselves. We then had to write it in our reading group books. After reading groups we came back to our class and did some grammar and finished ofg our 100WC. Then we had recess. After recess we went to computers and typed our 100WC and then we went back to class and talked about the European explorers like Torres, Dampier and Dartog. We listened to a rap of these explorers that was on our class blog. Then we worked in groups to read some more information about the explorers and make some notes. Then it was lunch. After lunch we finished of our European explorers and had to share something that we found out about them with the class. After that we played a game where we either had to multiply two numbers together or add two numbers together. Then we got our own dice and had to roll them to make 2, 3 or 4 digit numbers to add. Then we went home.