Week 2

Dear parents and students,

We have made it through the first full week of Grade 4! As we become more familiar with one another, we are beginning to settle into a smoother routine. As we continue to familiarise ourselves with our environment, we will find the class will run more smoothly and efficiently, and we will become increasingly more productive.

This week in Reading and Writing Workshop, we read Akiak, the first story in our theme about Journeys. We have been discussing different types of journeys and personal experiences, and next week we will write our own personal narrative, based on an experience we feel is worthy of sharing with others. Homework over the weekend includes deciding on a good topic for our personal narrative. Parents, I hope you are able to find time to discuss the possibilities for this topic, as choosing a topic is often the most difficult part of writing a story.

We have continued our Maths lessons dedicated to numeration. We have been working with some very large numbers, up to 100 thousands, and we have also begun working with decimals. Place value becomes very important when working with such numbers, so we have dedicated many lessons to understanding place value, and rounding numbers to the nearest tens, hundreds, thousands and ten thousands. We will continue with this topic on Monday, and review what we have learned on Tuesday, in preparation for our first Topic Test on Wednesday.

Social Studies this week has been focussed on map skills and related terminology such as hemispheres, equator, prime meridian, latitude and longitude. We are also learning how to research information in groups, and we will continue to develop these strategies over the coming weeks.

In Art, we have been learning about proportion, particularly relating to the human face. We have each drawn a portrait, and we have all found that the portrait we drew this week looks a lot more realistic than our freestyle portraits from last week. Next week we will be looking at positive and negative space, and learning to draw what we see (as opposed to what we think we see).

In Computers, Mr Burt is helping students to set up a Gmail account. Forms have been sent home for parental permission for everyone to open these accounts. Parents, please find time to assist your child in opening an account, as these will be instrumental in completing some homework assignments and projects throughout the year. Part of this weekend's homework is to send an email to me.

Reminders:

There will be no school on Monday. Happy Moon Festival!

Parent Introductory Evening will be held next Thursday, 11th September, at 6:30pm

Classrooms are supervised from 8:00 am every morning. Students arriving before this time should wait in the office until 8:00 am. Although teachers are at school before this time, we are often preparing materials, printing, copying, and conferencing with other teachers or administration. We are therefore not always in the classroom, and may be unavailable to supervise children.

Please check this blog frequently, as it will often contain more details about homework and assignments, including links to other sites.

Dates to remember:

• Monday, September 8: Moon Festival Holiday
• Tuesday, September 9: Spelling test, List 1
• Thursday, September 11: Math Test - Topic 1
• Parent Introduction Evening
• Monday, September 15: Clubs begin

Images from Weeks 1 and 2