7 Sep 2018

Yr4 Curriculum Update – 07/09/18

Working together to achieve success for every child

Y4 Camp

Our Y4 camp is coming up in November! Information about the date of the parent meeting will be coming out in the next few weeks; at the parent meeting you can expect to receive detailed information about camp and all of the corresponding paperwork.

We know this is an exciting topic for all families in Year 4 and we wanted to provide some tips every two weeks for how to help your children become prepared.

 

Tip #1: Get outside!

Students will be participating in a hike as part of our camp curriculum. As the weather in Hong Kong slowly starts to clear up, take advantage of the amazing beauty that surrounds the city. Click on the following links to explore lots of family-friendly hikes! 9 Family Friendly Hikes & The Best Hong Kong Hikes for Families

 

Tip #2: Talk to them about what they are excited about (and what’s making them nervous)

From parents.com (Preparing for Sleepaway Camp): “Coutellier recommends that you discuss the upcoming experience by fielding your kid’s concerns and highlighting their strengths. “Review some of the things they did well this past year, and explain how at camp they’ll have an opportunity to build on these skills and develop new ones,” she says.”

 

Transdisciplinary Learning – It’s all connected!

Consumer choice affects people’s lives and the environment.

Unit Overview – How We Organise Ourselves

In our second unit, the Year 4 students are inquiring into the central idea “Consumer choice affects people’s lives and the environment”. Throughout this unit they will explore the concepts of sustainability, choice and consumerism. We will unpack the definition of what a consumer is (a person who purchases goods or uses services; someone who uses something) and how our consumer choices are affecting our planet in both positive and negative ways. We’ll also explore how there are choices we can make that ensure responsible and sustainable consumption. Students will be given the chance to explore how they are thinkers and how they make informed choices daily. They will be developing the skill of synthesizing information, which means they will have a chance to take their learning, create an innovative approach to choose responsible consumption. They will have the opportunity to present their knowledge and pitch ideas to each other using an approach of their choice. Interpreting data will be a big maths link we make through the unit, as the students will be coming across a lot of graphs and large numbers.

You may wish to support your child at home in the following ways:

KEY VOCABULARY

consumer, choice, environment, sustainability, planet, recycling, upcycling, persuade, audience, data, synthesize, thinkers, presenting, communicating, consumption, resource, depletion, fair trade, plastic, seas, landfill, transportation,

Please consider using your Mother Tongue to develop your child’s understanding of these words.

CONCEPTUAL QUESTIONS

This unit will be addressed through the lens of form, causation and responsibility. Through guided inquiry, the students will explore the choices they make as consumers (form) through questions like: What choices do you makes a consumer? Focusing on causation, students will learn about the effects of those choices like: What are the pros and cons of consumerism? Lastly, we’ll inquire into our responsibility through the question: What responsibilities do consumers have? What will I start, stop or change as a result of my learning?

FUN THINGS TO DO

Explore the Plastic Free Seas website, which is a Hong Kong based non profit that dedicates itself to keeping Hong Kong’s beautiful beaches clean. They will be coming to talk to Y4 very soon!

Check out some great ideas for how to create upcycled crafts at home with your children using recycled materials.

Go on a walk around your neighborhood – take note of the rubbish bins and recycle bins. How are they organized? Are they overflowing or empty? Head to an outdoor beach or park! What do you notice about the rubbish there?

Next time your family is shopping for groceries, notice how things are packaged. How would you design items so they use less packaging?

How can you and your family use less plastic? Check out tips from The Green Education Foundation! Pick 2 or 3 goals to focus on for the month!

ACTION

Action is a key element of the Primary Years Programme. We are always looking to see how children take their learning and apply it independently. This can take many forms – from a discussion about the unit of inquiry at home initiated by your child, roleplay or even a request to bring a book or artifact in to school because it relates to the learning we have been doing in school. Now that you know what the unit is all about please keep your eyes open for evidence of action and let us know!

Any action that you tell us about will be kept as part of your child’s records.

 

Literacy

Students will continue to build on the skill of comprehension and understanding what they are reading, as well as reviewing features of non-fiction text. Because this unit lends itself very well to non-fiction books and information, students will have the opportunity to research about the impacts that consumer choices have on the environment and other living things. They will use that research to persuade others and hopefully lead to making better, sustainable choices. As a Y4 team, we will help the students understand the variety of ways to present and persuade others.

 

Maths

Students have begun exploring the base 10 place value system through rich tasks, games and manipulatives. It is very important for students to conceptually understand what a 3 digit number means and different ways to represent it, so that they can work their way up to 5 digit numbers. Some ways you can help them at home is to ask them open questions that allow for depth, like “What is everything you can tell me about 230? How do you know?” You will be surprised at the variety of answers students will come up with! Click here for online place value games and activities.

 

Playing Place Value Math Games

 

Key maths vocabulary

partitioning, represent, recognise, order numbers, place value columns, manipulatives, units, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousand

 

Mandarin

In the Chinese classrooms, our focus continues to be on the concept of wellbeing; what it is, and what we can do to promote our own and other’s well being within the classroom. In our current Chinese learning, we have been providing different opportunities for our children to explore their own interests and promote agentic learning.

Here is a glimpse of some of our classrooms:

 

Reminders

  • Students are reminded to only use the central staircase in the morning and to wait until 8:15 before coming upstairs to ensure there is supervision in all the classrooms
  • Due to a high number of damaged and lost books last year, students are now required to bring a book bag in order to borrow books when it is their library day. Students can reuse book folders from previous years or purchase a new from PTA for $22. Folders can also be purchased at any stationary store

 

Important Dates

September 14 – Lantern Festival at KJS, 5:00-7:30

September 24-25  – No School, Mid Autumn Festival

October 1 – No School, National Day