Week 5

 Dear Parents and Students,

First of all, I would like to thank all parents who attended the introductory meeting last night. For those of you who were unable to make it, and for those who would like to take a closer look, you can find the slideshow, complete with links, in the post two below this one, or by clicking here. If you have any questions from last night, or any queries at all about anything regarding Grade 4, please don’t hesitate to contact me at eddie.costello@hdis.hc.edu.tw , or via Class Dojo.

In the Classroom:

Maths

We held our Topic 2 test on Tuesday, and had a performance assessment on Wednesday. We have now begun Topic 3, and we are reviewing what we know about multiplication. Next week, we will focus on the properties and patterns that can be used to simplify multiplication of whole numbers. The topic test will take place next Friday.

Literacy Workshop

We began planning and drafting our narrative stories this week. We will continue drafting, revising, and editing our stories next week, with an aim to publish on Thursday. If we all publish on time, we will have our first publishing party for the year on Friday. We have also completed our first unit of our grammar lessons. Next week, we will begin a new unit dedicated to nouns.

Science

We had fun this week as we tried to build model volcanoes from different consistencies of (pretend) lava. We used our experiments to determine why some volcanoes are cone-shaped, while others are shaped like a shield. We also worked out why some volcanoes explode, while others are comparatively gentle. We have applied our findings to our investigation into the Ashfall  Fossil Beds in Nebraska, and we will continue our investigations next week.

Social Studies

We have been focusing on natural resources this week, and reviewing the work we have done since the beginning of the term. We will continue our review next week, and prepare for our first open-book test, which will take place next Thursday.

Other important information

Next week will be Global Awareness Week, and we will be participating in a number of special activities. On Wednesday, all students are encouraged to dress in blue, as we will be taking a group photo together in front of the school building.

See you all on Monday!

Dates to remember:

Mon Sep 15: Global Awareness Week

Wed Sep 17: Dress in blue day

Thu Sep 18: Social Studies open book test - Chapter 1

Fri Sep 19: Math test - Topic 3: Multiplication Meanings and Facts

Fri Sep 26: Assembly

Mon Sep 29: Teachers’ Day Holiday  – school closed