Welcome to 4HAHaddy Allen

hallen@uasdubai.ae

Welcome to Grade 4 at UAS!

Building Partnerships

I truly believe that strong parent-teacher communication is essential and I look forward to building a positive partnership with both you and your child!

About Me….

Toronto, Canada.

5th year of teaching.

Taught in both private and public Canadian Boards.

Communication

I will be posting weekly updates and any important information, along with extra resources for home learning on my EDUBLOG. It can be found at sites.uas.edublogs/hallen

You can also send me an email or come into the school to see me once you have made an appointment via email or phone call to the school.

Attendance and Punctuality

Please ensure that your child arrives at school on time and prepared for learning. Students go inside at 7:35am. We do mental mathematics reflexes at this time and it is really important that your child does not miss this.

If students arrive before this time, they may enter the building to place their belongings in their cubby; they must then return to the supervised playground.

Homework and Assignments

Home Learning Quilts will be sent home every two weeks. Students are expected to complete 10 tasks before turning the signed paper into their teacher.

Additional resources will soon be available on my blog.

PYP

 Higher level thinking skills are developed as students learn how to begin to ask questions that lead to their own inquiry.

Promotes life-long learning

Focuses on the whole child

Teaches students how to formulate questions independently

Involves problem solving in a variety of contexts.

PYP Units of Inquiry

Let’s Write!

Changing Earth

Tolerance

Ecosystems

Global Trade

Past and Present Roles

Math

We will be studying a variety of units

We began with Geometry –While we are studying a specific unit, we review and preview other units. This gives your child a much bigger chance of retaining his/her learning.

Although students are not required to complete them, we have Studylinks available on Edublogs that coincide with each Math lesson.

Every Day Math

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=H8XUrh7TWGs

Children will also take part in inquiry based activities into the nature of mathematics.

They will do projects as part of some of the units.

They take part in a round the world tour.

Great Math Websites

www.coolmath4kids.com – awesome website with games, lessons and activities covering many areas of maths.

www.aaamath.com – sorted by grade level; covers many areas of the math curriculum.  Lots of good, interactive activities.

 www.math-drills.com – a good range of drills for basic facts practice

www.mathixl.com

www.mathletics.com

Parental login

Parents visit www.mathletics.com/parent

Language Arts

Spelling: Word Frequency

The students will also have a range of Spelling activities to complete each week. These are designed according to Gardener’s Multiple Intelligences and allow the children an opportunity to learn in a way that best meets their needs, whilst also allowing them to extend their skills and abilities.

Children will also use the Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check method to help them with their spellings.

These Spelling activities will be completed in class.

Spelling activities - examples

Grade 4 Spelling – Multiple Intelligences

Write down words and look up their meanings and histories.

Discover how to change a word to mean the opposite.

Spell your words out loud.

Say them - Look - Say - Cover - Write – Check

Make - crosswords - wonderwords - jumbled wordsDictionary work - alphabetical order

Reading:

Each student has been issued with a Reading Log that will remain in class.

It is the expectation that each student reads for approximately 25 minutes each night.

We are using Reader’s Workshop during classroom instruction.

Reading Resources

-PM Benchmark Leveled Readers

-Rigby Literacy Leveled Readers

-A-Z Leveled Readers

-Classroom Library

-School Library

-Science/Social Studies text books

-Internet

Raz-kids.com

What are the PM Benchmarks?

The PM series was developed to ensure that children would have positive experiences and enjoy reading from the first moment they are exposed to books

Over 700 different titles covering fantasy, history, fiction, folktales, verse, song, and informational text

Sentence structure, choice of words, and introduction of high frequency words have been carefully chosen

I am in the process of assessing each child's individual reading levels. With this testing, I can then match books to students, to ensure that your child is reading at an optimal challenge level.

Science in the PYP

- In the PYP, science is viewed as the exploration of the biological, chemical and physical aspects of the natural world, and the relationships between them.

-Science within the PYP leads learners to an appreciation and awareness of the world as it is viewed from a scientific perspective. It encourages curiosity and ingenuity and enables the student to develop an understanding of the world. The science focus is also used for the basis of the literacy lessons.

- In Grade 4, our science units are:

Our Changing Earth

Ecosystems

Classroom Management

Dojo

Points towards golden time.

Star of the Week.

Table groups.

Assemblies.

Positive encouragement and praise.

Nutrition and Health

Please avoid sending your child to school with foods that contain peanuts.

Please ensure that your child eats a healthy snack and lunch each day.

Aim for a litterless lunch!

What can you do at home?

Assist with organization (Agendas, and homework)

Listen to your child read

Assist them with their Math

Assist them with finding additional material for our PYP units.

Communicate with them! Communicate with me!

Thank you very much!

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions

hallen@uasdubai.ae