Week 24

Dear Parents and Students,

It’s been a very short week, but busy as always.

In Maths, we completed our second topic about decimals this week, with our test taking place on Tuesday. We have already begun Topic 14. This will be a change of pace, as we spend the next few weeks studying perimeter and area.

 In our Literacy Workshop, we began our next grammar unit about capitalisation and punctuation. We also enjoyed a Write Now! exercise, in which we recalled all of the fairy tales from Literacy Week, and then wrote our own versions of the tales. As this exercise was so much fun, we will spend a little more time on it next week, including a Writer’s Slam, in which students can volunteer to read their stories aloud to the class. Next Friday, we will begin reading the classic novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. We will spend the next few weeks reading the story together. I’m sure the book will be of particular interest, as the Drama Club will be performing a stage version of the story later in the year.

In Science, we have begun planning for the upcoming Science Fair. We are now establishing our testable questions for our preferred topics and assignments, and making sure that our projects are suitable for the Fair. We will begin our preliminary research next week.

In Social Studies, we learned to read a double-bar graph, and we have been reviewing our study of the geography and history of the American Southeast. Next week, we will take a look at how the region has developed, and what it is like today.

I hope you all enjoy your long weekend, and I'll see you all on Monday.

Important Dates:

Feb 28-Mar 1:  Peace Day Public Holiday

Mon, Mar 4:     After school clubs begin

Mar 11-15:       Spirit Week

Wed, Mar 13:   Race Day – parents welcome

Thu, Mar 28:    International Expo – parents welcome

Fri, Mar 29:      Monthly Assembly

Mar 30-Apr 7:  Spring Break – No school

Student of the Week, Week 24

Congratulations to Kazuki!

Kazuki has increased his focus recently, and his work has been improving as a result. Great work, Kazuki, keep it up!

Homework, Wednesday, 27th February

There is NO homework assigned for the Peace Day Memorial vacation. Enjoy your long weekend!

Upcoming due dates:
Friday, 8th March:
English: Unit 4 Checkup/Test Practice/Unit 4 Cumulative Review pp.150-158
Social Studies: Chapter 6 review, pp.202-203

If you would like to watch today's narrative about containers again, you can see it here:

Homework, Tuesday, 26th February

Maths: Practice 13-7 Try, Check, and Revise; Enrichment 13-7 Find the Mystery Number
English: Unit 4 Checkup and Test Practice due next Friday, 8th March

Homework, Monday, 25th February

Maths: Review Topic 13 (test tomorrow) pp.310-313 Answer Key below.
Practice 13-6 Dividing a Decimal by a Whole Number; Enrichment Air Traffic Control

Science: Visit www.sciencebuddies.org to help find a topic and testable question for your Science Fair project.

Spelling: Review List 18.  Click here for list and links

Practice Test 13 Answers

1. C      2. B      3. A      4. D     5. B      6. C      7. D     8. A      9. D     10. A   11. B   12. C   13. C   14. A  

Topic 13 Extra Practice Answer Key

Set A 1. 18; 18.3 2. 18; 17.6 3. 69; 68.6 4. 3; 2.8 5. 7; 6.8 6. 80; 80.1	Set B 1. 28 2. 2 3. 23 4. 3	Set C 1. 0.91 2. 0.36 3. 0.68 4. 0.03	Set D 1. 21.44 2. 28.14 3. 105.59 4. 3.53 5. 5.94 6. 1.36	SET E 1. 7.11 2. 395.28 3. 1.28 4. 0.52
SET F 1. Corey made 3 baskets, Terry made 8 baskets, and Chris made 9 baskets.

Science Fair links

Here are some links to help you find your Science Fair topic.
Note: these links can also be found in the links menu to the right of the blog, under Science Links.

Science Buddies – this is a great tool to help you find a topic and develop your question and research:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/

Science Fair Ideas: Grade 4:

https://www.education.com/science-fair/fourth-grade/

Science Fair Ideas: Grade 5:

https://www.education.com/science-fair/fifth-grade/

More ideas from Science Kids:

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/projects.html

Week 23

Dear Parents and Students,

Literacy Week has been a lot of fun, and we have enjoyed plenty of extra activities over the past five days. We began on Monday reading Aschenputtel, and compared this Brothers Grimm story to the Caribbean story, Cendrillon, and to a number of other versions of the story most of us know as Cinderella. We read to the Grade 1s on Thursday, dressed up as our favourite book characters, and we presented our Book Promotions before the class. A link to photos of these activities, along with  a few others, is included at the end of this post.

We continued our study of decimals in Maths this week, and we practised adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals and whole numbers. We will review Topic 13 on Monday, and the topic test will take place next Tuesday.

 In our Literacy Workshop, we spent some time enjoying reading and listening to various tales  by the Brothers Grimm, and we also spent completed our Book Promotions, including giving our presentations on Thursday and Friday. Next week, we will begin or next grammar unit, dedicated to capitalisation and punctuation.

In Science, we we reviewed what we have learned about electricity, and we have begun discussions about the upcoming Science Fair. We will begin proper planning for the Science Fair next week, including deciding on topics and finding partners for the project.

In Social Studies, we continued our study of the American Southeast, including the celebrated Cherokee father and daughter, Sequoyah and Anyokah. Anyokah was only six years old when she joined her father in designing an alphabet for their native language. Before this, there was no written form for their language. It took them 12 ears to complete, and when they were done, members of their tribe began to learn to read and write their language within months. We will continue our studies of the American Southeast next week.

We finished our week off with the Monthly Assembly. Congratulations to all students who received a certificate for increasing your lexiles through Achieve 3000. Well done!

As you know, there are only three days of school next week, as we have a long weekend for 2/28 Peace Day. This and other important dates are listed below, as always. Enjoy your weekend, and I'll see you all on Monday.

Important Dates:

Tue,  Feb 26:    Maths Test: Topic 13
Feb 28-Mar 1:  Peace Day Public Holiday
Mon, Mar 4:     After school clubs begin
Mar 11-15:       Spirit Week
Wed, Mar 13:   Race Day – parents welcome
Thu, Mar 28:    International Expo – parents welcome
Fri, Mar 29:      Monthly Assembly
Mar 30-Apr 7:  Spring Break – No school

Click here for photos ofGrade 1 and Grade 4 Reading Buddies:

Click here for all Literacy Week photos (including Reading Buddies):

Students of the Week

Nao, Rachelle, Janelle

Student of the Week, Week 23

Congratulations to Janelle!

Janelle has been steadily improving her skills throughout the year, and this week her talent was on display with an impressive oral presentation for our Book Promotions, and an inspired effort during our Reading Buddies session. Her regular classwork has also been of a high standard. Well done, Janelle!

Homework, Thursday, 21st February

Maths: Practice 13-5 Multiplying a Whole Number by a Decimal; Enrichment 13-5 Museum Price
Reading: Achieve 3000 – Make sure you are reading at least two articles each week, and answering thought questions.

Homework, Wednesday, 20th February

Maths: Practice 13-3 Modelling Addition and Subtraction of Decimals; Practice 13-4 Adding and Subtracting Decimals
English: Book Promotion - prepare your presentation for tomorrow. Trifold also due tomorrow.

Homework, Tuesday, 19th February

Reading: Caves Book Sale tomorrow!
Maths: Practice 13-3 Modelling Addition and Subtraction of Decimals; Practice 13-4 Adding and Subtracting Decimals
English: Book Promotion - ready to publish tomorrow (and ready to present Thursday!)

Spelling: Review List 18  Spelling City     Quizlet

List 18 – the /k/, /ng/, and /kw/ sounds

Core Words

shark	question	crooked	struck
attack	electric	drink	mistake
risk	jacket	topic	junk
public	blank	track	squirrel
sink	ache	blanket	stomach

Challenge Words

aquatic

comic

tropical

speckled

peculiar

Tier 3 / Advanced            Spelling City

reckless	skeleton	attic	request
rescue	turkey	cactus	picnic
hoping	raking	vacant	quarrel
chuckle	focal	rascal	scandal
vocal	anchor	sequel	freckle

Homework, Monday, 18th February

Maths: Practice 13-1 Rounding Decimals Practice 13-2 Estimating Sums and Differences of Decimals
Spelling: Review List 16  test tomorrow.  Click here for list and links.
English: Book promotions should be ready for proofreading and publishing tomorrow.

Week 22

Dear Parents and Students,

I hope you all enjoyed the Lunar New Year break. It's good to see everyone back again, well rested and ready to take on Semester 2. We have barely skipped a beat in the classroom, and we are already back to working at our usual busy tempo.

We began the week reviewing Topic 12 in Maths. We then had our topic test on Tuesday, then a benchmark test and cumulative test on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. On Friday, we began Topic 13, and we are now becoming more confident when working with decimals. We will continue with Topic 13 next week.

 In our Literacy Workshop, we have all but completed our Book Promotions, and we will spend Monday and Tuesday adding the finishing touches to our projects. We will also spend some time next week preparing our oral presentations, which will take place on Thursday and Friday. We have a number of other activities for Literacy Week, including our usual Caves book sale on Wednesday, and a story time session on Thursday, in which Grade 4s will read to the Grade 1s. We also have our Book Character Dress Up Day on Thursday.

In Science, we have continued experimenting with electricity, and we can now build circuits in series and parallel, complete with switches. Next week, we will be reviewing what we have learned about energy, and we will also begin looking ahead towards this year's Science Fair projects.

In Social Studies, we began our study of the American Southeast, beginning with the geography of the area.  We will look at the history of the region next week, and to tie in with Literacy Week, we will learn about Sequoyah, a native of the region who developed a written form of his language, along with his young daughter, Anyokah.

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend, and I'll see you all on Monday for the beginning of Literacy Week!

Important Dates:

Feb 18-22:                    Literacy Week

Thu, Feb 21:                 Book Character Dress-up Day

Fri, Feb 22:                   Monthly assembly – parents welcome!

Feb 28-Mar 29:            Peace Day Public Holiday