Week 15

Dear Parents and Students,

We’ve had a particularly eventful week, with our field trip, Thanksgiving lunch, and assembly taking place on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, respectively. In addition to all of these activities, we have had a busy week in the classroom as usual.

In the Classroom:

Maths

We have completed Topic 8, which has been dedicated to division. We have used

diagrams and expanded algorithms to find the quotients of single, double, and triple digit dividends, and we have identified factors, prime numbers and composite numbers. We will review Topic 8 on Monday, with the test to take place on Tuesday.

Literacy Workshop

We read and discussed Chris Van Allsburg’s The Stranger. The story instigated some very interesting discussions in our Reading Circles, and we found that a single story can be interpreted in many ways. We have completed our grammar unit dedicated to verbs, and we are currently reviewing what we have learned. Next week, we will read Cendrillon, which is a story that might seem quite familiar to us all.

Science

We have begun our next unit, dedicated to Physical Science. We will continue next week with our study of energy and motion. Of course, we had our visit to the Taichung

Earthquake Museum, which has been a great opportunity to see real examples of some of the effects of rapid surface changes to the Earth. It was also an excellent way to reflect on what we have learned, and our tour guide was very impressed with how quickly our class could answer her questions about the nature of earthquakes, tsunamis, and landslides.

Social Studies

We have begun our study on the geography of the Northeast USA, starting with the physical features, climate, and natural resources found in the region. Next week, we will begin the week with a map skills activity, before going on to learn about the Early Peoples of the area, including the Native Americans and the early settlers.

Other important information

Photos of our busy week can be found via the links at the bottom of this post. As always, important upcoming dates are listed below. I hope you all enjoy a restful weekend, and I’ll see you all next Monday.

Dates to remember:

Fri Dec 9: Christmas Concert

Thu Dec 15: Winter break commences

Wed Jan 4: Classes resume