Friday Weekly Reflection 37

Hello Grade 4 Families, 

Hard to believe that there are only 5 days left of teaching and learning for this academic year!

This week Grades 4-6 have been tweaking the script for their original musical as well as rehearsing with commitment and enthusiasm. 

The group has also worked on city skyline collages. Each student chose a different city from around the world and re-created its city skyline using a variety of recycled materials. From this, Students began investigating the city and planning a 2 week holiday to that destination. With a budget of ￥1,000,000, each student researched flights, accommodation, attractions, weather, local maps, public transport and restaurants to create an itinerary for their 2 week adventure. Next week, they will share their itinerary with the rest of the class. 

A couple of end of year reminders for all families: 

- The Final Celebration of Learning will take place on Saturday, 27th June from 10:00am-12:00pm. There will be an after-party following the performances until 12:30pm. 

- Student-Led Conferences are scheduled for Monday, 29th June. 



Hope to see you next week!

- Miss Raciti

Friday Weekly Reflection 35 & 36

Hello Grade 4 Families, 

I hope you have had a terrific week.

Over the past 2 weeks Grade 4 has been working hard on their persuasive essays. The progress made by all students is truly wonderful. 

The movie afternoon fundraiser went extremely well and Grade 4 did an excellent job organizing the event. 

The students are collaborating with G5/6 to create a musical production for the final Celebration Of Learning on June 27th. I am so excited to see them begin rehearsals next week. 


That is all for this week, 

- Miss Raciti

Winter story in Summer time

Grade 4 students have been reading "Hatsuyuki no furu hi", the story about a girl and snow rabbits.

They were making a reading circle and helped each other how to read clearly.

After reading it, they categorized the words about weather, colors, shapes and expressions.

Friday Weekly Reflection 34

Hello Grade 4 Families, 

1 Sleep til Undokai!!!! 

Everyone is so excited for the big day and I'm sure the whole JIES/Jingumae Shogako community will enjoy viewing and participating in the day's events. 

Grade 4 has worked so hard to prepare for the day and also showed fantastic cooperation and communication with their Jingumae friends. 

I look forward to seeing you all there!

In other news, 
Grade 4 have been investigating new digital media for our unit of inquiry. The group watched a documentary about the future of digital communications and assessed the positive and negative aspects of relying on digital platforms for communication purposes. Each student then picked an area they want to explore further. Some chose to investigate the use of smartphones, some are looking into virtual reality and some decided to look more specifically at different social media applications and sites. 

We created a class Twitter account and have so far connected to the Uniters (grade 5/6) and the JIES account. The group are enjoying navigating their way around the site and it is a great investigation into our second line of inquiry- how digital media works. 

We have begun a mandala project, incorporating art and maths into the construction of individual pieces. I look forward to seeing the finished products.

Until next week (or hopefully tomorrow), 

- Miss Raciti

Complete Kotowaza book

Grade 4 students completed making their own proverb books.

They enjoyed reading their friends' proverbs and adding some comments.

JNL students also reviewed some Kanji they learned in Grade 3.

During Japanese class this week, the class practiced 3 songs for Undokai.

All of the students are really excited about Undokai and I see JAL students are trying to understand and talk to Jinsho teachers and students during the exchange practice.

Friday Weekly Reflection 33

Hello Grade 4 Families, 

I hope you have had a great week!

Grade 4 has been busy taking action this week!

We started the week of really pleasantly, with a well deserved trip to Yoyogi park!

The group have been organizing a fundraising event for the victims of the Nepalese earthquake.  They made a plan and worked really cooperatively to organize this initiative. See the images below for their work so far and the poster they intend to put up around the school. 

We have also begun our new inquiry; New digital media changes the way in which people access information and connect to each other. First, we investigated forms of communication and the ways in which communication has changed over time. We considered how many times we digitally communicate in a day, versus how many times we communicate through non-digital means. Students are enthusiastic and curious about older communication technologies and were very amused when I showed them a photo of the first mobile phone!

We are going to focus primarily on new digital media, particularly social media and the way it impacts our lives (both positively and negatively). 

Mathematics this week has involved some more work on division strategies as well as pattern making and collecting and displaying data. Students conducted surveys at the beginning of the week to help them with the fundraising initiative. 

We spent language time recording our persuasive speeches and will be working on persuasive techniques a little more throughout the new unit of inquiry.

Undokai practice is still going really well and it is wonderful see the students become more confident in themselves and their bodies!

Until next week, 

- Miss Raciti

 

Friday Weekly Reflection 32

Good Afternoon Grade 4 Families,

Welcome back! 

I hope everyone had a safe, happy and refreshing Golden Week!

The energy is high in the Grade 4 classroom. 

Undokai practice is incredibly exciting and it is great to see the enthusiasm from grade 4 when they participate. Everyone is putting in 110% effort.

This week, grade 4 finished their persuasive speeches and presented them to the class. The commitment to this task that most students have demonstrated has really made for some interesting and entertaining speeches. 

During Mathematics, we practiced division at one station and another station was dedicated to ordering and comparing decimals. 

Language time was dedicated to completing the persuasive speeches, giving medals and missions and polishing the presentation aspect of the task. 

That is all for this week, 

- Miss Raciti