Yr4 Curriculum Update – 26/10/18
Working together to achieve success for every child
Y4 Camp
As you all are aware, our camp has been rescheduled for March 6-8 of next year due to damages sustained to Trio Beach during the typhoon. We appreciate your flexibility and understanding while we make the best decisions for the safety and security of our students.
We understand some students are a bit disappointed that they won’t be going to camp next month, but the positive side is that we were able to reschedule both the facilities and day activities, so we’ll be able to continue to offer an exciting camp visit. Now, the students have even more time to practice packing and unpacking their bags and making sure everything is labeled with their name. We will share our next parent camp meeting date as soon as it has been decided. We encourage you to revisit our camp tips now that there is more time to help the students best prepare for camp. At this point, it is not necessary to return any medical forms. We will collect them (if your child needs them) closer to the new camp date.
Tip #1: Get outside!
Tip #2: Talk to them about what they are excited about (and what’s making them nervous)
Tip #3: Have a sleepover
Tip #4: Help manage expectations
Tip #5: Set aside a day to go over the kit list with your child and to label everything (and we mean everything!) with their name.
Please look back at our previous curriculum updates for specific details supporting each tip.
Transdisciplinary Learning – It’s all connected!
Making choices that develop respectful relationships with ourselves, others and the environment define who we are as individuals and as a community.
UOI
The students have just completed the transdisciplinary unit ‘How We Organise Ourselves’ which culminated in them making presentations to the class on a variety of issues connected to the central idea: Consumer choice affects people’s lives and the environment.
We have returned to our ‘Who we are’ unit of inquiry with the focus on our wellbeing for another week. In an effort to create deeper relationships across the school for students and teachers we have introduced ‘Buddy Classes’ and so each of the Year 4 classes have now been paired with a Year 2 class.
There have been a number of tuning in opportunities already to gauge students’ prior knowledge of our next unit of inquiry, under the transdisciplinary theme of ‘Sharing the Planet’ with the central idea of ‘Living things survive and thrive in specific ecosystems’.
It has been unfortunate that we have had to cancel the Year 4 camp, as this unit would have aligned nicely with the opportunity to get out and explore in Sai Kung. We would encourage parents to offer these opportunities outside of the classroom, whilst we delve into this unit of inquiry.
Literacy
A focus in Literacy this week has been looking at the consequences of making a choice that will have positive repercussions. We have read the book, “Because Amelia Smiled” which demonstrated the effects of making a positive choice and how we can have an impact on the feelings of others. Some students have been able to make their own story based off of this idea which they then analysed and self-assessed. We have also been looking at setting our goals in terms of student learning in relation to reading and writing. Students are very excited to share these with you during the upcoming 3 Way Conference!
Maths
A focus this week has been re-visiting ‘Mathematical Mindsets’. We started the academic year using the ‘Week of Inspirational Maths’ which includes a series of resources from Professor Jo Boaler at Harvard University. We have been watching videos made by students showing the importance of having a mathematical mindset. Things we have learned so far are that mistakes are powerful as synapses fire in the brain even when we don’t realise we have made an error! Asking questions, visualising and being able to draw what a problem looks like are all key to being a successful mathematician. A key message is that there is no such thing as a ‘maths brain’ and any one can be successful in maths.
Key maths vocabulary:
Visualise – can you create an image in your head which shows the problem?
Connections – how does the problem/situation connect to other things?
Questions – what questions can you ask to deepen your understanding?
Mandarin
In the Chinese classrooms, we continue to focus on the concept of wellbeing and providing different learning opportunities for children to explore their own interests and promote agentic learning.
Here is a glimpse of some of our classrooms:
Important Dates
October 22-26 – Whole school wellbeing focus
October 29 to November 1 – School photos
October 25 – 3 Way Conference (after school)
November 1 – 3 Way Conference (after school)
November 2 – ESF Orchestra Day
November 5 – No school: Staff Continuous Professional Development Day
