Week 6

Dear Parents and Students,

It seems that autumn has finally arrived, and we can enjoy some cooler weather. As the temperature tends to fluctuate at this time of year, we should all be vigilant in making sure we have suitable clothes for the changing conditions. The weather may be changing, but in the classroom, we have been busy, as usual.

Maths

We completed Topic 3, and held the test Friday. Next week, we will begin Topic 4, which is dedicated to division. The test for Topic 4 will take place on Tuesday, the week after next.

Literacy Workshop

We have spent most of our time working on our Personal Narrative stories, and we completed publishing them on Friday. Next week, we will take turns reading our stories aloud to the class. As we have such a large class, this will take place over several days. In grammar, we are continuing with nouns, and our current spelling list is dedicated to homophones. Our Spelling test will take place on Tuesday, as usual.

Science

We have all but completed our studies of the Earth in Science. Next week, we will review what we have studied in our Mystery Science investigations, and we will have a small test on that material on Friday.  We will also spend some time studying the water cycle and water as a natural resource. The following week, of course, we will have our visit to the Taichung Earthquake Museum.

Social Studies

We have been focusing on natural resources, which has fitted in well with our discussions of Global Awareness. Next week, we will review all we have studied over the past few weeks, and a minor test will take place on Thursday. Pictures of our Global Awareness Week activities can be seen via the link at the end of this post.

Other important information

Next Monday is a Professional Development Day, and students are not required at school. Students, I hope you enjoy your three-day weekend!

Please see below for other important dates.

Dates to remember:

Mon.   Sep 30:            PD Day – Students not required at school

Thu.    Oct. 3:             Social Studies test – Chapter 1

Fri.      Oct. 4:             Science test – Birth of Rocks (Mystery Science)

Tue.     Oct. 8:             Maths test – Topic 4

Wed.    Oct 9:              Field Trip – Taichung Earthquake Museum

Thu-Fri, Oct 10-11     10/10 Day vacation – School Closed

Click here for more photos of our Awareness Week activities.

Students of the Week

Congratulations, Yuzu, Sara, Jessie, Briana, and Suin!

Student of the Week, Week 6

Congratulations to Yuzu!

Yuzu has been actively involved in all conversations and activities this week, working well with her classmates and asking insightful questions. She has also shown great awareness and consideration for others. Thanks for a great week, Yuzu. Keep it up!

Homework, Thursday, 26th September

Maths:  Practice 3-6 10, 11, and 12 as Factors; Enrichment 3-6 Break the Codes
Review Topic 3 pp.70-73   (See answers below - no peeking!)  Test Tomorrow
Literacy: Finish revising your Personal Narrative. Our goal is to proofread and begin publishing tomorrow.
Social Studies: Review vocabulary Click here for Quizlet

Complete any outstanding unfinished work.

Topic 3 Practice Test Answers

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

Topic 3 Extra Practice Answer Key

Set A

1.  4 × 6 = 24; 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 = 24

2.  7 × 2 = 14; 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 14

Set B 1. 30 2. 72 3. 54 4. 6 5. 14 6. 35 7. 45 8. 10 9. 40 10. 27 11. 81 12 15

Set C 1. 0 2. 32 3.  32 4.  12 5. 11 6. 14 7. 5 8. 54 9. 7 10. 0 11. 0 12. 36

Set D 1. 24 2. 36 3. 8 4. 30

Set E 1. 72 2. 64 3. 72 4. 54

Set F 1. 144 2. 81 3. 77 4. 60

Set G

1.  

	? feet
basement	3		3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	3	10 times the length
broom	3

10 × 3 = 30 feet

Homework, Wednesday, 25th September

Maths: Practice 3-5 6, 7, and 8 as Factors; Enrichment 3-5 Cube Turning

Literacy: Personal Narrative - Try to have your second draft ready to revise and proofread tomorrow.

Homework, Tuesday, 24th September

Maths: Practice 3-4 3 and 4 as Factors; Enrichment 3-4 Recycling Numbers

Spelling: Review Spelling List 5   Click here for Spelling City

List 5 – Homophones

Core Words

steel	steal	lead	led
wait	weight	wear	ware
creak	creek	beet	beat
meet	meat	peek	peak
deer Challenge Words: pour pore vain vein vane

Homework, Monday, 23rd September

Maths: Practice 3-3 Multiplication Properties; Enrichment 3-3 How Does Your Garden Grow?

Spelling: Review List 4 Test tomorrow. Click here for list and links. Worksheets due tomorrow.

Global Awareness Week: Watch Part 3 of the animations (see below). Think about the goals you would like to achieve. How could you go about achieving them? We will discuss this tomorrow.

Click here for animations.  Click here to learn more about the Goals. Click here for the World's Largest Lesson homepage.

Global Goals Part 1: 

Global Goals Part 2: 

Global Goals Part 3: 

Week 5

Dear Parents and Students,

I hope everyone had an enjoyable Moon Festival last weekend. We wasted no time in getting back to work on Monday, and we have had a very productive week.

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. Our topic test for Topic 3 will take place next Friday.

Literacy Workshop

We began planning our Personal Narrative stories this week, and we will continue drafting on Monday. We will spend most of the week working on the narratives, with an aim to publish on Thursday and Friday. We have also completed our first unit of our grammar lesson. Next week, we will begin a new unit dedicated to nouns.

Science

We continued our investigations of surface changes this week, including two practical lab assignments in which we observed the effects of weathering. Pictures are available via the link at the end of this post. As you are now all aware, our studies of Earth’s surface changes will culminate in our visit to the Taichung Earthquake Museum on Wednesday, 9^th October.

Social Studies

We have been studying the various climates of the USA, and how they compare to other places around the world. We have also learned how location, elevation, and landforms can affect climate. Next week, we will be focusing on natural resources, which will complement what we are working towards in our Global Awareness Week activities.

Also, as part of Global Awareness Week, please remember to wear blue next Wednesday.

Extra-curricular

We finished our week in high spirits as we celebrated the birthdays of Yolanda, Timothy, Yusei, and Suin. Thank you, parents, for organizing the pizza, cake, and treats.

I hope you all enjoy your weekend, and I look forward to seeing everyone again on Monday!

Dates to remember:

Wed.    Sep. 25:           Dress in Blue

Fri.      Sep. 27:           Math test – Topic 3

Fri.      Sep. 27:           Monthly Assembly – parents welcome!

Mon.   Sep 30:            PD Day – Students not required at school

Wed.    Oct 9:              Field Trip – Taichung Earthquake Museum

Thu-Fri, Oct 10-11     10/10 Day vacation – School Closed

Click here for more pictures from our Science Lab.

Click here for more birthday party photos.

Student of the Week, Week 5

Congratulations to Sara!

Sara regularly contributes to class and group discussions and always shows enthusiasm towards her learning. Her efforts in writing explanations of her thoughts and ideas in Science and Maths have been especially impressive. Well done, Sara!

Homework, Thursday, 19th September

Maths: Practice 3-1 Meanings of Multiplication; Enrichment 3-1 Hurray Array!
Language Arts: Unit 1 Review Check up pp.51-52 due next Friday.
Social Studies: Review vocabulary Click here for Quizlet

Homework, Wednesday, 18th September

Maths: Enrichment 2-7 Flying High
Literacy: Make sure you have finished planning your Personal Narrative, and are ready to start drafting tomorrow.
Science: Click here if you would like to watch today's Mystery Science lesson again.

Reminders: Bring home your Field Trip permission form.

Homework, Tuesday, 17th September

Maths: Practice 2-7 Draw a Picture and Write an Equation  No Enrichment today.
Literacy: Decide on your topic for your personal narrative.
Spelling:  Review List 4
List 4 – Long and short u sounds     Click here for Spelling City quizzes and activities

Core Words

brush juice fruit tube lunch

crumb few true truth done

suit pump due dull tune

blew trunk sum glue threw

Challenge Words:

newscast

commute

continue

attitude
slumber

Why do we call them doughnuts?
Click here if you would like to watch the mini-lesson again.

...and if you would like to check out the online etymology dictionary, you can find it here: etymonline.com

Homework, Monday, 16th September

Maths: Review Topic 2 as necessary (Test tomorrow)  pp.48-51  See below for answer key
Spelling: review List 3 - test tomorrow. Click here for list and links.

Topic 2 Practice Test Answers

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

Topic 2 Extra Practice Answer Key

Set A 1. 141 2. 598 3. 7,168 4. 114 5. 155 6. 128

Set B 1. 1,000 2. 5,000 3. 100 4.  4,300 5. 500 6. 300 7. 1,200 8. 1,300

Set C 1. Example: Not enough information. I need to know how many pages he read on Sunday.

Set D 1. 9,038 2. 14,740 3. 5,990 4. 1,513 7. 50,218 8. 23,625

Set E 1. 92 2. 2,212 3. 445 4. 1,895 5. 11,714 6. 119

Set F

1.  

? Wallabies
5	9

5 + 9 = 14 Wallabies

2. 

500 tokens
393	?

500 - 393 = 107 more tokens

Week 4

Dear Parents and Students,

The weeks are already beginning to rush by as we find our rhythm in Grade 4. Everyone has settled in well, and we are getting used to our routines. Although this week was only four days long, we managed to pack a great deal of work into those four days.

Maths

We have completed our second topic of Maths, and we will hold topic test on Tuesday. Topic 2 was all about adding and subtracting whole numbers. There is no homework set for this long weekend, but links to resources may be found in the posts below this one for anyone who would like to review subtraction further. Next Wednesday, we will begin Topic 3, which focuses on multiplication.

Literacy Workshop

In Reading this week, we followed our theme of Journeys, this time following the journey of Akiak, the determined member of a sledding team in Alaska’s Iditarod race. We will be thinking about the various journeys and stories we have been reading about as we prepare for our first major writing assignment. On Monday, we will begin planning our Personal Narrative stories, and we will spend the best part of the next two weeks drafting, writing, and publishing our work.

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. Pictures of our experiments can be found via the link below. We have also begun to investigate the different ways Earth can undergo slow surface changes. We will continue our study of surface changes next week.

Social Studies

We completed our study of landforms by creating descriptive postcards. We also spent some time learning how to read an elevation map. Next week, we will turn our attention to climate, first by looking at the USA as a model, and then comparing to the rest of the world.

Announcements

Confirmation forms of after-school clubs have been sent home today. Clubs will begin on Monday.

I hope everyone has a wonderful long weekend, and a very happy Moon Festival!

See you all on Monday!

Dates to remember:

Fri. Sep 13: Moon Festival – school closed

Mon. Sep. 16: Clubs begin

Tue. Sep. 17: Math test – Topic 2

Fri. Sep. 27: Monthly Assembly – parents welcome!

Why do some volcanoes explode?

Click here for more photos of our Science Lab