Year 4

Year 4 camp was at Chowder Bay and Cockatoo Island over two nights and three days. When we left we felt so excited, but also a little nervous to leave our families behind. Definite highlights were rafting, sleeping in a tent and the hairdressing salon Mrs Michie and Mrs Ward set up in their tent!

When we arrived we played games on the beach and had so much fun, we built sandcastles and played in the water. The weather was not ideal so we could not snorkel, but we did get to go rafting. We had the most delicious dinner and then went to bed. The next day we scoured the beach for plastics and then went back to the Sydney Maritime Institute of Science (SIMS) to look at the sand that was filled with particles of plastic. We did this under microscopes and it was fascinating. We then left for Cockatoo Island. It was so exciting sleeping in a tent. We fell asleep easily BUT we got woken up at 11.00pm! A lightning storm was coming! We woke our tent buddies and ran outside. We were evacuated into tunnels. The rain was pelting down and it was very windy. When the storm passed we all went into a hall to sleep, it was like a giant sleepover. Year 4 Camp was wet, fun, adventurous and a great learning experience. We can’t wait for Year 5! Jamilla Soo and Irisa Han, 4M

Megan Chia, Kathy Wang, Ellie Zhao and Celine Cai, 4J

Dr Kate Hadwen (Principal), Scarlett Wong, Celine Soo and Emily Woods-McConville, Year 4

In Year 4 we solved environmental problems. Julia Ward visited us (on Microsoft Teams) from Perth. Her job is to manage the carbon emissions that her company produces. We learned that carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of our greenhouse gases. Carbon, and other elements make up the ozone layer, this layer keeps Earth at a certain temperature. But ever since the industrial revolution burning fossil fuels in factories and through emissions by cars and trains there has been too much carbon in our atmosphere. If there is the right amount of CO2 then we are good, but if there is too much, Earth can overheat. Burning fossil fuels is a big contributor to global warming and climate change.

Trees are the saviours; they are the sequesters of carbon dioxide. Fifteen trees can hold one metric tonne of carbon. Julia also mentioned that the average human being’s carbon footprint is 17 tonnes of carbon in a year. We did the maths, so the average human would need to plant 255 trees each year. An upside to COVID-19 is with the planes out of the sky our carbon footprint is smaller.

Emma Scott, Imogen Jones and Silka Czyniewski, 4S

We also learned that some companies are trying to become carbon neutral. Julia’s company is buying humongous patches of land, and planting trees. However, it is not that simple, people must consider the extreme temperatures, and the lack of water in these arid lands.

Julia went to Antarctica because it is a barometer for climate change. The polar regions are very sensitive to small rises in temperature, they are sometimes referred to as ‘the canary in the coalmine’ because they show changes long before they can be seen elsewhere in the world.

I certainly enjoyed her visit, and we learned loads.

Eva Still, 4S

Year 4 visited the Museum of Sydney where we learned about the colonisation of Australia and the Aboriginal people. While we were there, we did an activity where we each had to act out an Aboriginal word for the rest of the group to guess. It was a fun and easy way to learn about

Aboriginal words. We also saw many artefacts that they used for hunting and gathering. There were spears, clubs, boomerangs and many more tools. The trip gave us a hands-on experience of life in Australia before and after colonisation.

Harriet Gregory, 4S

Pymble

Pymble is set on Avon Road Ladies go there and follow a code The ladies loved to sing a song But their voices came out completely wrong So the ladies said an ode

Archie

Archie is our Pymble dog He can fit in a tree log He can run all day With plenty of time to play Archie is cuter than a frog Alina Shi, 4S

We designed and created a wall of kindness envelopes for our classmates in 4W to show kindness and gratitude to everyone in the class. How it works is simple, just write a kind note to someone that made you smile. You then slide it in the person’s envelope. We decorated everyone’s envelope to their own personal taste and style. We came up with this idea to put more kindness into the world and make stronger connections with our peers. The wall symbolises kindness and makes new friendships and connections grow. We hope that one day many classrooms will make use of this wonderful creation. Our idea was successful and almost every day we saw somebody laugh or smile. When you get a kind note you feel warm inside because you know you did something kind for your peers. It really can make someone happy even though it’s a little thing and our friendships are stronger than ever. We really love it when you get to see the girl laugh or smile as they open the letter. We are so proud that we worked so well together to create something so meaningful.

Ayla Gortan, Brielle Humphreys, Lia Lin, Caitlin Stoodley and Emily Xu, 4W

In Wellbeing, we made friendship smoothies to show what we would like in our friendships. For example, you may want humour and care in your friendships, but your friend might want more understanding and not as much care as you do. When we made our friendship smoothies, we also showed how unique and different we are from each other!

We could also find a friend through a friendship smoothie by finding someone who had the same ingredients (feelings) you would like. The friendship smoothies also made us realise different things that our friends might like to have in a friendship, then we could make some changes to help us to have a stronger bond.

Leahara Wijesuriya, Veeva Xie and Elise Xu, 4W

In Year 4, some of the students participated in maths games this year. We liked maths games because they challenged us, and we had to choose which of the strategies that we had been learning about might work best. Lots of thinking was required for each problem. We also learned a lot from the mistakes we made and built our problem solving skills in a fun way. “I learned that I could solve maths problems that I used to believe I couldn’t. This also set my goals higher.” – Nicole Fan, 4W “I learned that I could solve problems if I believed in myself and that I could do problems that I never knew I could do.” – Isabel Chang, 4W “I learned that I got better at problem solving by practising the questions in the maths games.” – Yiling Gu, 4W

Imogen Jones, 4S, Emily Finucane, 4S, Summer Teni, 4J, Eleanor Rowe, 4S, Blair Elliott, 4W, Claudia Sherlock, 4S, Jamilla Soo, 4M, Sophie Kidd, 4W, Pia Vandeleur, 4S, Silka Czyniewski, 4S and Emma Scott, 4S Sabeen Mujahid and Cecilia Zhou, 4S

In Year 4 this year we displayed all our classrooms and made areas for different spaces in our classrooms. In 4M we made a reading and content place called the Zen Zone. The Zen Zone was also a quiet work space that you could sit in if you wanted to just be zen but also get work done at the same time. It was a fun space to play and lots of people in 4M enjoyed it. 4S drew butterflies to decorate the locker rooms. “It brightens up your day when you walk into the locker room to put down your bag,” said Katy Jung. The butterflies were placed on a giant rainbow, making the locker room even more colourful.

4J created a reading corner for reading and relaxing. There was a bookshelf for books and a couch for sitting on. “It is very comfortable to sit on the couch and read,” said Gemma Dixon. When you sit down on the couch, there is a perfect view of the Valley Playground. There are also toys to watch you read. In 4W we made kindness envelopes. Kindness envelopes are envelopes that people can write kindness messages to the person that owns the envelope. They do this by writing a message on a piece of paper and putting it in the envelope. “It is a very good way to spread kindness,” said Nicole Fan. All the envelopes were stapled to a board and hung up in the classroom. Year 4 had a lot of fun this year creating and designing all the fun activities. We hope that the Year 4 of 2021 has as much fun as we had.

Celine Soo and Scarlett Wong, 4M

Annabella Bayfield, Victoria Guo and Lily Xing, 4J Caitlin Stoodley, 4W

Chloe Shao, 4S, Elena Duan, 4M and Yiling Gu, 4W