The return of.... Mrs. Jessie

Hi kiddos and parents!!

Good news, my leg is sewn up with many stitches and I should be able to return to work next week! I have to go see him Sunday, and probably a few more times, but I should be okay to rejoin you Monday if all goes well! The doctor gave me an additional 3 weeks off, but I will just be taking it easy, using crutches and rolling around on my office chair to help ensure my stitches don't rip out. What an eventful start to the year. Thank you for your patience and understanding during this rough start, and also a huge thank you to Ms. Aisyah for doing an amazing job taking over for me!! 💖

I am looking forward to being back. The bad news is we have progress reports going home shortly, and after being away for a month, it has been a bit hard for me to assess students regularly. That means that the next couple weeks are going to be jammed packed with me doing some reading assessments, a science quiz (see below), and some more Ninja Math Minutes to help me get a more accurate read of you! We might have a couple gaps in the assessments, so I do appologize in advance for that. Bad timing!

So.. what can you do to make sure you are ready?

1. Practice those math facts! Especially your flashcards for your Ninja Minutes so you get new belts next week. Practice on Xtra Math so that I can add you to my Addition Masters! Some of you are so close to joining Christian, Yiang Yang, JaeNa, and Lukas! Keep going and persevere!
1. PARENTS: Please remember to sign up for the parent account that goes with your student's Prodigy account. It will allow you to track their progress and support them at home on concepts they may be struggling on. The regular use of Prodigy at home also allows me to track growth and progress and identify individual students who may need more support. 
2. Science Quiz - Review the videos. I am going to focus on light only to start off with, because I am not sure how much sound you covered. What are the properties of light? Can you explain them? How does light travel? How are we able to see different colours? What does transparent, opaque, translucent, refraction, and reflection mean? You will be writing this next Thursday! So you will have time to bring your science home to study as well. Review, review, review!
3. We are also going to be doing what I call a "Quick Write." Ms. Bonnie and Ms. Aisyah were nice enough to send me home your Daily 5 books so that I could see how your writing has been going. We are going to keep practicing these upcoming weeks. A couple things I will be looking for:
1. Does your sentence start with a capital letter and end with the appropriate punctuation?
2. Are your sentences complete and do they make sense?
3. Does your writing flow and fully explain your thinking?

We are going to be moving into some more paragraph writing as well as writing conventions this week. Some of us are still struggling with writing in complete sentences. Have a chat with your parents or your older siblings about using full sentences and the importance of punctuation.. because...

See you Monday!

Congratulations Lukas - Our Newest Master of Addition

Keep up the good work! I'm glad to see so many of you working so hard on your math facts and prodigy! Way to go Lukas! You'll get a treat next week 😊

We are famous, as aresome of our grade 7s!

Check out this National Geographic clip on Sunway Iskandar!

We have another master of addition!

Congrats Agnes (JaeNa).. I can see you practiced everyday this week and it paid off!! Keep up the great work! I'm going to have a lot of prizes to buy if you all keep working this hard on your math facts! Well done :)

Math Test

First test of the year alert! You are almost done your first unit it math, which means you will have a test on Monday! You can keep practicing on Prodigy, or look at some of the videos and other math stuff I have posted.

What will be on the test:

1. Expanded form, Word (written) form, and standard form (number form)
2. Rounding numbers
3. Place value to thousands
4. Adding tens, hundreds, thousands
5. Multiply by 10, 100, and 1000
6. Using manipulatives to work with numbers and place value
7. Distances and comparing distances
8. Other things covered in class by Ms. Aisyah - see chapter review

Sound

Light Absorption, Reflection, and Refraction

Review: Check out this link for the video below and some questions to test what you know!
http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/science/energy-light-sound/light-absorb-reflect-refract.htm
More review:

New video:

Transparant, Transluscent, and Opaque Light:

Congrats to Yiang Yang!

Congratulations Yiang Yang for being our second classmate through addition on Xtra Math! He's flying through subtraction too! I'll have a treat for you when I return 😉

Keep practicing! There are a bunch of you that are soooooooo close to mastering your addition facts!

Math - Rounding!

Check out these videos on rounding and play this game to practice!

https://www.turtlediary.com/game/rounding-numbers-using-calculator.html

or practice with:

http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/math/numbers/nestimate-whole-numbers.htm

Anti Bullying Day - Ian

Anti-Bullying Day

Monster Multiplication

Here is another game that will help you practice your multiplication facts! Enjoy! Click HERE!

Expanded, Standard, and Written Form

Click here to review the different ways we can express numbers!

And place this game after to practice what you know about place value 👉 Click here!

Homework & Curriculum Update

I've been checking, and I can see that not too many people have been practicing on XtraMath/Prodigy or reading on Raz Kids. You should be practicing on a daily basis so you keep getting stronger!

Please spend at least half an hour tonight on homework: whether it be finishing up your autobiography paper with your parents (YOU write NOT your parents), doing a round of XtraMath or two, battling on Prodigy, or cracking open a book at home or on RazKids. The more you practice the better you are going to get! ***It's also interesting how those students who never practice on these programs at home (I can see how much you practice) are the ones who also struggle in class!***

A big congratulations to Christian!! He is our first classmate to make it through addition on Xtra Math!! I will have a treat for you when I get back 👍😀

Parents: Here is the curriculum document that shows an outline of what we will be covering this year. It is fluid for some of the concepts like social studies, as we have the ability to sway off course based on student interests. Click here to see the powerpoint presentation!

Autobiographies

Today you are going to start writing an Autobiography... what is an autobiography you might ask? It is an account or history of your life, written by you! They are very similar to a biography - where somebody else writes about a persons life.

Watch these to see more of what an Autobiography is and how to write it, as well as listen to an biography of Albert Einstein! Remember, we also learned and read a book about Nikola Tesla. These are stories about a persons life, you are going to write a story about your life!

Place Value

Place Value, Digits, Decimal Points - Important math stuff!

Try this at home for homework: Ordering Whole Numbers! Click here!

Light and Shadows

What we have learned so far:

- The difference between natural and artificial light
- Emitting and reflecting light
- Light travels in a straight line

Here is another video on light, and some questions you can answer afterwards!

Click here for the Questions and Test Yourself

What about reflection, refraction, and absorption?

Stars and the Sun

Seeing we are learning about light right now.. what about stars and the sun? Are they natural or artificial light sources? Do they reflect or emit light?

Here are a couple videos to get you thinking!

Natural light: Is light that is found naturally in our world and space. It is not man made. Example: the sun! Which is just a big star!

Artificial Light: Is light that we see all around us, more so at night.. think of all of the things in your house that light up at night! Example: a computer!

Fill out the worksheet and sort the list for natural and artificial light. See how many more you can add!
Think about: cellphones, fireflies, lightning, glow sticks, glow worms, etc.

https://study.com/academy/lesson/light-energy-sources-lesson-for-kids.html

Language and Paragraph Writing

You will be starting paragraph writing: Here are a few things to help you get going!

Topic Sentences - So Important!

And finally.. a Paragraph writing song for you!

The Math Textbook

Before Chinese New Year, some of you lovely 4A's grabbed me some of the textbooks.

Today you will be doing a textbook walk. Flip through your textbook, what are some of the features you notice?

We've talked about a table of contents, and a glossary.. Your textbook has two really awesome features at the back. Take a look! One allows you to find definitions of the words that are bolded in the text, the other tells you what page a certain concept is located on.

Find "Place Value" - What is the definition? What pages can you find it on? Look on those pages, see what you can find.

Now turn to the table of contents at the front. I want you to find out what page lesson 1 of chapter 2 is on. We are starting with Place Value and Numeration. Is it one of the pages you were on before?

Turn to that page.. what are some of the features you notice?

Usually it starts with a learning goal: this is what you can expect to learn by the time you are done this lesson.

Is there a lesson at the beginning? Something that teaches you (or helps you remember what you already know?) Read it over!

What about bolded words? Any new terms? Again, go look in the glossary for what they mean.

There is likely a hint or some interesting information on the sides too. Don't skip that information!

When we start lessons we are going to go over most of that together, and then you will be responsible for completing questions on your own. TIME TO PRACTICE! Ms. Aisyah has some questions for you to do from the textbook. Remember to show all of your work, and double check your answer to ensure you didn't make any silly mistakes!