Week 2

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 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.

In the classroom, we have made it through our first full week, and already, we are beginning to establish our routines and standards. We have completed all of our primary assessment tasks, and we have commenced our regular curriculum for Grade 4.

In Maths, we are almost finished our first topic, dedicated to numeration. This topic is largely review, so we have felt quite comfortable with most of the material. We will review the topic on Tuesday, before holding our first Math test for the year on Wednesday.

We have been very busy in our Literacy Workshop, having already completed reading tasks, a number of short exercises in writing, a Spelling pretest, and two grammar workshops. Next week, we will be reading Grandfather's Journey, the first of our many selected stories from the Reading textbook. We will also try our hand at the Japanese form of poetry, known as haiku.

We had a lot of fun in Science this week, as we investigated rocks and minerals. Whoever would have thought that rocks could be so interesting? We will review our investigations next week, and we will also begin to explore how many of these rocks and minerals came to be.

In Social Studies, we have been learning some new vocabulary, along with different ways to describe a place's location. We will begin next week with testing our map skills, then we will turn our focus to landforms in the USA, and how they compare to other parts of the world.

I hope you all enjoy a relaxing weekend, and I look forward to seeing all students on Monday!

Dates to remember:

Tue.     Sep. 11:           Spelling test – List 2

Wed.    Sep. 12:           Math test – Topic 1

Mon.   Sep. 24:           Mid-Autumn Festival, school closed

Tue.     Sep. 25:           PD Day, students not required at school

Fri.      Sep. 28:           Teachers’ Day (school open)

                                    Monthly Assembly

Mon.   Oct. 1:             Global Awareness Week

                                    First day of Clubs

Grade 4 Classroom Rules

Each year, the Grade 4 students agree on rules for the classroom, and come up with a design to present our rules. This year's design is especially creative. See for yourself!