Dear Parents,
Please find the Year 4 Parent Overview for Term 1.
We hope you enjoy reading about the exciting learning opportunities your children will experience during this Term.
Best wishes,
Anna Lees
Anna Lees
Deputy Head of Primary
Discovery Bay International School
Discovery Bay, Hong Kong         Â
Tel: (852) 2987 7331
| Year 4 Term 1 | |
| Music | Strum ‘n Drum
Children will spend half a term exploring a mix of African Music styles with Mr Welcomme then swap to learn to play the ukulele with Ms Harding. They will engage with different techniques and processes through various listening, performing and composing activities both as small and large ensembles. |
| Mandarin | 1.1 Hobbies and sports
Students will learn to describe their favorite sports and hobbies. They will develop their skills interviewing and presenting other people’s hobbies and activities. Students can reflect upon their own daily activities and understand that hobbies and sports are part of a balanced lifestyle. 1.2 Three meals a day Students will learn to describe their daily meals. They will develop their skills interviewing and presenting other people’s dietary habits and be able to give comments on choices of healthy food. Students can reflect their own dietary habits and understand how to keep our body system healthy by making good food choices. |
| PE | Year 4 students will be learning to strike and field through a variety of full and modified games of cricket, tee ball and rounders. They will develop ball handling skills, and learn to retrieve and send a ball with accuracy and efficiency. In dance, the students will work with others to produce choreography to a given theme and accompaniment.Â
Later in the term, students will continue their swimming development working in small ability groups. Students will follow a gymnastics unit, learning to apply skills and techniques and link them to create routines. Students will complete an invasion game unit of work on the courts. They will learn the concepts of pass and move, control, space, width, and attack and defence. We will teach these concepts through a variety of different sports such as netball, football and hockey, using a combination of drills, practices, modified and small sided games. |
| Learning Technology | A Good Digital Citizen
In this unit, students will learn that the Internet is a connected community and that we all have a responsibility to each other. They will practise using a number of online collaboration tools responsibly. Students will explore the concept of balance and will learn that online games can be great fun when played as part of a healthy balanced lifestyle. They will also learn how to keep themselves safe in the online gaming world. The Coding Arcade (part 1) In the first part of this unit, students will develop their computational thinking skills. They will learn how to create flowcharts and will learn how to write simple programs for a micro:bit. They will be introduced to the engineering design process and will develop some simple design technology skills. All of these skills will play a key role in the second half of this exciting project in Term 2. |
| English | Within our exciting English curriculum, we will be using Pie Corbett’s ‘Talk for Writing’ approach to learn about the following genres and themes:
We will kick off the year exploring the genre of poetry, on the theme of choices. The children will read, rehearse and perform poems of their liking. This will be followed by character and setting descriptions through a variety of narrative stories including Roald Dahl’s, ‘Charlie & The Chocolate Factory’ before writing our own chapter. We will then finish the term by looking at Non-Chronological Reports, information and explanation texts whilst studying our Body & MInd unit through our model text: ‘How does the human brain work?’ |
| Maths | Students will continue with a mastery approach to Maths, developing fluency, reasoning and problem-solving skills. We will be consolidating our knowledge of place value and the four operations this term as well as the following areas:
Number: Addition and Subtraction, Multiplication and Division, Fractions and Decimals Measures: Length & Perimeter |
| Discovery | Learning to Learn
In this unit, the children will explore how attitude can best support learning and the importance of being the best classmate you can be. We will be building on the great learning that took place in Year 3 with Growth Mindset and the importance of learning from mistakes and being prepared to have the ‘first attempt in learning’. Visual Representation How do famous artists create their masterpieces? In this unit, the children will explore how artists create their artwork and how they use different techniques. The children will learn how to express their ideas in new ways and how to manage their time in order to create their own art collection. Body & Mind Have you ever wondered how your body works? What do the different organs in your body do? How do they work together? In this discovery unit, the children will find out how their different body systems interconnect, how they work and the functions they perform. The children will also discover how to maintain a healthy balance between body and mind and how the choices we make can affect health. |
| Learning for Life | The Personal Goals that will be discussed this term are;
The Personal Goals are discussed in detail during our Learning for Life lessons. These lessons take place on a rotation and include a Learning for Life Assembly, Circle Time activities and online Google Classroom activities. The Personal Goals refer to the individual qualities and dispositions that we as a school feel are essential for DBIS students. The language of the Personal Goals are shared widely with the students and permeate through all aspects of learning. |
| Key Dates for the Term |
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| Discovery Days / Weeks | This year, the students will continue to experience Discovery Weeks. The focus of the first Discovery Week is Sustainability. The students will get to study these concepts and work on small projects looking at areas of interest and connections they have in the subject area.Â
Monday 30th September – Global Options Day Monday 30th September – Friday 4th October Sustainability Week |