Grade 4 News!
An insight into life in Grade 4 at BMS...
News from the German Team
Dear Parents,
We are fully immersed in our Berlin Wall Unit and have so far explored the historical background and development as well as how the wall was built and what led to its fall. In order to let the students experience the division of East and West Berlin / Germany first hand, we divided our classroom into East and West. This situation had brought up many different emotions in our students, from excitement, to unfairness, to taking action in order to get rid of the wall. Furthermore, we saw different perspectives towards the separation.
Our next steps include different stories of people fleeing East Berlin and lastly the reunification of East and West. Our end-assessment of the unit will focus on interview writing. Please support us with finding an interview partner for your child, who is a “Zeitzeuge” for the time of the separation of Berlin / Germany and finding the time during which your child could conduct an interview with this person.
Our language focus has been on the differentiation between a/ä and au/äu.
In addition, the students are currently taking their bike tests at the Jugendverkehrsschule in Wedding and so far they have demonstrated a lot of dedication, focus and seriousness at the bike parkour. Our classes have received excellent feedback from the police officer concerning theoretical and practical knowledge.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Warm regards,
Frau Pointner and Frau Lucic
4a peacefully protesting the wall in their classroom
Visit by Sebastian - talked about his childhood in the GDR
Mathematics
Fourth grade continues to explore units of measurement, time-related topics and fractions through hands-on, kinesthetic methods. Students are now solving multi-step elapsed time word problems and comparing & ordering fractions. Additionally, our classes are focusing on estimating, measuring and recording height, length and distance. Students are continuing to develop their ongoing goals of estimation problem solving using addition, subtractions and multiplication of whole numbers, to arrive at a sensible solution.
UOI
It has been a wonderful two weeks in grade 4. Students had the opportunity to explore significant events through a series of 8 lessons ran by all grade 4 teachers. It was great working with different students and the topics invited prolonged discussions within the classrooms. Students will began planning and creating their summative assessment over the next three weeks, choosing both an event and a way of presenting their findings.
English
The different significant events in history that we have looked at in Unit worked as a great background for grade 4 to develop different aspects of narrative writing. Students have explored their five senses to explain in greater detail the setting for their story and how it affected the characters’ life. They have exercised the use of past tense to retell relevant facts in the story. They have also considered the importance of the narrator in the way he/she tells the facts and that the tone used can tell the reader additional information about him/her and the other characters.