Term 2 Grade Three Curriculum News 2023

Dear Parents,

This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your child’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.

GENERAL
Can you believe it is Term Two already? We are ready and excited for all that Term Two brings. The Grade 3s have been working hard in Term One and are doing a fantastic job at developing their independence and resilience. We have appreciated the support parents & guardians have given students in order to encourage this with their children as well. Coming into the colder months, we greatly appreciate the donation of a few boxes of tissues to our classrooms if you are able to.

LITERACY
DID YOU KNOW that a child who reads for 67.3 minutes a day will read a total of 4,733,000 words a year? This puts them in the 98^th percentile rank! This includes any form of reading such as signs, books, notes etc. Whilst we do not expect Grade Three students to read for this amount of time, clearly the more they read, the better they will get!

During Term 1, students worked together and did a fantastic job of setting up their classroom libraries. Our Grade 3 teachers are highly impressed with the way our children are utilising their classroom libraries to ensure they are reading exciting texts that are ‘Just Right’ for them. This term, we will be developing the student’s comprehension strategies of predicting, activating prior knowledge, determining importance to summarise, making connections, critiquing, analysing, synthesising, questioning, visualising and inferring. We will continue to emphasise the importance of selecting ‘Just Right’ books to enable them to practise these strategies. Their Reading Journals will continue to serve as a tool to track their individual goals and daily reading.

What can you do to help?
When reading a new book, encourage your child to make predictions before, during and after reading.
Check their reading comprehension by asking them to visualise and describe the setting, characters or their actions.
Encourage your child to point out unknown words. Encourage them to read around the word, or use text clues to figure out its meaning.
Support your child to ask questions about the text and author.
Encourage them to summarise or retell what has occurred in the book.
Encourage your child to read a balance of fiction and non-fiction.
Discuss the characters. Ask who was their favourite? Why?
Ask them whether they enjoyed the book and to share reasons as to why or why not.

In Writing, the students will continue to explore the Writer’s Workshop. We will continue to emphasise the importance of using our Writer’s Notebooks to develop and stretch out our ideas. Students will also begin to explore the 6+1 Traits of Writing which includes organisation, voice, word choice, fluency, conventions, ideas and presentation. We will explore how authors use these to ensure their writing makes sense and interests their target audience. We encourage students to find authentic purposes for their writing and would appreciate parents supporting these endeavours at home as well.

NUMERACY
In Mathematics this term, the children will learn about a range of concepts, skills and strategies with a specific focus on Addition and Subtraction. They will also continue to focus on recalling basic number facts quickly and accurately (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). It would be appreciated if you could help your child to learn these facts at home in addition to their homework. Families can also support at home by encouraging your child to play games involving counting and number facts. We will also have a focus on the 2s, 3s, 5s and 10s counting pattern both automatic recall and knowing the actual facts.

INQUIRY
During Term 2, students in Grade 3 will be working collaboratively on our topic, ‘The Arrival’. As part of this unit, students will:

• Identify and explain the causes and effects of European settlement and exploration

• Investigate stories of the First Fleet, including causes and reasons for the journey, who travelled to Australia, and their experiences and perspectives following arrival.

• The nature of contact between Aboriginal peoples, and the effects of these interactions

DEVICES
A reminder that Department of Education policy stipulates that phones, watches or other devices with communicative ability cannot be carried by students while on the school premises during school hours, without Principal approval. For further details please refer to the policy documents on Compass and the Lara Lake PS website.

HOMEWORK
Home reading is an expectation at Lara Lake Primary School. A friendly reminder that reading for at least 20 minutes, 4 nights a week is the recommendation for students in grade 3-6 as Homework. Students are able to borrow texts from the classroom library with the teacher to monitor/implement an in-class borrowing system, in addition to students borrowing books from the school library. Alternatively, students can read books they have at home or access their Epic or Sunshine Online account.
*Clothing: A reminder that students are to be in full school uniform every day. As the colder weather approaches, please ensure your child has enough clothing to keep them warm at school.
We look forward to continuing the connection between school and home in Term Two. Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher. Compass continues to be our main form of communication. Alternatively, you can contact the office directly for more urgent matters. We ask that if you need to speak with your child’s teacher, that you organise a phone call at a mutually appropriate time. The team will endeavour to reply to any queries as soon as possible.

The Grade Three Team

Each year level team has provided their families with a detailed newsletter such as this. If you are interested in reading about all the exciting things happening across the rest of the school, these can be accessed online at our school website from early next week.

24th May 2023 Curriculum Day - No students on site