Year 4 Update Week 15
Friday 6th December – PTA Christmas Disco 3pm – 4.45pm
Tuesday 10th December – Year 4 Christmas parties!
Wednesday 11th December – BHS Christmas Concert 7pm
Thursday 12th December – Year 5 Big Business Christmas Market (see below for more info)
Friday 13th December – last day of school for Term 1.…finish at 12pm
Hong Kong Forest Adventures
The Year 4 students thoroughly enjoyed their excursions this week. HK Forest Adventures provides so many different opportunities to explore and discover things that we would never be able to experience in a traditional school setting. Highlights for the children were building and “sailing” on their bamboo raft, then (accidentally on purpose!) falling into the water! Other activities included building their own large-scale play equipment (playgrounds, marble runs, football goals) and rock scrambling, fishing and mastering the rope course!
This trip is only possible thanks to the large number of parent volunteers who accompany us, so we just wanted to say a huge thank you to those of you who joined us.
English
We began thinking about our new writing focus (small moment writing – see below for further info). We read Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee and had a go at writing about one small moment from our weekend, instead of weekend news/recount.
Maths
This week, the students have been learning about how bar models can support our work with multiplication and division. We have also been solving word problems and using these visual representations to show our thinking.
U.O.I.
We have been delving deeper into our latest U.O.I. by reading and discussing some influential people who have undertaken explorations and/or made discoveries that have changed the world. We have accessed a range of media sources and the students have enjoyed sharing their prior knowledge and building a greater understanding of some important people from history and the present time.
Transdipinary Theme: 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…
- a range of explorers and discoveries (form)
- explorations and discoveries that have changed our world (change)
Next week, the children will be beginning to zoom in on an influential person of their own choosing. This will form the basis for the research and personal inquiry that they will be undertaking over the next couple of weeks. Talk to your child at home about who they may decide to choose to focus on and why.
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
Here are some questions we will be exploring throughout this UOI, maybe some of them you could discuss at home whilst you are monitoring your child with their Mathletics or Podigiy Home Learning.
- What are the different ways I can model multiplication and division?
- How can I model the relationship between multiplication and division?
- How can arrays show connections between multiplication and division?
- How is area related to multiplication?
- How can we use multiplication to help us divide?
- How can we use place value to multiply?
- What are the patterns when multiplying by 10, 100, 1000?
- What are the patterns when dividing by 10, 100, 1000?
- How do I do short multiplication?
- When should I use short multiplication?
- How do I do short division?
- Why do we use short division?
- What are the rules of divisibility?
- How do the rules of divisibility help me know if a number has a reminder?
- What is a remainder?
- What are the different ways I can record remainders?
- How does estimation help me check my answers?
Writing – Focusing on SMALL MOMENTS
Great writers can zoom in one small moment and use their 5 senses to help them describe this small event in detail using lots of “juicy words” (interesting vocabulary). We will be continuing to read texts with great examples of this technique and brainstorming ideas to help us create excellent writing of our own. This build on well from the work we did earlier in the term with Ms Jeves.
Reading – Summarising and Synthesising
We will be developing this comprehension strategy by taking notes whilst undertaking research into an influential person. We will also be analysing some visual texts (Christmas adverts!) and recording how our thinking changes as a text progresses.
Throughout the year we will focus on all of the comprehension strategies to help with our understanding, fluency, and comprehension.
Since the last Weekly Update, the following Year 4 students have received Golden Book certificates, congratulations!
4A
Miles Lo
Hailey Yuen
Adam Wu
Yan Yu Yip
Charlotte Ma
Hill Liu
Virginia Lu
Cedric Wong
Shogo Nishida
4F
Charlotte Lee
Amartya Agarwal
Amira Mahtani
Julia She
Avery Wu
Hayley Gan
Alistair Cheuk
Anaya Balani
King Wan
4J
Nathan Ng
Lucas Lau
Yi Kai Tan
Yik Wa Ho
Diven Soneji
Darsh Goyani
Maths – please continue to work on the Mathletics tasks that your teacher has set for you. Your child has also ben enrolled in an online Maths programme called Prodigy game that we are also able to monitor, you can also create a parent account.
Practising and reviewing quick recall of your number facts is important! There is a great online program called Hit the Button which can help you to do this.
Prodigy – all 3 classes can continue their Prodigy maths gaming at home too!
Reading – please continue reading nightly together and signing your child’s diary. A comment every week would be a nice touch too. There are also questions in the front of the reading diaries that you could ask your child to help them with their comprehension. Don’t forget the importance of reading TO your child also.
Spelling – please continue to learn your personal words at home ready for our buddy test on Friday.
Mandarin –
