26 Aug 2016

Year 4 Update – Wk 2

30th August – Meet the Teacher Evening: from 6:30pm in the Hall
16th September – Mid Autumn Festival: School closed
23rd September – Y4 Sharing Day: more info to follow
27th September – Parent Evening
29th September – Parent 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

Meet the Teacher Evening

The Year 4 Meet the Teacher Evening will begin at 6:30pm in the Hall, then we will move up to the classrooms for a more in depth introduction to the year. We expect to finish at 7:15pm.

*Please note that we will not have time to discuss individual students on this occasion.

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!

A WONDERFUL WEEK 2!

The children continue to impress us all with their fantastic attitudes and enthusiasm for learning!

In our Unit of Inquiry, the children have explored their own beliefs and values in greater depth and are beginning to think about how this might impact on their thoughts and behaviour. They have explored this through art, poetry and a range of visual organisers. The children are enjoying using the Chrome Books and demonstrated this by using online Google software to create a Mood Board depicting their own beliefs and values.

In Maths this week our learning engagements have continued to focus on pattern and the children are becoming more confident about describing patterns using mathematical vocabulary. They have also solved problems and worked on their collaboration skills which has produced some pleasing results.

During English lessons, the children revised their knowledge of poetry and explored a wide range of poems, whilst beginning to look more closer at Kennings or Haiku poetry. We’ve definitely got some budding poets in Year 4 this year!

The children responded very well to Mrs Mclaughlin’s assembly today about the Zones of Regulation, which is something that we will be focusing on across the School.

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, we will continue to think about our own personal beliefs and values, whilst also beginning to consider the beliefs and values of others.

The children will have the opportunity to spend time with each of the Year 4 teachers and hear about a belief they hold which influences their behaviour and thoughts.

Mrs Fennelly – Growth Mindset

Ms Fisher – Yoga

Miss Wu – Mindfulness

We will also begin an independent personal project which will allow the children to think a little more deeply about something that is important to them.

In addition, we will begin to hear from some guest speakers about their beliefs and values in order to start thinking about the importance of open-mindedness and tolerance.

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

The children will be investigating number and shape patterns next week, including:

odd and even numbers
triangular, square and rectangular numbers

We will be using mathematical vocabulary to describe patterns, too.
i.e. linear patterns, growing patterns, term, nth term.

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:

Solving problems from real life situations using time, temperature, mass and capacity.

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.

Over the next week, we will continue to explore poetry by exploring the features of Kennings and Haiku poetry and writing our own. The children will think about the beliefs of others and record this through poetry. Our focus will be on using descriptive language and the notion that poetry is “the best possible words in the best possible order.”

4F – Nora Yuen

4L – Parina Khiatani

4W – Henry Chan

Mandarin – Alegra Baloch 4F

This week we have spoken with the children about the expectations we have regarding Home Learning in Year 4 and we will speak to you about this in more detail at our Meet the Teacher evening on Tuesday.

Year 4 homework will consist of 3 main things;

*Daily home reading

Commencing Monday 29th August.

Initially 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.

*Spelling

The children have now all received their Spelling Journals in order for peer testing to begin next week. They have 10 words to learn and will be tested on them by a classmate three times per week. The words they have comprise some vocabulary relevant to our current U.O.I., some words relating to the spelling rule we are currently learning about and some words of their choice.

*A weekly homework 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 Poetry Homework – 26.8.16

Poetry serves a variety of social purposes, e.g. to entertain, to express feelings, to reflect on experience/people/events, to create mental images, or to be read aloud.

Watch this poem being performed by the poet, Michael Rosen…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akwm2UZJ34o

Children should choose a poem they really enjoy and prepare a short performance that they can share with their classmates on Friday 2nd September.

Please note that we will talk about Home Learning in more detail at our upcoming Meet the Teacher presentations next week.