Welcome back!!

I can't believe that we're about to head into week 3 of term 4! Where has the year gone? We've been very busy already and really have hit the ground running!!

Unfortunately I wasn't at school on Monday (thanks to Hamish having a nasty stomach bug) to be part of the SISA social skills program but heard it was a great success and lots of fun too! Everyone got to work together and learn to cooperate with one another while learning to play some really cool games. The best part was that year three got to hang out with the rest of year three and the year fours got to hang out with the rest of year four. What a great opportunity for everyone in each year to hang out with their friends from other classes!

In class we have begun to look at writing procedures. Today we were lucky enough to be sent some iBooks to read from a class at North Ryde primary. They had written procedures on how to make origami after their class had read the book, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. They had turned their procedures into digital books which included short videos that helped with the steps. After watching/reading one we made some paper cranes. Unfortunately we don't get to keep them as I have promised that we'll give the class the origami that we make so that they can see how effective their procedures were. You can see the three books we were sent via the itunes links below.

How to Fold an Origami Dove

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/how-to-fold-an-origami-dove/id1046818738?ls=1&mt=11

How to Fold an Origami Butterfly

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/how-to-fold-origami-butterfly/id1047636174?ls=1&mt=11

How to Fold an Origami Iris

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/how-to-fold-an-origami-iris/id1047552523?ls=1&mt=11

 

Next week we'll be combining procedures and measurement by reading a recipe to make something yummy to eat. We'll then write our own procedures that explain how to make the recipe. Yummo! We looked at what 'mass' means today and practiced writing the shortened form of kilograms and grams as well as changing weights from kilograms to grams and from grams to kilograms.

We have begun to read the novel, The Inventions of Hugo Cabret, which has wonderful black and white pictures in it which add to the story. We have begun to read the images by looking for the salient parts, reading the characters body language and facial expressions as well as looking at how the use of light and shade can add meaning to the images and hence to the novel. 

We're fine tuning our comprehension strategies and skills by revisiting some in more depth and also introducing some new ones. This week we're looking at identifying the main idea of a text and the details that support the main idea. We're joining 4S twice a week while we explore our comprehension skills and strategies. 

As part of library research we are looking at people that have made a difference in some way to the world. At the beginning of this term we made a poster of our 'famous' person and later this term we will be using the information we have found to create a large cardboard poster that we will show off to other classes.

During science we'll be looking at packaging. What is it used for? Why do we have packaging? What is the design process when companies look at packaging products? We'll have to design a package to contain an egg and stop it from breaking when we drop it from our classroom to the concrete below. This has really excited everyone!!

Working hard

We've been working hard this week and have settled back into school and our normal routines. The week began with us catching up with our shotput which we weren't able to finish last week because of the rain. The afternoon then had us enjoying our first gymnastics lesson which everyone loved. The equipment was great and we worked hard at the different skills we were practicing. I watched everyone's trampoline jumps and their landings. We had smiles all round while performing skills on the different equipment.

We continued with our HSIE unit, 'People and their Beliefs' and came up with some questions we have about different cultures and religions. Liam asked why we don't just have one religion. Much deep thinking went into the questions that we ended up with and that we'll answer over the term.

Our science unit, 'Among the Gumtrees' begun with us first singing along to 'Among the gumtrees' and 'Kookaburra sings in an old gum tree'. We then spoke about what a 'survey' is, as we will be doing our own survey tomorrow. We thought about the surveys we have done and the surveys our families have taken part in. Surveys have questions that need answering. The answers or data is then put together to learn something. We will be doing a survey on trees in our school on Friday. The purpose of our survey is to identify which trees are gum trees and which are not. We will also be looking at what sort of animals and insects we might find on gum trees. We spoke about the 'evidence' that we might see that will tell us that animals or insects live there. We thought about what sort of evidence we might see and came up with a long list of: droppings, eaten leaves, bird and ant nests, spider webs and scratchings on bark. Tomorrow we will be taking photos of our findings and then analyse the data from our surveys too. We will be little scientists this Friday!

A visit to the library had us choosing our novel for this term. We had a look at novels that interested us and then checked them with me before getting Mrs Paull to scan them out. We have begun to read them already and will be practicing some of the comprehension skills we learnt in term 1 and 2. That will be making predictions about what will happen next, making connections with the text, summarising sections of our novel, visualising parts of our novel through drawings, monitoring our understanding of the vocabulary and language used in the novel and asking questions. We will be learning about 'author's craft' as a class. This means learning to critically view and respond to a novel by looking into the author's mind and trying to understand the workings and intentions of the author. It will also help us as writers ourselves!

During writing lessons we have been learning about information reports, what they are and where we find them. We know that they are informative writing and are filled with facts. So we have begun researching an animal to find our own facts online. We will then write that information into our own words which should end up as our first information reports. 

We're learning about visual literacy this term and have already been learning words like, 'vector' and 'salience' and how the artists that draw and paint the images in our picture books do so with meaning. We are going to learn how to 'read' pictures. We already read pictures all the time. Everytime we see a sign that doesn't use words but rather symbols we are reading pictures. It is known as environmental print. We brainstormed the sorts of signs we read everyday and came up with this list: no smoking, watch out for children, falling rocks, hospital or first-aid crosses, poison, emojis, handicapped parking and of course the golden arches. We will continue to learn many new terms to help us read images this term.

Our buddy time this week involved using air dry clay to create 3 dimensional insects. We had looked at information books about insects with our buddies last term and then drew the insect that we were the most interested in. Working with the clay was tiring for our small hands. We had to knead the clay to make it pliable and then work quickly with our buddies to create our insects. They will dry over the weekend and next week we will paint them. It has been a great way to get to know our buddy and we've really had fun at the same time.

Wow! We really are working hard at our learning!

Welcome back to Term 3!

The week has been pretty good. We have done shotput and discus. We have done some writing of what we did in the holidays too. We did some sizzling starts and one person from each table had to read their work out loud to the class. Everybody on my table was too embarrassed to read their stories out loud so we did '21 is in' and luckily I didn't have to read out to the class.  

Millie

As you can see from Millie we had a very busy first week back for Term 3. We began the term by changing the seating arrangement as we do at the beginning of every term. We also changed the layout of our tables as well. Our class jobs were given a cull so that there are less jobs and more responsibilities per job. We had the chance to verbally share what we did during our holidays in small groups and also listen to our friends share what they did. We then wrote a personal recount about our holidays and some of us shared these with the class. 

We began our HSIE unit, 'People and Their Beliefs' and found out what everybody knew about beliefs and cultures. We all had a chance to share and have our comment typed up onto the Smart Board with our names. The next thing we are going to do is think about what we want to find out about beliefs and cultures around the world. As part of our homework this term we will be doing a project on a country and its major religion. All the information for this will come home on Monday. We also had maths groups and worked hard on our strategies with the four operations. 

Our assembly has been changed to Thursdays after lunch. This will take a little getting used to! I know I needed reminding on Thursday morning that we had an assembly that afternoon! 3/4T were very good about remembering that we had an assembly and were all lined up on Thursday straight after lunch. Well done 3/4T!

During computer lessons we all learned how to use our collaborative OneNote file for our class where we all get to use the same document at the same time. It means that we can research during library time in small groups and add information to our groups page within OneNote and all be typing at our own computer BUT all get to see each other's work at the same time. Wow! Technology really helps us collaborate with our classmates so easily!

We wrote stories this week remembering all of the strategies that we had learnt last term. We had to ban the boring bits by making sure that we started from an exciting part to help draw the reader in. That is why we begin our stories with 'sizzling starters'. We also had to have some complications in our stories and we think of these as pebbles, bricks and boulders. The smallest problem in our story is a pebble problem. We then have a slightly larger complication which is our brick problem and then we go onto the huge complication in our story which is the boulder problem. It helps to make sure that we have an interesting story. We also have to include a conversation in our stories between two characters  and then make sure that we have used some descriptive vocabulary and figurative language in our work. Wow! So much is expected of us. We have come a long way with our writing this year. We can't wait to share some of our fabulous stories with you all.

We made minions with Mrs Stephens and all got to joke about Bob and his 'b-a-n-a-n-a'. The minions are displayed on the bulletin board in the office. It says, 'A minion reasons to love 3/4T'. Go and check it out!

It was such a short week! We did manage to do our discus just before it began to rain thanks to Sam. We all had some practice before we did our proper throws with the discus. We have some talented sportspeople in our class. We will have to wait until next Monday to do our shotput! A pity that PSSA got rained out again. Hopefully this coming week will be better weather wise. 

Adding dialogue to stories begins with a comic

Learning how to add dialogue to our stories begins with first being able to use dialogue with comics. We loved coming up with what the characters were saying! 

ANZAC Assembly

It was difficult to explain to some of the eager sport fanatics that even though the sun was out sport was cancelled today. We had our ANZAC assembly which was wonderfully run by the year six leaders. Our two SRC representatives took the wreath that our class parent had decorated (thank you!) and laid it at the front of the assembly remembering to bow their head showing their respect to fallen soldiers. It was a solemn occassion and we al were on our best behaviour. We got to see Mr Rod Mason in his army uniform. He is a captain and army musician and he told us about his experiences of being a peace keeper in different countries. 

We got to listen to the band play, conducted by Mr Mason and also the senior choir sing, led by Mrs Nylund. They were both brilliant and you could really tell that they had put a lot of time and effort into their peformances!

After the assembly we had a writing lesson, recess, assembly and then a grammar lesson on 'adverbial phrases'. It sounds so tricky but isn't really! We practiced adding adverbial phrases to sentences in our grammar book.

After lunch we got to do some art! We painted amazing landscapes of poppy fields which is very fitting with ANZAC day being on Saturday and our ANZAC assembly being today. 

So although we missed out on sport because of wet, soggy fields we did get to do some painting which we always love!

Penpals are on their way...

We wrote wonderful introductory letters to our penpals and finally managed to get them all complete! It was a little tricky with a number of our class being struck down with chickenpox! Finally we got them done and Mrs Taylor's boys posted them in the big red post box.

It was great a week later to get a reply from Mr Calaizis who said that his 3/4 class were so excited when the letters arrived and loved them. They've been trying to get their letters written too, but they've also had people away and are trying to get them all done so that noone misses out when he sends them back. I guess this is why they call it snail mail!

We should receive our replies at the beginning of next term and hope that the turn around next time is much quicker!

Abby's Amazingly Adorable Exposition

Summer is better than winter because in summer you can swim in your pool or go to the beach with your friends or family. When I go to the beach I build sandcastles and play tips on the beach. When it is really hot i go to the beach but the only time I go to the beach is when I am at Noosa. At the beach I play in the waves and sometimes go for a surf with my cousin. Sometimes all the cousins which are Joel, Patrick, Harry and I play in the shallow waters together. We also catch sand crabs on the beach. We also get ice-cream if our mum lets us.

I also think summer is better than winter because if you have a pool you get to go for a swim if it's really hot. In the pool you can play with your pool toys or you invite your friends over and you can also do hand stands. At summer time you are in the pool which can be refreshing. In the pool YOU CAN MAKE A BIG SPLASH. If you have a dog and it's summer time when you are going for a swim your dog might jump in with you and that will make it more fun if you have your friend to. If you had a pool and it was the start of winter it wouldn't be as fun because you can't go in the pool with your dog because it would be cold.

The third reason that I like summer better than winter is because summer goes for much longer than winter. That is better because you can do way more fun stuff in summer because there are more places to go in summer because of the hoildays. You can get chocolate for longer and Mrs Taylor would really like that. You also can go in your friend's pool and you also can go to the beach and get dragged along the sand and in to the water on your boogy board. I like being pushed in the pool with my friends and if you have a dog you get to wash them which also means getting your dog wet.

Summer is the best season because I think you can do the most things like swimming, going to the beach and doing slip and slide. Summer is when it is really hot but you can still do alot of stuff and that's what makes it fun. All the other seasons are fun but summer is the best because you can still do sports that are winter, spring or winter sports. If you have a pool and its heated you could turn it off in summer time because it is really hot and you would want it to be a bit cold because you want it to be refreshing because it's really hot. Then you would turn the heat in your pool back on at winter because if you wanted to go in the pool at winter you would want the heat on because it would be cold.

Beginning the week on Tuesday

After a big day at the swimming carnival yesterday we are only really starting our week today - Tuesday. The first part of the day was 'reading groups' in Mr Smyth's class beginning with another 'super six' comprehension strategy. We learnt about summarising. We learnt that good readers are able to determine the main ideas and put them into their own words. Learners identify and accumulate the most important ideas and restate them in their own words. To practice this we first listened to a story, 'Monsier Albert Rides to Glory' by Peter Smith. We first made predictions about what it was about and then listened to Mr Smyth read it. We stopped along the way to make connections with the story. Quite a few of us had been to Paris, many of us had ridden on bicycles like Monsier Albert and as part of our HSIE unit about ANZAC Day we had all talked about war memorials. So connections were made all around. We then brainstormed the parts of the story we remembered and I wrote them on the board. After that we numbered the information in order that it had happened. Then we wrote the story in six parts, paying attention to the plan we had on the board. We all managed to write down some of our own summary and some of us shared what they had written with the class.

Number groups after recess and then we managed to fit in some work on 'verbs'. Some of us got to stand up and act out a verb which we then had to guess. After that we had to do some work in our grammar book looking at verbs and identifying them in a sentence, choosing the best verb for a sentence and even coming up with our own verbs to describe what you would do with an object.

I was a little disappointed that last minute we missed out on computers as the wall between the computer room and library was taken down today and they hadn't quite finished rewiring computers before it was our computer time. I sent everyone an email with a link to a great site where you can write descriptive phrases on an image by dragging and dropping words. Unfortunatley we didn't get to do that lesson. I wonder who will go on the computer at home and try it out. Remember to google 'nsw student portal' to find our portal and emails! You use the same login as you use at school. Then when you look at the email I sent you will find the link to the site. You could also just click below:

http://www.piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx?PoemTemplateId=541

This afternoon we looked at persuasive writing. We had to use our bodies to agree or disagree on a few different statements by moving to either side of the room. We then had to give our reasons in whole sentences. Here are some of the statements we talked about:

Boys are better than girls.

Animals should not be kept in zoos.

Homework is a waste of time.

Reading books is better than watching the TV.

We should use less energy at school.

Chocolate should be banned.

Students should be able to eat in class

A great day was had by all, but wow, we were very busy!

Jade's Recount of Friday

Today we started with a test to find out how well we can understand what we read. Then we did creative writing which was fun for some people. After recess we went to assembly and instead of a sport report we had a library report. Then some people went to sport and everyone else stayed at school and did catch up work eg. Grammar, maths, pen pal letters and drawing. Then we finally had lunch. Then we played sport or did swimming Milo cricket or PSSA. Then everyone went home.

TODAY WAS FUN!!!

Cloudy with a chance of ...

The garden loves the rain, our grass really appreciates it and the air is left fresh and clear, however as Friday PSSA approaches we cross our fingers that the clouds are swept away to rain elsewhere for a day or two. 

Our letters to our penpals are ready to send. We've thought about how to write a greeting, introduce ourselves, ask questions and finally finish with a departing note. They're a really colourful bunch of letters and I know they'll be really appreciated by the recipients. 

On Wednesday Mrs Stephens had students create wonderful masterpieces that were inspired by Van Gogh.

Our first class blog writer had a chance to write a little about our day below. He didn't get a chance to write about the end of the day where we learnt about writing in paragraphs. We used the hamburger to help us layer our thoughts into a topic sentence, followed by supporting sentences and finishing with a concluding sentence. Everyone managed to write one fabulous paragraph and some of us wrote two or three paragraphs about what we love. Topics included: chocolate (my favourite!), soccer, milkshakes and puppies.

After finishing our writing we had a chance to share it with a partner. We had to listen to them read their writing and then offer two stars and a wish. This meant that we had to tell them two positive comments about their writing and one area where they could improve. We talked about what would make a good comment and there were many great ones shared!

Remi wrote: 

Today we had an awesome day at school. We started off with some independent writing. In the independent writing we had to write a letter to the cancer councel and the letter had to be illustrated.

I wrote some questions I wanted to know abot the cancer councel. Next we did some grammer and we learnt about Proper nouns. Then we learnt about HSIE.

Fabulous Week Four

Our fabulous week has involved learning about how 'visualising' or making movies or pictures in our heads can help us with our comprehension. We continued to look at persuasive writing and had to think today about how we can use more interesting vocabulary when trying to persuade someone to do something. We said goodbye to 'nice' and 'good' and found some more interesting words to help us persuade!

Number groups were next and then we thought about what a community means to us.

The day finished with computers where we learnt to send emails. Everyone managed to send a beautiful email to me and I made sure that I've replied to them all! A big job!

Here is a little of one:

What a busy, productive and interesting day we've had!