Week 6 - 7

At the beginning of Week 6 we read a text on National Sorry Day to help us investigate the author’s purpose as well learning how to take notes. For the remainder of Week 6 we concentrated on reading procedural texts involving natural diasters, for example how to survive a flood to identify their purpose. We did this by exploring the features used in these types of texts and how they are used to achieve the author's purpose. We learnt that understanding the features and the author's purpose builds our understanding of procedural texts.

In Week 7 we continued to read procedure texts related to natural disasters. Through reading of these texts we learnt how to respond to different types of comprehension questions. We learnt to analyse different text features and their structure in order to futher understand the author choices and how these help us comprehend different texts.

On the Monday of Week 6 we explored the book Sorry Day in Reading and took notes. We then used these notes to write our own text about National Sorry Day. We use the facts we jotted down and the 5W's to help us organise our ideas. This enabled us to share what we know about and important event in Australian history.

For the remainder of Week 6 we commenced writing our own procedural texts. We learnt about including different text features, such as time connectives to help us structure our procedural texts. We also included adverbial phrases and words to assist with guiding our thinking and build more detail into our texts so as to engage our readers.

In Week 7 we started the week by brainstorming a list of different natural disasters we know and then chose one to focus on and write a procedure text about. We either chose how to prepare for... or how to survive a... We learnt about the importance of using appropriate language features by including transitional words and phrases and imperative (bossy) verbs so that our natural disaster procedure texts would be interesting to our reader and added these to our texts. We then revised and edited our draft using ARMS and CUPS in order to improve our writing.

In week 6 we explored symmetry in 2D shapes. We learnt how to define symmetry and identify it within a number of 2D shapes. We also learnt about rotational symmetry, noting how movement of letters, numbers and shapes affect the symmetry of these items. Through a problem solving task we experimented rotating different shapes and letters to understand how moving (rotating) them effected their symmetry. We also explored line symmetry in 2D shapes.

In week 7 we investigated data. We learnt to identify answers to questions about a given data display through intrepreting and analysing given data sets. We also learnt how to identify and explain the features used in data displays; tables and graphs to help us to accurately read and interpret data.

Next we compared different ways to represent data through creating column graphs and line graphs using weatehr data collected over the previous couple of weeks. This helped us it understand the two different types of graphs. Lastly we learnt how to describe the shape of distributions in data displays by identifying whether the dats being displayed is skewed or not skewed.This helps us th intrepret data more accurately and explain what the data is showing.

In week 6 we continued to explore information for our Big Idea and topic this term. During this week we learnt about how Earth's rotation causes day and night. We explored Earth's rotation through using models (globe and light), obserrving videos and maps and through reading explanations which demonstrated how Earth moves. This helped us to understand why we have day and night and how this affects our daily lives.

In week 7 we planned a debate. We were given a number of topic statement:

1. Should ACPS be a school that bring nude foods.

2. Should ACPS have a designated eating area.

3. Should people be fined for littering. 

4. Should every child recycle our 10c bottles and cans

5. Should all ACPS students ride or walk to school instead of being driven. 

We then chose one topic statement and planned arguements for and against this topic. This helped us to express our opinion on a topic and to support our arguments with different reasons. We then presented the debated, allowing us to express our opinion about a chosen topic.

In RRRR lessons we learnt what gender-based violence is, we explored how to recognise different types of gender violence, and how gender violence affects people. This was done by exploring examples, discussing and participating in scenarios and identifying the feelings and how these impact all those involved; the victim, the witness (bystander) and the up-stander. This helped us to recognise unfair or unsafe behaviours, understand their impact on others and help us to make respectful and safe choices.

We also learnt about givng consent. We defined consent and then explored ways to give, ask for, refuse and respect consent through practising scenarios where we ask for permission, say yes or no and respectfully respond to the choices of others.  After discussing scenarios and deciding on whether consent is given or not we made a comic strip showing consent for a given scenario.

On Tuesdays we continue to visit the Library in order to change our Take Home Readers and spend some quiet time reading books of our own choice.

On Thursdays we are still engaging in Year 4 Sports usually with another Year 4 class. Due to the wet weather this Thursday some classes chose to stay indoors and complete fun and engaging activities inside, like a Hip Hop Dancing rountine.