4T 2019 Nativity Play

Caring Mary, Trustworthy Joseph, Cruel King Herod and Three Wise Men…of should I say women? 

To finish off the Term 4, 4T explored the testaments of Luke, Matthew and John to piece together the events leading up to Jesus’s birth, the Nativity. We explored the characters and what traits they have. The students then used this knowledge to write their own scripts, with their own interpretation and flair, plan their costumes and rehearse their actions.

4T have performed to their peers in Year 4, the residents at our local nursing home and today will have their final presentation to their parents and Year 2 buddies.

Check out the 4T student blogs to see their individual reflections.

In the meantime, here is a video of our surprise finale at yesterday’s nursing home visit.

 

4T Community Service

Expert savvy shoppers were the roles that 4T took on at our local supermarket yesterday. Trolley pushers, Expiry date checkers, Price comparers and Budget analysers were some of the others.

4T roamed the aisles on their mission to spend their hard-earned fundraising money on various food items to be donated to the Christmas Hampers for the Salvation Army. Many groups only had 5c or 10c leftover – what careful, yet great budgeting and choosing of items!

4T outside the supermarket

Mid-Shop

4T, leave a comment with what some of the chores were that you completed at home to raise your money and a reflection on yesterday’s shopping trip. 

Our Changing Landscape

Our landscape is always changing by both natural and human impacts. These can be both positive and negative.

On Monday, Alex from Hands-On Science came to help us to broaden our understanding. 4T participated in a range of experiments to experience natural processes such as weathering and erosion and to understand how landforms around us were created and are changing.

Read the comments on this post for 4T’s insights and curiosities from the session.

Watch the video below to see a quick snapshot of the hypothesising, testing and observing that went on in our session.

4T, leave a comment with something interesting that you learned from our session and a question that it has prompted you to wonder about.

Global Read Aloud

During our last term of the year, 4T will be participating in the Global Read Aloud Project (GRA) where classes all over the world connect with each other and discuss their thoughts and predictions about a chosen class novel. 

Watch this video to learn more about the GRA. 

Front Desk Front Cover

The book that has been chosen this year is Front Desk by Kelly Yang. Read the synopsis below and watch the book trailer, then leave a comment with your prediction for the novel. 

For our international visitors, don’t forget to also tell us where you are from in your comment!

Ten year-old Mia Tang moved to the US for a better life, a freer life, but so far, it’s a life where she runs the front desk of a motel while her parents clean rooms. And she’s not even allowed to use the swimming pool. 

 

Meet the Scientist

The Year 4 ‘Design Your Own Experiment’ project culminated with a ‘Meet the Scientist’ afternoon, where the Year 4 scientists shared their thinking with family visitors and the school community.

Here is a snapshot from the afternoon:


4T, leave a comment with something that you have learnt from this term’s Integrated Unit or what worked well at our Open Afternoon and something you are still wondering about.

Comment Bonanza Month – OVER

In Year 4, we called August ‘COMMENT BONANZA MONTH.’

The focus was to teach as many people as they could how to write a great comment and share their learning with their family.
At the beginning of the month we predicted we would receive an average of 1000 comments by the end of the month. 

WELL, we didn’t reach 1000, but we received 625 comments and were busy feeding our comment monsters EVERYDAY! Well done 4T – there were blog buddy comments coming in DAILY with many 4T members leaving quality comments for the whole class. 

CLICK THIS LINK TO SEE JUST HOW MANY COOKIES THAT IS

Thank you to Ava for creating this image

Have a look at the world map on our sidebar to see where many of these comments came from.

Leave a comment telling us about someone that you taught to write a quality comment. 

Character Development

Over the last couple of weeks, the Year 4s have been lucky enough to participate in two writing workshops.

One with the very funny, very talented, author of books such as ‘Thai-reffic’ and ‘Super-Con-Nerd.’ The other was with writing guru Beth Cregan.

Both writers worked with the students to drill down into how you can create complex characters and create a backstory for them which will influence their actions and how they speak throughout your story.

This week in literacy, students are using what they have learnt to help them to create a backstory for a brand new character. Have a look below at what they have come up with:

Made with Padlet

Year 4, what type of writing do you most enjoy doing and why?

Community Service Project

A large focus in Year 4 at our school is on community service. We try to empathise with the issues people face in our community and what we can do to help.

We support the Salvation Army who support families going through rough times or at risk of homelessness. Peter from the Salvation Army came to speak to all of the Year 4s about the different ways that this organisation supports people.They help those experiencing rough times by:
  • support people in finding somewhere safe and secure to live.
  • talk through the different emotions they might be experiencing.
  • link them with other services they may need eg. doctors.
  • assist with booking appointments or driving them to medical appointments. 
  • assist with access to food and self care products.

In conjunction with our Integrated science units focussing on properties of materials, we created a project where students had to test various materials to see which would be most suitable for a blanket.

Our blankets with a small care message

The students in 4T raised money by doing extra chores at home as part of their weekly home tasks. Our class alone raised a whopping $783.

With this money we purchased the materials to make our blankets and also bought and donated various toiletries items which will go into care packages created by the Salvation Army to give out to those experiencing homelessness. Peter also mentioned to us that another temporary and last resort which they offer are swags or ‘backpack beds.‘ With the incredible efforts of the Year 4s and strong empathy for those who are disadvantaged in our community, we pooled our funds with the other classes to be able to buy and donate 4 of these beds. 

On Friday we had a special ceremony where

Presenting to Peter

each of the year 4 classes presented various aspects of the project to Peter and helped him pack the donations into his car.

Well done Year 4. We are all so proud of you!

4T with their donations

4T, what was your favourite part of this project?

Decimals

We use decimals everyday.

Decimal numbers are used in situations where more accuracy or smaller amounts than a whole, is required than the whole numbers can provide. The decimal system is a way to express numbers less than a whole by using the decimal point. Decimals are another way to represent fractions.

Where have you encountered or seen decimals before?

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