Transdipinary Theme : Who We Are

Central Idea:

Experiences and beliefs shape a person’s actions.

Lines of Inquiry:

An inquiry into…

• how our actions affect our lives (Causation)
• people’ many and varied beliefs  (Perspective)
• the interconnectedness of beliefs, experiences and actions  (Connection)

This is our very first unit of Year 4 but this year it is a two-part UOI.  The first half we will work on for this first four weeks of school and we will come back to it at the end of the year.  We will be spending lots of time thinking about our own values and beliefs and things that are important to us and our family.  It would be great if you could follow up these discussions with your child at home. What do you value as a family?

Central Idea : Base 10 place value system can be extended to represent size.

Lines of Inquiry :

An inquiry into….

• the patterns of 5 digit numbers and how they are represented
• representing number patterns using words, symbols, numbers and tables

We will be exploring the answers to these types of questions throughout this Place Value unit….

1. How is place value a pattern?
2. How can 5 digit numbers be partitioned?
3. How can 5 digit numbers be renamed?
4. What are the different ways 5 digit numbers can be represented?
5. How can 5 digit numbers be ordered?
6. How are 5 digit numbers rounded to the nearest 10, 100, 1000?
7. When are 5 digit numbers rounded to the nearest 10, 100, 1000?

Writing – during this UOI we will be focussing on using fabulous vocabulary choices in our personal writing!  We would love to see the children using fantastic words and interesting and creative sentence structures.  We will be unpicking and deconstructing great examples of these from an assortment of writers and making attempts to write our own.  Throughout this UOI we are very lucky to have Ms Jeves, our Teaching and Learning Coach, come in to work with us on improving our writing through extending our vocabulary.

Reading – we will be focussing on the comprehension strategy of Visualising throughout this UOI.  Good readers construct mental images as they read a text. By using prior knowledge and background experiences, readers connect the author’s writing with a personal picture. Through guided visualisation, students learn how to create mental pictures as they read. 

Throughout the year we will focus on all of the comprehension strategies to help with our understanding, fluency and comprehension.

All class home learning activities will start up slowly in the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime can you please start your children on their nightly reading routines by not only listening to them read a book from home but have them listen to you read a story to them!  At this age, reading to your child is still such an important strategy to help your child with their own reading comprehension.