2 Feb 2018

Year 4 Update – Wk 20

Tuesday 6th February – Y2 Bake Sale – Bring some money and a snack box in order to buy a delicious treat

Monday 12th February – BHS China Day Activities (more details to follow)

Tuesday 13th February – Chinese New Year performance to parents 6pm

Friday 16th February – Half Term begins (3pm finish)

Monday 26th February – First day back

Friday 2nd March – Student Led Conferences and Art Auction

Tuesday 13th March – 4F HK Forest Adventures trip

Wednesday 14th March – 4L HK Forest Adventures trip

Thursday 15th March – 4W HK Forest Adventures trip

Saturday 17th March – ESF 50th Carnival (see information below)

E-Notice ~ HK Forest Adventures

Many thanks to all those who have completed the E-notice and brought in cheques for our next exciting excursion. Polite reminder: If you haven’t done this yet, please could you do so as soon as possible! Thank you to parents who offered their help on this trip, we no longer need anymore volunteers!

BHS Dance Off 2018

On Monday, in our assembly, the Student Council launched our BHS Dance Off. This is a fun event for children who enjoy dancing. We will hold heats after CNY during lunchtime where participants will have the opportunity to perform their dance. If they are successful then they will perform their dance at the International Food fair. If your child is interested here is some useful information

have fun
you can perform in groups or solo
you can only enter once
the dance should be around 1 minute
heats for the competition will take place at lunchtime after CNY
sign up sheets are in every classroom
there will be a lower school and upper competition

You can support your child by helping them create and rehearse their dance.

Book Drive

Muchan, a Student Councillor for 5C, is organising a Book Drive to help spread his love of reading. The Sony Corporation will collect books to create mobile libraries in South Africa for schools that do not have enough books. If you have books that are:

Please send them to school. There will be a collection box in the school foyer. Any books you can donate will be spread our love of reading.

ESF 50th Anniversary Carnival

Ukuleles!

Please encourage your child to remember to bring their ukuleles and ukulele booklets to school on the appropriate day. At the moment, we still have quite

a few children forgetting their instruments.

4F – Thursday

4L – Tuesday

4W – Tuesday

Ukulele Club – Wednesday lunchtime (this only applies to members of this club and they know who they are).

BAKE SALES – Keeping our playground clean!

This week lots of children bought cakes from the bake sale. Each cake is handed to the children in a tissue. Unfortunately tissue cannot be recycled in Hong Kong and has

to go to the landfills. Also, many children left bits of cake and tissue on the floor as they did not have a container to eat from. From now on, on bake sale days the children should bring a reusable container to school to put the cake in while they eat it to stop the rubbish problem. The next bake sale will take place on Tuesday 6th February. Thank you very much!

Student Council Fruity Friday

Please remember to provide your child with a healthy fruity snack on Fridays!

Y4 Teacher Contact Information

4F – Mrs Fennelly – charlotte.fennelly@bhs.edu.hk

4L – Miss Fisher – laura.fisher@bhs.edu.hk

4W – Miss Wu – jane.wu@bhs.edu.hk

Year 4 Learning Support Teacher – Ms Mak – haymen.mak@bhs.edu.hk

Vice Principal – Mr Thompson – andy.thompson@bhs.edu.hk

Strength in Shapes!

This week the students focused on the skills and knowledge needed to build successful structures. They inquired into 2D shapes and learnt ways to strengthen them. They also had a chance to apply this when constructing 3D shapes and free standing towers. Have a look at their findings!

With Ms Jeves, the students had some great discussions about why some Hong Kong structures were built and had a go at classifying them into groups.

With Mr Lowe, the students have developing prototypes for a cardboard chair they will construct that should be strong enough to hold a person’s weight. In order for this project to be successful, they are planning and constructing with card paper first and finding ways for it to support a heavy weight.

Making Connections and Understanding the Writer

This week students were asked to put themselves in the writers’ shoes as they investigated how write show, not tell, readers how characters are feeling or acting. The teachers were also fortunate enough to observe a lesson delivered by Misty Adoniou, visiting Language and Literacy expert from the University of Canberra. Here the students took a really close look at how writers are deliberate in the words they use to paint a vivid mental image in readers’ heads.

How we organise ourselves

Central Idea

The design and construction of structures reflects their purpose.

Lines of Inquiry

An inquiry into…

Designers use and reflect on their plans in order to be successful (REFLECTION)
The skills and knowledge needed to build structures (CAUSATION)
How purpose affects the design of structures. (CONNECTION)

We will be continuing to develop our understanding of the skills and knowledge needed to make strong and stable towers. We will be utilising the parts, purpose and complexities again to get students to look closely at the importance of a structure’s base and joins.

Strand Maths: Shape

Central Idea

Shapes can be identified, classified and used in different ways

Lines of Inquiry

An inquiry into:

The relationship between 2D and 3D shapes
Symmetry and transformations can be found in our environment
Angles in 2D and 3D shape

We will be consolidating our learning of 2D and 3D shapes and inquiring into the order of rotational symmetry with shapes, expect to see pictures of lots of tracing paper and spinning action!

Writing to Entertain (First person narrative)

Next week we will investigate the word choices and sentence structure in stories written in first-person. Students will identify patterns used by writers and attempt to utilise these to write their own stories.

Comprehension Strategy: Making connections

The children will be reviewing the 3 main ways that we connect with texts…

text-to-self
text-to-text
text-to-world

Throughout this UOI, the children will be making connections through their inquiry into designs of structure with Ms Jeves.

Congratulations to the students who were awarded Golden Book certificates on Monday!

4F – Sakurako Watanabe

4L – Navraj Gill, Alicia Cheung

4W – Aaron Wang

Mandarin – Nelson Symmonds, Jasmine Murali

homelearning

Year 4 Home Learning – 2.2.18 – Book character study

Choose your favourite fictional character from a book you have enjoyed reading.
Draw a picture of your character on A4 paper (you could paste a picture into the centre of a Google doc if you would prefer to do your work digitally)
Around the picture, add important information about your character (age, gender, home, likes, dislikes, etc).
In another colour, add adjectives to describe your character (try to focus on behaviour, not just appearance)
Think about why this character is important to YOU

Be prepared to share your work with your classmates and explain your character choice.

Deadline: Friday 9th February

Spelling

The children have a list of words they need to learn. They should practise these at home in preparation for “buddy spelling tests” (the children testing each other) in class next week.

Reading

The children have been given their Home Reading Journals and are expected to read for 20 minutes per day at their given comprehension age. Children will record the title of their book in their journal. Please discuss your child’s reading and leave a comment in the journal so that they can change their book.
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) – Please check your google classroom for details.

Ms Xu – 完成google classroom 练习，记得借书读书，写读书报告，完成课堂未完成的功课。