Last week we began our third unit for the year. It comes under the transdisciplinary theme, "Who we Are" and is all about knowing how our bodies function. The central idea is, "Understanding how our body works helps us make decisions about our physical and mental health." Many of us have already started making connections between healthy minds and healthy bodies. Though this is a short unit we plan to look at 6 body systems; digestive, respiratory, muscular, cardiovascular, skeletal and nervous.
There is much excitement and interest in finding about what happens inside us. Already, many children have begun their own inquiries at home and brought in books, puzzles and posters to share with the classes. Such self-initiated action shows that we are breeding a group of young thinkers and this is something we can continue to encourage through questions and discussions.
This week's spelling consists of many key words that students need to become familiar with. They have already spent time in class exploring the words to help understand their meanings and connections within the body. Additional support at home will help to establish these better as the children need to be able to use them correctly and relate them to specific systems.
In 4B students have been looking at different ways of recording data. They have practised creating surveys and showing the information on bar, pie and line graphs. To help deepen thinking they have made statements giving explanations about the reasons for their data being as it is.
Daily reading has continued in levelled groups to ensure that everyone is working at their instructional level. Through the follow up activities the children are learning to look at and think about literature from many different aspects.
All students have been signed up to Edmodo, a communication tool that enables chat between students and teachers. This is being used for educational purposes and as another avenue for wider discourse. We see it as a way to open up deeper thinking and interaction and encourage parents to look at and join in discussions with their children. We do not want to see the children spending a lot of time on this and hope that they will continue to make the most of play to ensure a balanced lifestyle.
Please continue to follow life in Year 4 on our slideshows.
Week 13 on PhotoPeach
There is much excitement and interest in finding about what happens inside us. Already, many children have begun their own inquiries at home and brought in books, puzzles and posters to share with the classes. Such self-initiated action shows that we are breeding a group of young thinkers and this is something we can continue to encourage through questions and discussions.
This week's spelling consists of many key words that students need to become familiar with. They have already spent time in class exploring the words to help understand their meanings and connections within the body. Additional support at home will help to establish these better as the children need to be able to use them correctly and relate them to specific systems.
In 4B students have been looking at different ways of recording data. They have practised creating surveys and showing the information on bar, pie and line graphs. To help deepen thinking they have made statements giving explanations about the reasons for their data being as it is.
Daily reading has continued in levelled groups to ensure that everyone is working at their instructional level. Through the follow up activities the children are learning to look at and think about literature from many different aspects.
All students have been signed up to Edmodo, a communication tool that enables chat between students and teachers. This is being used for educational purposes and as another avenue for wider discourse. We see it as a way to open up deeper thinking and interaction and encourage parents to look at and join in discussions with their children. We do not want to see the children spending a lot of time on this and hope that they will continue to make the most of play to ensure a balanced lifestyle.
Please continue to follow life in Year 4 on our slideshows.
Week 13 on PhotoPeach
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