October 2016 – Level 4A
It was a good month for L4A and everything became routine in the classroom. Students understand their responsibilities and the way things happen in the classroom. As everyone is getting used to the routines, class goes smoothly and students complete their work without much assistance.
In Science we began a new chapter and the study of animals. During our first week, we mostly focused on animals’ body parts and the way they use their body parts to move, protect themselves, hunt, etc. We then moved on to studying the way we can classify animals into different groups according to their body parts, their diet and much more. Last, we study animals’ life cycle and how animals go through the changes from baby to adult. As we completed our month with the Chapter Review, students showed a great understanding of the concepts learned this month.
In Social Studies, we first spent two weeks to finish our first chapter about People. First we study what a community is and how people live and work together and play different roles. We then studied why people move to new homes and how it affects their lives and the life of people around them. After our successful Chapter Review, we moved onto studying Our World. First we learned about the Earth, which was a great way to incorporate what we are learning about in Research class. We discussed the continents and oceans and studied maps. During the last week of the semester, we studied land and water such as mountains, plains, lakes and rivers.
Reading and Writing
In Reading we have spent the month working with our new skill of compare and contrast. We read about different trips and students spent 3 weeks writing about different trips; comparing the similar aspects and contrasting the different elements of each trip. Finally, we started our new Writing Project which will be explained to you in greater details shortly. Students seemed to feel very comfortable with the new format and they have already showed great skills. I am expecting the students to improve greatly through this new writing format!
In research class, we studied continents and oceans this month and we were able to tie it to our Social Studies lessons. Students can now identify and label the continents with more ease. They can also identify the biggest ocean and the 3 other important oceans. Next month, we will study the land and climate of the different continents before studying the people of the world!
It was a great month and I am looking forward to teaching in November!