Grade 4 – Term 3 Activities

Reading 

Text Response

In this reading unit, students will be immersed in the world of story, through the rich and engaging story of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. Throughout the term we will be unpacking the story as well as exploring a range of reading comprehension strategies.
 
Some of these comprehension strategies include;

  • Text to text connections (what other books/films/stories have a similar occurrence?)
  • Text to self connections (how does this relate to you and your life?)
  • Text to world connections (what links can we make with this story and the wider community / world around us?)
  • Exploring the main idea and moral of a story
  • Summarizing
  • Analyzing character traits
  • Inferring information
  • Asking questions before, during and after reading

 
Students will be encouraged to ‘read along’ with us with their own books and will be given opportunities to discuss the characters, the story, make connections and broaden their understanding. At the conclusion of this unit, students will be completing a reading comprehension task where they can demonstrate their understanding of our class novel, as well as reflect on their enjoyment of the book and give the story a review.

Writing 

Persuasive Writing

Throughout this unit, students will be exploring the genre of opinion and persuasive writing, and how language can be used to inspire and share your point of view. We will be exploring a variety of modes such as youtube videos, non-fiction literature, speeches from inspiring people, verbal debates, advertisements and written persuasive pieces. Students will be developing their understanding of persuasive writing and language, and how their ideas can be structured & enhanced. They will be given opportunities to engage in verbal debates and developing their own opinions, as well as practice writing their own relevant persuasive pieces.
 
Some of the persuasive language devices we will be exploring in more depth include;

  • Facts and statistics
  •  Opinions (expert)
  • Emotive Language
  • Rhetorical Questions
  • Repetition
  • Imagery

By the end of this unit, students will be planning, drafting, creating and publishing their own written opinion piece.

Maths  

Chance and Data

During this Unit, students will investigate the chance and probability of certain events. Students will develop their understanding of the following concepts:

  • Using the language of chance to to identify the probability of everyday events occurring.
  • Identifying everyday scenarios where one event is dependent on another.
  • Identifying everyday scenarios where one event is independent of another.
  • Recording data in a variety of formats.
  • Analysing data to draw conclusions about the information collected.

By the end of this unit, students will have conducted a survey, presented their results in a graph and provided analysis of their findings.

Shapes and Angles

During this unit, students will be exploring the connection between angles and 2D shapes. They will also probe the relationship between 2D and 3D shapes and how they present themselves in real life. 

Key concepts include: 

  • Identifying prefixes, sides, corners and angles in 2D shapes. 
  • Tangram manipulation 
  • Tessellation of 2D shapes & Escher Tessellations
  • Identifying/classifying angles in shapes, images and everyday objects. 
  • Estimating and measuring angles
  • Matching real life objects to 3D shapes and finding the number of faces, edges and vertices within them. 
  • Exploring how 3D shapes have 2D shape faces from varying points of perspective.

By the end of this unit, students will have gained an understanding of how shape and angles are embedded in real life objects and structures. 

Location and Transformation

During this unit, students will investigate elements of location. They will investigate the following concepts;

  •  Legends
  • Grid References
  • Compass directions
  • Locating items on a map
  • Using reference points to give and follow directions.
  •  Why scales are important on maps and how to measure them. 

Inquiry 

Rules, Laws and Democracy

During this unit students will investigate and develop their understandings of;

  • Values and Communities
  • Rules and laws
  • The Democratic Process
  • Responsibilities of Local Government

By the end of the unit students will know the difference between rules and laws, unacceptable and acceptable conduct within the community, how the democratic process is used in decision making.