Year 4 Update – Wk 16
Tuesday 12th December – Secret Santa : Please bring in your secret Santa gift for the present exchange
Thursday 14th December – Year 4 Christmas Party
Thursday 14th December – Christmas Concert at 7pm
Friday 15th December – End of Term (12pm)
Monday 8th January 2018 – Start of School
Friday 26th January 2018 – 4F Class Assembly
Wednesday 31st January 2018 – Marie Marchand Parent Workshop 6pm – 8pm (more details to follow)
Tuesday 6th February – Y2 Bake Sale – Bring some money to buy a delicious treat
Monday 12th February – BHS China Day Activities (more details to follow)
Friday 16th February – Half Term begins (3pm finish)
Monday 26th February – School begins
Reports and Portfolios
Your child’s mid-term reports for Maths and English, alongside their Sharing the Planet unit of inquiry reports will be open on the Gateway for viewing from Friday 15th December. Please do take the time to open these now to see areas where your child shines, as well as areas where they might need a little support.
Examples of their learning from their first term in Year 4, both their challenges and successes, will be sent home in the children’s Year 4 Portfolios. We hope that you take the time to go through these with your child and ask them about their learning. Portfolios should be returned in the first week of the new term.
Christmas Celebrations
Action Day
Year 4 did a fantastic job at helping to pack food parcels for those in need.
Good-Bye Pitch!
The Year 4’s celebrated their final Pitch session in style on Tuesday. The children really made the most of having all that space to run around in and all the equipment to experiment with,
HK Philharmonic Orchestra
This Thursday the Year 4s were lucky enough to go to a performance by the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the venue unfortunately, but here are some of us on the bus. The children really enjoyed the music and the chance to experience something a little different!
Unit of Inquiry
We have continued to learn about famous scientists and their significant discoveries through conducting scientific experiments of their own related to each scientist’s discovery. Here are a selection of photographs… (more to follow next week)
Alexander Graham Bell – The Telephone (Sound Waves)
Assembly Performers
At Beacon Hill School, we are very lucky to have many opportunities for students to perform and express themselves. One such way is during assembly when our musicians are invited to play as the rest of the school enters the hall. This week, two wonderful pianists from Year 4, Enoch Wai and Coen Li, played during the beginning of our Golden Book assembly on Monday. Well done, boys!
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, we will synthesise our learning about famous explorations and discoveries and each child will chose one to find out more about in their student-led learning engagement to begin in the new year.
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 students will continue to explore division strategies and the link between multiplication and division.
Here the children are having fun practising their multiplication facts.
.Next week we will continue to look at our letters to Mr Harrison and explore ways to improve them even further by looking at the strucutre of each paragraph and ensuring that it has a topic sentence. There will also be a review of emotive language and causal connectives.
Comprehension Strategy: Summarising and Synthesising
We will be looking at how a synthesis can develop from misconceptions and we will connect our opinions to a range of different texts.
Here some students are using their summarising and synthesising skills whilst reading a text from Big Universe.
This week we would like every child in Year 4 to sign-up for a free DIY.org account. This site provides children with opportunities to discover new skills, upload evidence, receive peer feedback and earn ‘patches’ in a safe, monitored environment designed especially for children. We would like all children to create an account (there is an app you may wish to install, too) but this requires them to gain parental consent so please assist them with this. They may wish to start earning ‘patches’ by completing projects and developing new skills or they may wish just to explore the website at this stage. Please take the time to do this together as this is a fabulous resource which provides excellent opportunities for developing new skills and making discoveries.
To earn a “patch” the children should complete 3 projects. Therefore, we are giving the children plenty of time to complete this home learning assignment. The children have planned their projects and have until 19th January 2018 to complete them.
Spelling
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 #10) – 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。
