Year 4

Alhamdulilah, we’ve been blessed beyond measure to kick off the term with an ease on COVID-19 restrictions. Concurrently, coming back to school with mask free faces, was the icing on the cake. Our term has been jam-packed with wonderous adventures, special guests and a rewarding learning journey. We had incursions, science week, fun run ceremony, book week, basketball and netball excursions which were all incredibly set up – Allahuma barik!

During this term, the year Four students have become Botanist! We have been delving into ‘Life cycle of flowering plants and parts of a plant’. We focused on what’s inside a seed, bean seed germination/flowers and pollination, plant life cycle and parts of a bee and its role in pollination. Our botanists have planted, observed, recorded and investigated the conditions of plant growth. We also carried out experiments planting bean seeds and students recorded their observations of the progress of germination for fourteen days. Additionally, our plant biologists directly experienced planting flowers in different environments/ecology to observe how the condition of plants are impacted by its surrounding and natural growing areas. We have utilised curiosity and inquisitiveness this term to unravel various phenomena.

Meet the Researcher’ Incursion Program:  The year 4 cohort celebrated National Science Week 2022 by inviting a real-life Telethon Kids researcher into our classrooms. We found out exactly what a real career in science looks like. Students watched how a researcher brings STEM subjects to life through attractive activities and games, to demonstrate the value of science in life and careers. The ‘Meet the Researcher’ incursion program was aligned to the Year Four curriculum, providing students with a valuable learning experience.

The year 4 students engaged in visual art forms. They were fostered an artist connection with their emotions, memories and learning. Students learnt about how perspective drawing brings two dimensional drawings and paintings to life, and how perspective drawing make 2D objects appear three dimensional. Like a new physical exercise, the visual arts heal the mind by activating creative brain cells, thereby stimulating oxygenated blood flow to depleted regions. Our students always enjoy a great lesson of art to end a week. 

Our writing journey has taken us on a trip to learning how to persuade our readers. Students in Year 4 are learning about the salient characteristics of a successful narrative writing using show do not tell sentences to possess audience to the author’s purpose where they introduce a character/problem solution verses personal experience and children’s’ wild imagination. Throughout the term our year four students have learned to use focused skills such as a sizzling start using onomatopoeia, action or dialogue, pebble, rock boulder to create a tightening tension and end their narratives in a fine resolution. The year four students also learned procedural writing. Yes! They now know how to follow a recipe. Not only that, but our year fours have also been exposed to various procedural writing such as creating a procedure for a paper cup telephone. It was a pleasure viewing how their imagination is creative and wild. Indeed, they are all authors and know how to entertain their audience.

Year fours were also introduced to equivalent fractions, converting mixed fractions to improper fractions and vice versa and adding and subtracting like fractions. That was challenging but our students managed this topic well. Phew!  Students also explored length and measuring masses. They also investigated decimals and how to round of decimals. Students also dived into probability where they jumped into different events and chance outcomes. Students warm up before starting each lesson by recalling maths facts such as multiples, factors and formulas of area, volume and perimeter.

In our numeracy investigations students have employed their skills experientially. Students have conducted experiments by measuring different objects and converted their measurements from centimetres to millimetres and vice versa. Students are dealing with real world situations in numeracy to help prepare them for the future.

Overall, this term in HASS students have understood and explored the journeys of Captain Cook and his settlement in Australia and how life was during the 18^th century. Students also explored the first fleet journey and learnt about the convict’s life and connected this to colonial local government and the local government today. Students also explored the continent, explored the African savannah, and compared it to Australian savannah. Our year four explorers also carried out extensive research where they selected an African country and compared it to Australia’s climate vegetation and savannah. Across this eventful term, we were engulfed in inquiry-based learning when exploring these intriguing topics. It has been a wonderous journey in year 4 – to learn about early settlements and different geographical features in Africa and Australia.