Yr4 Curriculum Update – 15/03/19
Working together to achieve success for every child
Transdisciplinary Learning – It’s all connected!
Simple machines help people do work.
Y4 Camp
Despite the rain, our camp experience was truly memorable and the students absolutely loved it! By keeping student voice and choice at the front of our decisions, students were able to have a unique time. We gathered some feedback from the students and they shared that some of their favorite memories were “being in a dorm with my friends and making new friends with the people in my dorm”, “having the free choice” and “making friendship bracelets for the whole dorm group.”
When we asked what they had learned, they shared comments like “I learned how to be independent”, “how to make my bed and unpack and pack my bag” and “I learned that you have to be flexible when not being with your parents.”
We will be rescheduling our Trio Beach hike and Hebe Haven water activity day and we will communicate when that will be at a later date. There a few lost and found items (KJS PE kit, sweatshirts, t-shirts, raincoat, etc) that we collected from camp that did not have names. We have encouraged all students to take a look; the remaining items will be moved to the KJS lost and found at the end of the week.
UOI
Thank you to everyone who was able to make it to our amazing Y4 Art Show on March 5th. It was incredible to celebrate the talent and creative process the students went through. We also appreciate all the feedback that was left for us to reflect on. It was a wonderful way to end our How We Express Ourselves Unit!
This week, we began exploring simple machines through our new unit of How The World Works. Our central idea, simple machines help people do work, will allow students to explore the science behind how and why simple machines work, their parts and what makes them suitable for certain tasks. We need your help! We are collecting items that students can explore through a hands-on, Take Apart lab. “Just about anything with moving parts would be okay, as long as the parts can be separated. Sometimes you see mechanical objects whose parts are put together with what looked like welded bolts. Those objects aren’t good since there’s no way for your child to remove them. A plastic clock is an example of item kids would enjoy taking apart. Other mechanical objects that would be fun for kids to take apart include typewriters, printers, toasters, radios, computers, and even computer hard drives.” (How to Satisfy Your Child’s Need to Take Things Apart, January 2019)
Literacy
To support students ability to write science experiments we will focus on formulating compelling and relevant questions that they will research to deepen their understanding. We will spend time recording an experiment from a bird’s eye view as well as a side view. Students will continue to develop their speaking and listening skills as they gain information needed from watching scientific videos and also share their new knowledge in both small and large groups. We will continue to practice the reading strategies we have developed, and for this unit we will have a particular focus on the comprehension strategies, synthesising, asking questions and summarising. We want students to be able to read a variety of texts and be able to pick out the key words in order to identify the main idea. Explanation and procedures will frame the writing we do during this unit. As students complete their scientific investigations we want them to be able to explain how or why something is happening. We will focus on certain parts of scientific experiments and how to record them but we want all students to understand how a scientific experiment is organised.
Keywords: machines, lever, pulley, wheel, axle, screw, wedge, fulcrum, inclined plane, work, mechanical advantage, newtons, design, engineering, hypothesis, test, predict, measure, force, friction, load, pull, push, torque, tool, spring, curiosity, experiment, distance, knowledgeable, variables
Consider exploring these keywords in your children’s mother tongue to help comprehension.
Maths
The maths strands of measurement and data handling will be used to support student understanding in this unit of inquiry. The outcomes we will be learning are:
- Estimate, compare and measure objects using standard units. Length, width, mass, capacity, volume and temperature
- Describe and order likelihood of events using appropriate vocabulary eg likely, unlikely, certain, impossible
We will continue our number work focusing on multiplication and division strategies to build maths fluency.
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
12 to 15 March Council of International Schools Preparatory Visit
Saturday 16 March KJS School Fair
Friday 29 March Annual Music Concert
Monday 1 April School-wide Exams (just kidding, April Fools!)
Tuesday 2 April Wear Blue Day for Autism Awareness
Thursday 4 April ESF Primary Choral Concert
Friday 5 April Ching Ming Festival – No school
Monday 8 April Student Led Conference (evening)
Tuesday 9 April Student Led Conference (full day)
Thursday 11 April School Disco
Friday 12 April Last day of term – Half day
15 to 26 April Term Break – No school
