YEAR 4 NEWS FEBRUARY 28, 2010

NIST

How the world works

Our new unit of inquiry come under the
transdisciplinary theme of How the world
works.
Our central idea is:
Understanding the properties of energy
allows people to make sustainable
applications.
We will be inquiring into this through the
concepts of FUNCTION, CONNECTION
and RESPONSIBILITY.
Our Lines of Inquiry are:
 Forms and sources of energy ‘Unless
 Transformation of energy
 Sustainable energy
someone like
you cares a
You can help your child grasp these big whole awful
ideas by talking to them at home about
all forms of energy, pointing out where lot,
the different sources of energy you use Nothing is
come from and generally sharing your going to get
own understanding.
Many of the students are familiar with better. It's
the idea of sustainability and making not.’
responsible choices but need to fill in -- The Lorax
their understanding of the properties of
energy and why these choices are by Dr. Seuss.
Picture from: http://blog.deeprootssanctuary.org

indeed important.
UPCOMING EVENT:

March 7th 2011, (J Day) 12:25 til 2pm

Track and Field Sports Day - Years 4 - 6

Please visit the Elementary Blog for details of two ACTION

opportunities for all elementary students.
Page 2
YEAR 4 NEWS: How the world works
TRANSDISCIPLINARY LEARNING
Language Arts:
Written Language - Reading
and Writing
We will be looking at
procedural texts. This will lead
into scientific procedures as
we conduct energy
experiments.
Much of our readi ng
programme will be used as a
vehicle to understand the
wide variety of ways we
cap tur e and co ns um e
energy from different sources.
This will help us address a lot of
our function questions:
What is energy? Where does
energy come from? How is
energy used?
Viewing and Presenting
Linking closely to our maths
we will be looking at the visual
language of presenting and
interpreting data, as well as
scientific diagrams. With the
high level of content and
vocabulary within this unit the
students will realise how visual
texts can help them develop
new levels of understanding.
How are the data and the
representation connected?
(connection)
How do visual texts have the
power to influence thinking
and behavior? (responsibility)
Listening and Speaking
We will build onto our
procedural text in reading and
writing here by focusing on
listening to, giving and following
instructions.
Mathematics:
Data Handling - Function - In
Maths, supported by ICT we be
will looking at data handling -
how is it used to convey different
messages? What does this
graph tell us? (function) What
are the different ways we can
present/analyse this
i n f o r m a t i o n ?
(responsibility)
Pattern and Function
We will use what we’ve been
learning about for multiplication
and division - skip counting,
inverse relationship, associative
and commutative properties -
as a starting point for number
patterns. We will extend this into
looking for the rules in other
patterns. Students will have the
opportunity to create their own
patterns and ‘rules’.
Number
We are continuing with our
multiplication and division work -
please help your child to master
their timetables to support the
bigger understandings they are
working on in class.