9 Nov 2018

Year 5 Update Week 11


Tuesday 20th-23rd November – Year 5 Camp Week

Wednesday 21st November – Mandarin Parent/Teacher Consultations. By appointment only.  Gateway bookings have now closed.

Friday 23rd November – Mandarin Parent/Teacher Consultations. By appointment only.  Gateway bookings have now closed.

Tuesday 27th November – Mandarin Parent/Teacher Consultations. By appointment only.  Gateway bookings have now closed.

Friday 7th December – PTA Christmas Disco Year 4-6

Wednesday 12th December – Christmas Concert 7pm

Friday 14th December – last day before Christmas break….12pm finish

If you would like to have a look at the available books then use this link…
The more books you buy, the more rewards we earn for BHS (free books!)
Order deadline: Friday 23rd November
Any books your parents order online will be sent to Hong Kong and delivered to your classroom (in time for the Christmas holidays, I hope!)
Happy browsing!
Mrs Fennelly, Ms Jeves and Mrs Dale
BHS English Team

MORE News from the English Team

Please visit the Gateway bhs.tg.esf.edu.hk to sign up for our reading information sessions next week.  The first on Tuesday 6th November at 6 pm is for parents who want ideas about how to read with their children to boost vocabulary, comprehension, develop critical thinking and importantly nurture their child’s love of reading.  The second, on Thursday 8th at 2 pm, is for helpers only and will give ideas of how to support children with their home reading.

We look forward to meeting you there next week.

Mrs Dale, Mrs Fennelly and Ms Jeves

BHS English Team

School Photos – next week we have our school photos due to take place.  Can you please make sure that all children and at school and are in full school uniform on Monday and Tuesday, even if they usually have PE or an after school-sport?  That includes purple socks and black shiny school shoes.

5D – Monday and Friday

5F – Wednesday and Thursday

5C – Monday and Friday

Student Council Message

Our Student Council have been inspired by a teacher’s visit to Impact HK who are a local NGO who support people who are less fortunate than us. Impact HK believes that kindness is very important so it looks to help people in poverty through finding people jobs and affordable housing, sports groups and language lessons.  The Student Council will be presenting to the school at Golden Book on Monday 12th November. They will be asking the students if you have any towels, water bottles, tinned or dry food and adult clothing that you no longer need. If you do, there will be a collection box in the foyer. We thank you in advance for your support.

Maker Centered Learning in UOI

This week we have been reflecting on our creations and doing our final testing! We thought about the different parts that we had made, the purposes of each part and whether there were any complexities between them (such as how the tube and the pump work together to move the water or what may happen if we removed the support structures).

We also used the iPads to watch a VR film about a water crisis in Nepal. We thought about how our machines related to the problems facing the people of Karelthok.

 

You can watch it too here

English

This week the children have been developing their notes into full explanations. We took notes from a video about how honey is made, converted these notes into a plan and then wrote our plans up into paragraphs. The children have shown some amazing maturity in writing some scientific explanations!

Strand Maths

In strand maths this week we have been learning more about area and perimeter. The children were looking at measuring the sides of shapes and using these measures to calculate different values.

Number Maths

In number maths this week we were learning how to visualise multiplication and division word problems so that they are they are easier to handle. We learned that sometimes there is information in problems that is irrelevant to the maths and that we can find new numbers by visualising!

Testing our filters

Friday was test day for the filters! We took out our creations onto the playground to see how well they worked, compare designs and give each other advice on how we could improve. It really showed us how tricky it is to transport and clean water!

Transdisiplinary Theme  – Sharing the Planet

Central Idea – Peoples actions can impact our water resources.

An inquiry into…
  • how water changes (change)
  • distribution, availability and access to usable water (connection)
  • the way humans can impact water use (responsibility)
Concepts : change, connection, responsibility
Related Concepts : access, consumption evaporation, condensation
Learner Profile : principled and inquirer
Attitudes : appreciation, commitment

Number Maths – Multiplication and Division
Central Idea – Strategies for whole number computation can apply to fractional and decimal computation.

An inquiry into.

  • efficient mental strategies  that can be used to solve multiplication and division
  • efficient written strategies that can be used to solve multiplication and division
Strand Maths – Measurement
Central Idea – Accuracy of measurements depends on the situation and the precision of the tool.

An inquiry into…

  • how tools and procedures can be used to measure accurately
  • how tools and procedures can be used to solve measurement problems
  • the connection between measurements and other units of maths (conversion)

Writing Focus – Explanation and Note Taking

For this unit of inquiry, our new writing focus will be explanation texts.  Over the next few weeks, we will be thinking about and discussing we make a good explanation text and we will be deconstructing some good examples of explanations. We then will move on to writing our own and self-monitoring as we go along…fixing up mistakes and improving the first drafts of our writing.  At the same time, we will be learning how to take notes using a very of formats and we will be learning about academic honesty and how to correctly cite our sources.

Reading Focus – Summarising and Synthesising

The next Reading Comprehension strategies that we will be focussing on are Summarising and Synthesising so we would love for you to help your child with these ones over this new UOI.

Summarising……Summarising teaches students how to discern the most important ideas in a text, how to ignore irrelevant information, and how to integrate the central ideas in a meaningful way. Teaching students to summarise improves their memory for what is read. Summarisation strategies can be used in almost every content area.

Why Use Summarising?

  • It helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate important details that support them.
  • It enables students to focus on keywords and phrases of an assigned text that are worth noting and remembering.
  • It teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to the main points for more concise understanding.

Synthesising.……..Synthesising is the development of what we’re reading…as we read it!  As we read, an original thought takes shape, and then it expands or changes as we read new information.  Essentially it is “Combining new ideas with what I already read to get something new and different.”  As students read, their thinking should change depending on new information.

There was no golden book this week due to school photos.

homelearning

  • Read the Weekly Update
  • Mathletics – continue with the set tasks or feel free to try any others that you feel you want to practice.
  • 5F – please continue on with your Prodigy online games.
  • Spelling –  The children are sent home their 10 personal words that they need to learn for the week. The will happen on a Monday for 5F, Wednesday for 5D and Friday for 5C. Please, can a parent (or responsible adult) support the children by...testing them (written or oral), getting them to put their words into interesting sentences (written or oral), discussing the meanings of the words, thinking about synonyms and antonyms of that word, discussing words with a similar meaning etc.
  • Reading –  The children will be choosing leveled readers based on their own ability and are expected to read each night for at least 20mins at home with a parent.  The children need to record their reading in their Reading Journals and parents can you please sign your child’s journal each night? Journals need to be returned to school each morning to be checked and will come home each evening (except Friday).  Children may use Big Universe twice a week (only) as their choice of home reading
  • Mandarin Home Learning – All children are encouraged to take a reading book home on the days when they have Mandarin lessons.
  • 5D Action using Stickers – 5D have been creating ‘stickers’ related to high water consumption items such as hamburgers and t shirts. Their homework is to stick up their stickers and to take some photos to show next week! There is an assignment on the google classroom 🙂

WELLNESS THOUGHT OF THE WEEK…