Year 4 Update – Wk 13
Tuesday 14th, 21st, 28th November and 5th December – Year 4 Pitch – Please note the change in date from the e-notice
Thursday 23rd November – Scott Darlow Re-Visit: Scott will be visiting the school again next Thursday. His CDs will be available for the children to buy so bring in some money if you would like one!
Tuesday 28th November – Mandarin Consultations – please note that the last consultation evening has been changed from Nov 21st to 28th Nov. Booking is now closed on the Gateway. Please contact your child’s Mandarin teacher directly if you did not have a chance to meet up.
Friday 1st December – PTA Disco (Year 4-6)
Friday 8th December – 4W Class Assembly at 9am
Thursday 14th December – Christmas Concert: Deadline for ticket requests – Friday 1st December
Friday 15th December – End of Term (noon)
Monday 8th January – Start of School
HK Philharmonic Orchestra Trip
Peter Sullivan is Professor of Science, Mathematics and Technology Education, at Monash University in Australia. He is the immediate past President of the Australian Association of Mathematics Teachers and was the lead writer of the Australian Mathematics curriculum.
SUNSHINE ACTION FUND RAISING
I am very pleased to announce, thanks to your generosity and the hard work of our students, we raised $150 000. This is a tremendous sum and I think it shows what a special community we belong to. We can now start to purchase the food so on 8th December our students can work with Sunshine Action at school to make the food parcels for the different charities.
To help our students with the food parcels we need parent volunteers, approximately 30. These parents will be working with groups of students to help them make the food parcels. If you are interested please click here.
Closing Our Inquiring Into Living Things
This has been the final week of our inquiry into living things. This is the point where the children really get to apply all of the skills they have learnt in the completion of a summative task.
For this unit of inquiry, the children have been asked to summarise and elaborate upon the information that have found out about their chosen animal, for an intended audience of younger learners. This has involved the drawing together of various skills – determining importance, summarising, information writing and viewing and presenting. They have also developed their awareness of the importance of listing their sources of information.
Alongside this, the students have been sorting information and noticing where there are gaps in their research.This is an important step in the learning process as children realise that finding relevant, reliable information is not always easy. We hope that some children might be so motivated to find out more at home. Likewise, we hope they will take action and share their knowledge with their families, particularly where it relates to what we can do to help the survival of these beautiful creatures. , we would The children have also developed their awareness of the importance of listing their sources of information.
Meanwhile, in Maths, the children have been showing their understanding of addition and subtraction in multiple ways as they attempt real life / word problems.
The Year 4 children had a wonderful time at Kowloon Tsai Sports Ground on Tuesday. They had the opportunity to come together in their house teams and take on various adventure challenges. They also had a chance to develop their social skills in unstructured play. Unstructured play is vital for children’s social development and we urge you to provide opportunities for this whenever you can. For more information, please click on this link. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/16/childre-nature-outside-play-health
Scott Darlow
Beacon Hill School favourite and alumni, Scott Darlow visited on Friday. The Australian musician played for the whole school in the morning assembly and then gave a special performance to the Year 4s in the afternoon. The students enjoyed listening to his music and his fun delivery.
Where We Are in Place and Time
Central Idea
Change in our world can happen through exploration and discovery.
Lines of Inquiry
An inquiry into…
- Explorations and discoveries that have changed our world (change)
- The reasons why people choose to explore and discover (causation)
- The effects of explorations and discoveries on the recording of time (connection)
Next week, the children will begin their new unit of inquiry into the importance and impact of exploration and discoveries. They will take part in a very fun provocation to get them thinking about these two areas and to help them take on the mindset of an explorer. We don’t want to give too much away now, so make sure you check out next week’s Weekly Updates for pictures of what we get up to.
Number Maths: Multiplication and Division
Central Idea
The operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division are related to each other and are used to solve problems.
Lines of Inquiry
An inquiry into:
- The different ways to model/show multiplication and division
- Mental strategies that can be used to solve multiplication and division
- Written strategies that can be used to solve multiplication and division
Next week the children will be carrying out a pre-assessment into multiplication and division. The Year 4 teachers will also have the opportunity to work with Professor Peter Sullivan to develop ways to teach fractions, an upcoming unit in Year 4.
Next week we will begin our persuasive writing by looking at different examples of persuasive texts. Children will also be summarising their learning in the previous unit by writing an information report on an animal of their choosing.
Handwriting: The expectation for most Year 4 students is to now use cursive or joined up handwriting in all written learning.
Comprehension Strategy: Summarising and Synthesising
Next week the children will begin looking at texts about significant explorers, scientists and inventors and will be summarising important points in their own words.
The current home learning task is for children to explore the themes of either Machines or Feelings. Here is a list of suggested learning engagements that 4F came up with. Whilst you are welcome to do one of these, we encourage Y4 to be creative and to create something totally unique.
To support their reading development, please make sure of the following:
- Home reading should be fun not a chore.
- Keep the timing short, find a comfy, quiet space and have a chat about what your child is reading. This really helps to develop their comprehension skills.
- There is information about comprehension at the beginning of the journal, which you can use to help guide your discussion with your child. Please also refer to information your class teacher has sent out to you about how to help your child at home.
Mathematics
All children should aim to spend 30 minutes per week completing their assigned Mathletics tasks and/or practising their times tables.
Mandarin (All children are encouraged to take a reading book home on the days when they have Mandarin lessons.)
Ms Lynn (Home learning #7) – Please check your google classroom for details.
Ms Xu – 朗读学过的课文，记得借书读书，写读书报告，完成课堂未完成的功课。
