Prep | Year 4 News
English
The boys have been busy focusing on their reading this term, focusing on the comprehension skills of making connections and main idea and detail. The boys have been using these comprehension skills to deepen their understanding by going beyond the text and identifying the moral of a story. Within writing, the boys have finished with persuasive writing and have renewed their pursuit of informative texts. The boys will be writing information reports on various topics relating to their new unit of inquiry and central idea. Given that the boys have already worked through information reports earlier in the year, the boys have been off to a flying start.
Maths
Over the past two weeks the boys in Year 4 have been studying data. They have been learning how to create specific questions, collect the data, collate the data and present the data in different formats. They have been using programs such as google forms and other online apps to create forms and get their classmates to complete questionnaires and surveys on a variety of topics. Once they have gathered their information, they have used the responses to create a range of different graphs. They have used their graphs to identify further areas of questioning and record what they have observed in their findings.
UOI
Year 4 has commenced our new unit Sharing the Planet, which is helping us dive into understanding the challenges the global community faces when using and sharing the earth’s resources. We have started having discussions around inequality, equality, equity and justice and our responsibility of being global citizens and caretakers of the earth. This unit will see us challenging our misconceptions and being open-minded in our thinking to help take action and bring about change, based on the Global Goals for Sustainable Development.
Music
In Music class, Year 4 are studying their Individual Unit of Inquiry showcased by Musica Viva called Timmy and the Breakfast Band. Throughout this unit they will be inquiring into the connection between music and emotions, music and movement and folk music using the Musica Viva stimulus material. Last week, Musica viva had a live concert and the boys were highly engaged and thoroughly enjoyed it. The boys are also busily preparing for the combined Primary Years performance of Hamilton Highlights at the Arts Festival in week 6, in which they are learning a medley of songs and are learning choral techniques, which will be assessed on their rubric later in the term. They will be assessed on how well they cooperate with others, their ensemble skills, following conductors instructions/ hand signals, interpreting/ imitating pitch and rhythm, using the correct vocal technique (through breathing, phrasing etc.) as well as providing musical expression to communicate effectively with an audience. Throughout the term the Concepts of Connection, Change and Perspective will be explored by answering the questions of: How can music influence mood? Why when a style of music changes we experience a change of emotion? Music can mean different things to different people.
Mandarin
In the first week, students decided their ways to share the holiday highlights and some ways were making a poster, a game and a comic etc. Then we started the new Education Perfect units by practising the core and extra vocabularies with the assistance of word lists. The units for beginning learners and heritage learners are Greetings & Introductions and Countries & Nationalities respectively. There are 4 learning modes in word learning and practice and they are reading, (translate Chinese text to English), listening (listen to Chinese and translate to English), writing (translate English text to Chinese) and dictation (listen to Chinese and type Chinese). The 4 learning modes allow student agency and provide differentiation to cater for various needs and learning styles.
