9 Sep 2016

Year 4 Update – Wk 4

15th September – Mid Autum Festival Market at BHS
16th September – Mid Autumn Festival: School closed
23rd September – Y4 Sharing Day: more info to follow
27th September – Parent Evening
29th September – Parent Evening
5th October 6pm- Year 4 Camp Information Evening
6th & 7th October – BHS CPD: School closed to students
10th – 14th October – Half Term: School closed
17th October – ESF CPD day: School closed to students
18th October – First day back at school

Y4 SHARING DAY!

We are thrilled and excited to invite you to the Year 4 Sharing Day on Friday 23rd September. The day will begin at 9:00am and will finish at 10:30am.

Throughout the morning, you will be shown and engaged in the various experiences that have made up the learning journey for this unit. These will include an Arts Hub in the Hall, where the children will share their Haka dance, clay masks and poetry, music performances with Mr Gibson in the Music Room, classroom sharing on the 4th Floor and finally a special “Value and Appreciation” room in the Drama Studio.

Your presence at the Sharing Day means so much to your children and the teachers also really value your input, interest and involvement.

Please could you confirm if you will be attending this year’s Sharing Day by completing this form after clicking on this hyper-link (Click Here). We promise that it only takes a second!

PHOTOS FOR CLASS LEARNING

Please, please, please share family photos with your child for use in the classroom.

The students are making a “Powtoon”, an online presentation, to share the beliefs and values, and how these influence their behaviour, with others. Having personal pictures will really help these presentations stand out and be unique representations of themselves.

Therefore, we urge you to share your digital images with your child so that they can either upload them onto their google drive, or bring them to school on a USB. Either way would be really helpful.

Many thanks!

Reminders

Please support us by encouraging your child to prepare their own belongings for each school day. This must include:

– Healthy snack

– Lunch

– Water bottle

– Hat

– Diary

– Spelling Journal

– Reading Journal and book

– Reading book

– Book bag

– Mandarin folder

*Please remember, Beacon Hill is a nut free zone!

Another fun, busy week in Year 4 this week. It has been full of dancing, chanting, sculpting and, most importantly, learning!

In our Unit of Inquiry, the children have continued their personal projects into their beliefs and values and as they move deeper into the inquiry, they are beginning to make connections between their thoughts and actions and the things that they believe or value.

The children have benefited greatly from the expert educators who have been on hand to offer additional support throughout this sharing unit. They have been making great progress with the clay masks they have been creating with Miss Cassie and have really been enjoying the opportunity to “get their hands dirty”! Meanwhile, with Mr Gibson, they have had the chance to experience the different values and beliefs of other cultures as expressed through music. Lastly, Miss Kannis has been on hand to guide the students through the process of making their Powtoons, which is a presentation platform the children are using to express their understanding of the Central Idea. They cannot wait to share all of the above with you on sharing day!

Within their classes, the children have been learning the Haka. This is a dance highly valued by the Maori people of New Zealand and made famous by the All Blacks who perform it before every rugby game. Although traditionally a war dance, the haka is frequently used as “a formal process when two parties came together. It is largely reserved for special occasions such as visits by senior dignitaries.” Through this dance, the children have not only been learning valuable performance skills, but have also had the opportunity to develop their open-mindedness, tolerance and respect as they learn about a different culture’s values and perspectives. They have also had a lot of fun acting like fierce warriors!

Source: http://www.tourism.net.nz/new-zealand/about-new-zealand/haka.html

Finally, brave students also gave speeches in their classes as they attempted to become the Y4 Student Council Representative.

Who We Are

Central Idea:

Our beliefs and values can influence our attitudes and the way we behave.

Lines of Inquiry

An inquiry into:

Our different beliefs
Where our values come from
Our behaviours and attitudes

Over the coming week, the children will continue to work on their independent personal projects and inquire into the third line of inquiry through connections to the text type as well as online platforms like Powtoons. We will also receive another guest speaker next week.

Number Maths: Pattern and Function

Central Idea – By analysing patterns and identifying rules for patterns it is possible to make predictions.

Lines of Inquiry:

The ways in which patterns can be described and represented.
The use of pattern and function in real life situations
Identifying connections between the operations and patterns

This week the children looked at linear and constant patterns and used these to explore how we could predict the nth term. Ethan Han even noticed the triangular pattern his sushi rolls were making!

We will revisit pattern and function later in the year.

Number Maths: Place Value

Central Idea – The base 10 place value system can be extended to represent size.

Lines of Inquiry:

The patterns of 5 digit numbers and how they are represented

The students also completed a pre-assessment into place value. The teachers have found this very informative and we can’t wait to use the data it has given us to tailor our place value lessons to meet the needs of the students. This unit complements the learning taking place within our current Strand Maths unit and as such there will be a great deal of over-lapping and reinforcement.

Next week, we will comparing and ordering 5 digit numbers, as well as partitioning them, re-gouping numbers and identifying the value of digits in a 5 digit number.

Strand Maths: Measurement

Central Idea – Objects and events have attributes that can be measured using appropriate tools. By analysing patterns and identifying rules for patterns it is possible to make predictions.

Lines of Inquiry:

The selection and correct use of standard units

Towards the end of this week, the children began their mini-investigation into length by inquiring into body proportions. They used the book, Jim and the Beanstalk, to tune into this area of maths.

Next week we will be looking at length through the story, How Big is a Foot?

Text Type: Poetry

In this unit the children are exploring how poetry serves a variety of social purposes, e.g. to entertain, to express feelings, to reflect on experiences/people/events, to create mental images, or to be read aloud.

This week the children have been exploring ways to edit and improve their kennings, which has not only had a positive impact on their writing skills, but has also deepened their understanding of the Central Idea for this unit of inquiry. In addition to this, they have used the Haka chant and additional poetry (haikus) to identify syllables and have applied this knowledge to create their own poems and chants.

Next week the children will be looking at these two poetry forms and continue the editing process to fine their writing skills. The guiding principal will be, “poetry is the best words, in the best order”.

4F – Lara Symmonds

4L – Enok Tsang

4W – Jade Wu

Mandarin – Chloe Leung 4L

Congratulations to this week’s children. Well done!

*Daily home reading

A reminder that the colour of the home reading book your child brings home will reflect their reading ability at the end of Year 3. However, as reading assessments continue over the course of the coming few weeks, this may or may not change. PLEASE be reminded that the colour sticker on the reading book your child brings home is far less significant than the development of fluency AND comprehension. There is also an expectation that your child will read a book and complete any quizzes on Reading Eggspress twice a week.

*Spelling

The children will have 10 new words to learn each week (Friday) and will be tested on them by a classmate three times per week. The words they have comprise of some vocabulary relevant to our current U.O.I., some words relating to the spelling rule that we are currently learning about and some words of their choice.

*A weekly home learning task

The children have been given homework folders in which to keep homework instructions/tasks, which also has the Term 1 homework schedule attached. The first homework task was given out, explained and placed in the homework folders today. A summary of the task can be found below…

Y4 UOI Home Learning – 09.09.16

UOI: Beliefs and values can influence our attitudes and behaviour.

Your home learning for this week is to make sure you know the words and movements for the Year 4 Haka dance. Please practise both the Leader and Team chant as your Y4 teachers will be looking to see who can lead the class throughout the performance. Please practice your group chant as well.

The words are below. For the movements, please see the home learning paper, or the youtube videos listed below.

Leader/s

Team

Movement

Kia Mo!(2)

(Hold fast!)

Hi!

(Yes!)

Please see sheet or video

Ringa pakia! (5)

(Slap your hands against your thighs)

(slapping thighs)

Rite ko te rite! (6)

(Get ready!)

Hi!

(Yes!)

Please see sheet or video

Ka rite! (3)

(Get ready!)

Ha!

(Yes!)

Please see sheet or video

E nga iwi Katoa Kia tu Katoa (12)

(Everybody stand up)

Kia Kaha, Kia Kaha (3, 3)

Kia Ora, Kia Ora (3, 3)

(Be strong, be strong)

(Welcome, welcome)

Please see sheet or video

Kia Kaha, Kia Kaha (3, 3)(Be strong, be strong)

Kia Ora, Kia Ora (3, 3)(Welcome, welcome)

Kia Kaha, Kite Haka Kia (s)tu Katoa (12)

Please see sheet or video

Ko tamariki e ngunguru nei (10)

(Young children, growl and rumble!)

i au au aue ha! (5)

(Yes!)

Please see sheet or video

Ko tamariki e ngunguru nei (10)

(Young children, growl and rumble!)

(Repeat)

i au au aue ha! (5)

(Yes!)

(Repeat)

Things to think about

How does your facial expression, strength of movement and loudness of voice impact your performance?

Additional Task

Think about your Personal Project. Which tasks do you need to finish? Which task would you like to do, but haven’t had a chance yet? Which task would you like to do again?

Pick one task to work on over the week at home. Bring it in, or complete it via google.docs by Thursday 15th September.

Optional

Read more about one girl’s experience of performing the Haka here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/club/your_reports/newsid_2150000/2150714.stm

How do you think you will feel when you perform the Haka to your parents on sharing day?