Year 5 Update Wk 16
Wednesday, December 16th – BHS Christmas concert
Thursday, 17th December – Y5 Christmas Party
Friday, December 18th @ 12pm- End of Term
Monday 4th January – Start of Term 2
Friday, January 8th – 5A Class Assembly
The Y5’s will be having our annual Christmas party on Thursday, December 17th next week. Your child has volunteered to bring in a special dish for our buffet lunch. Be on the lookout for a letter sent home indicating what they would like to bring in and further information. Please pack and send in this item on Thursday morning in a reusable container with your child’s name and class clearly labelled.
Due to certain allergy cases, we do ask that all items brought in are nut free.
Secret Santa gifts are now starting to arrive in the classrooms. Remember to bring in your child’s gift, by Wednesday the latest, in order to ensure no one is left out. Gifts must be wrapped and the name of the child receiving the gift should be clearly visible.
This week in year 5, the children have been reflecting on their sharing day performances and finishing up their summative task for our unit on Migration. We have also begun to introduce our new unit on Water. We have been provoking the student’s interest through picture books and various art activities while assessing their prior knowledge on water before we take our inquiry further.
In addition, 5A has been working very hard on gathering creative ideas and working together in preparation for their upcoming assembly right after the holidays.
Central Idea: Water is essential to life and a limited resource for many people.
Lines of Inquiry:
How water changes
Responsibilities regarding water
Distribution, availability of and access to usable water
Our Key Concepts are:
CHANGE – We will understand that water is part of a continuous cycle and can be influenced by humans.
RESPONSIBILITY – We will understand that humans have a responsibility towards the use and conservation of water.
Next week in strand maths we will continue to carry on looking into the idea of volume and capacity through a series of tasks and active learning.
As we continue our unit on the four operations, looking into different computation strategies and consolidating our understanding of both multiplication and division, we ask that the children spend some time over the holidays practising their times table facts.
Within the next unit, Year 5 will be identifying the importance of reference and explanation books. We will be learning how to search for relevant and useful information, study the layout and presentation of these types of texts as well as working closely with Ms.Jeves in the Learning Centre. She will be helping us to further our knowledge and inquiry skills through research.
5A: Bernice Lau – for confidently sharing her learning with her parents during our sharing day performances. Well done!
5P: Janice Ngai – for her willingness and effort to keep working and improving her migration poem.
5Y: Alyssa Ho – for producing brilliant pieces of work for her personal inquiry and applying herself during sharing day.
Mandarin – Chi Him Tsang 5P – for his greatly improved attention, participation and work in Mandarin
As you will have seen in the school newsletter it is now possible for parents, younger children and other family members to borrow from our library. By registering for a family borrowing card you can borrow two books from any section of the library, including the new Parent Collection which contains books about healthy living, behaviour management, fun art activities and days out for children in Hong Kong. The library is open for family borrowing at these times…
| Before school | After school |
| Monday | 2.45-3.30pm |
| Tuesday | 8.15- 9.00am |
| Wednesday | 2.45-3.30pm |
| Friday | 8.30-9.15am |
To register for a family borrowing card please complete the form found on the school website’s communications page. For any questions please contact Emily Jeves jevese2@beaconhill.edu.hk
Your Maths Questions Answered!
Year 5 Parents, we had some terrific questions asked following our Maths Workshops which took place in November. The Maths team and other staff have provided some answers for you to read. Please be reminded that the powerpoint of the workshop can be found on the BHS Home Page within communication/presentations.
- Where can we find more of these interesting Maths Problems?
There are many problems on the NRICH site as well as other online sources.
2. Why is strand Maths called strand?
This is simply the terminology that we use for the following areas of Maths: Measurement of Shape and Space, Measurement of Time, Angles, 2D and 3D Shape, Transformation and Symmetry, Data Handling, Probability.
3.Are the ‘timestables’ taught?
We believe it is very important for children to memorise their times tables at least up to 10 x 10. This includes division facts as well as multiplication facts. If they are very well known then this enables children to be able to apply them to solving much richer problems. Often the best way for children to learn times tables is to learn them by rote. Some children like listening to cd’s with the facts on- some benefit from visual aids. Competition can be fun and repetition is absolutely necessary.
4.How is ‘time’ taught?
There is a time scope and sequence that we follow in school that involves reading a 24 hour clock, interpreting timetables, solving problems linked to time as well as reinforcing the basic skills of telling the time and converting between time zones and from analogue to digital.
5. How can my child calculate faster?
Good mental maths skills are essential in helping children to speed up calculations. they need solid number bonds, doubles, halves as well as times tables facts. The more time spent on these the quicker children are able to apply them and to use known facts to solves more difficult calculations.
