WELCOME BACK
Welcome back to Term 2! We hope all families enjoyed a lovely break over the holidays and didn’t eat too much chocolate! It is always nice to have a break from the routine of making school lunches and running kids to sport. These holidays saw Mrs Hillier camping in Wangaratta, Mrs Stephens holidaying in Vietnam and volunteering in Cambodia, Miss Laurent travelling to the Philippines and Mrs Dell having family time at her holiday house in Phillip Island. This term is 11 weeks long and we have plenty to pack in, including our School Production in June.
READING
In reading this term, we will be focussing on the text ‘My Place’. We will also be watching the episodes to coincide with this, and students will be doing research tasks based on the issues going on in each episode. My Place is based on going back in time through Australian history, which supports our Integrated Studies topics for this year. The students will be practicing many comprehension strategies based on this text, such as comparing and contrasting, visualising, questioning and summarising. Later on in the term, we will be reading non-fiction texts based on Australia’s neighbouring countries. This will support the students with their geography project throughout the term.
WRITING & SPELLING
This term in writing, we will be focusing on information reports and narrative texts in our Writer’s Workshop. Our topics link closely to our Integrated Studies unit ‘Beyond Our Backyard’. We will continue to have a writing conference group each week to work with every student in a small group setting. For spelling this term, we will further develop our whole word inquiries and independent spelling routine. We will collect the students' spelling words from their writing to address their individual needs. Focus groups will also be introduced in Term Two to practise varied strategies.
MATHS
In Maths this term we will be learning about addition - near doubles, split, jump and switch strategies, renaming and equivalent number sentences, subtraction - skip counting backwards, estimation and renaming, time - am/pm, units of time and time duration and also angles - naming and classifying. We will also be having fun with our Maths project ‘Everybody Wins’ which looks at chance and data.
INTEGRATED STUDIES
Our integrated studies unit this term is ‘Beyond Our Backyard’. Students are going to be exploring Australia and its closest neighbours. We are excited to be going on a global perspective excursion to CERES Environmental Park. This cultural immersion experience will occur on the first day of Term 2. Students will be completing a student resource project on their neighbouring country of choice and will be presenting their knowledge to the class.
SCHOOL PRODUCTION
This term we have our school production ‘Villainous Villans’ on Wednesday 4th and Thursday the 5th June at Yarra Valley Grammar at the George Wood Performing Arts Centre. We have been practicing our dance routines and are looking forward to showing you our performances. Elements of your child’s costume are due back to your child’s teacher by Friday 9th May. Please ensure each item is named and in a named plastic bag.
HOMEWORK
Homework will continue in Term 2, coming home on a Tuesday and due back the following Monday. It is important that the children complete the set tasks and return their homework in order to form good habits before reaching the senior school next year. Weekly practice of the times tables is also important as the times tables underpin our Mathematics system and are extremely beneficial in so many ways.
CAMP
Grade 4 camp takes place Monday 8th - Wednesday 10th December. Information regarding consent and payment is available on Compass. Any parents wishing to volunteer to come on camp must do so by Monday 28th April. Parents will be notified the following week.
Throughout each term your classroom teacher will collate learning tasks to your child's Learning Journal. This will come home at the end of Term Two to give you an insight into some of the learning happening at school. Please return back to school in Term 3, ready for our second semester.
