[T1W8] English Updates

Dear Parents/Guardians,

1. The class have done their group-constructed mindmaps and pupils have learnt to provide feedback using the strategy "2 stars and a wish".

In this strategy, they tell their peers two things they like about their work (2 stars) and one thing that their peers can work on improving (wish). An example for the 2 stars and a wish for the group mind-map looks like this:

• (STAR) Very detailed mind-map.
• (STAR) Very neat handwriting.
• (WISH) I wish you can write more examples.

To consolidate the pupils' learning, they are each tasked to do up their personal mind-map on parts of speech using an A4 sized paper. They have been given 2 weeks to work on it and it will be due on 1 March.


2. We have started on the next big book 'What's This', a non-fiction text where pupils learnt more about the different parts of a frog. There are many content-specific vocabulary words related to frogs, such as snout, webbed fingers, sticky discs etc.


3. Last week, we had a Learning Fest in school for English, Math and Science. The pupils had a talk conducted by the NLB, with the librarian sharing interesting facts about Roald Dahl. This year celebrates his 100th year anniversary as a children Literature author, and our pupils learnt more about his works like The Twits, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda.

We were engaged in the class activities where the pupils watched excerpts of The BFG (the older animated movie, available on YouTube) as well as the trailer for the upcoming live movie of The BFG. Working with their clock buddies, they discussed to plot a nightmare that will be presented to the Queen of England to convince her of preventing the human-eating giants from entering their country,

Pupils also had an experience of designing a writing quote poster with the materials provided for them.


4. Pupils learnt more about words with suffix-y as having or being. Suffix -y usually changes a noun (thing) or verb (action) into an adjective (describing word). For example:

• cloud à cloudy
• dust à dusty
• jump à jumpy

5. The class was taught how to write a personal recount on the topic of Fear.

I shared with them my experience of fear and demonstrated how I plan for my story. The pupils were then given 15 minutes to list down their experience of fear in their class notebooks (free-writing). They wrote about why they experienced fear in these events.

Using a mentor text, I discussed the key features of a personal recount and how the writing plan translated into the actual writing.

Selecting one idea from their free-writing, pupils organized their thoughts using the personal recount plan. An additional vocabulary list on the varied degrees of fear was also given to pupils.

Pupils are then given three days to complete their personal recount (due 26 Feb).

In the coming week, pupils will be learning to do peer editing and feedback, and we will be using the strategy "2 stars and a wish".


Thank you.

Sincerely,
Ms Cindy Chan

[T1W6] English updates - Suffix (-ful) and Parts of Speech

Dear Parents,

A Happy Lunar New Year to all! Hope you had a great time spent with your loved ones over the long weekend.

As mentioned previously, below is the class compiled list of words that end with the suffix -ful.

Also available for downloading at:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_DkAx8tuB7fMXhaVTV2N3FOV3M/view?usp=sharing



Before the Chinese New Year break, we learnt about the different parts of speech. The different parts of speech are the various word classes with different roles to play in sentences.

The pupils experienced how to take quick notes within a short amount of time that I have given them. They learnt not to take notes word-for-word, but the main points that help them understand concepts.

They also worked in groups of four with assigned roles to construct a mind-map on parts of speech collectively. I will post pictures of their mind-maps in the next post when they are done polishing up their work.

Below is my Powerpoint slides that I use to teach the class, for your child's revision at home:

Parts of Speech from Cindy Chan


Thank you!


Sincerely,
Ms Cindy Chan

[Song] Everything at once - Lenka

Dear Children,

This is the song we sang together in Music lesson.
You can learn up the song and the similes in it!



There are some grammatical errors in the video above.

Here's the lyrics for sing-along:

As sly as a fox, as strong as an ox
As fast as a hare, as brave as a bear
As free as a bird, as neat as a word
As quiet as a mouse, as big as a house

All I wanna be, all I wanna be, oh
All I wanna be is everything

As mean as a wolf, as sharp as a tooth
As deep as a bite, as dark as the night
As sweet as a song, as right as a wrong
As long as a road, as ugly as a toad

As pretty as a picture hanging from a fixture
Strong like a family, strong as I wanna be
Bright as day, as light as play
As hard as nails, as grand as a whale

All I wanna be, oh, all I wanna be, oh
All I wanna be is everything, everything at once
Everything at once, oh, everything at once

As warm as the sun, as silly as fun
As cool as a tree, as scary as the sea
As hot as fire, cold as ice
Sweet as sugar and everything nice

As old as time, as straight as a line
As royal as a queen, as buzzed as a bee
As stealth as a tiger, smooth as a glider
Pure as a melody, pure as I wanna be

All I wanna be, oh, all I wanna be, oh
All I wanna be is everything, everything at once

Have fun!

Cheers,
Ms Chan :D

[T1W4] English

Dear parents,

Thank you to the parents who attended the briefing on Friday. I hope you have learnt more about the scope covered for each subject.

Like I have mentioned earlier in the year, my plans for P3A is to maximise their learning and to nurture them to be independent learners. As such, we have started the use of the "English Self-study notebook" where they can take down notes on their own for easy reference.

Updates for English:

1) STELLAR

We have started on the big book "The Wolf's Story" where the familiar story of the three little pigs is written in the perspective of the wolf. This book aims to teach pupils to look at things from different perspective, and demonstrates how misunderstanding can occur when different people interpret an event differently. It is a fun book where other characters gave their testimonies of what the wolf actually did!


2) Spelling / Dictation

A gentle reminder that spelling and dictation is conducted every Wednesday. In the event that your child is not around when spelling/dictation is conducted, I will do the make-up spelling/dictation during the Friday lesson.

Spelling feedback:

• Look carefully at the numbered boxes and write the words in the correct space provided.
• For the fill-in-the-blanks questions, pupils have to understand the meaning of each vocabulary word to select the right word. Also, read each question carefully to find clues in context.

Dictation feedback:

• The P3 English teachers have decided to do without a grade for dictation. We will be marking dictation based on the number of correct completed sentences.
• As long as there is one mistake (spelling/punctuation/grammar), your child would need to write out the full sentence as correction.
• Reminder to pupils to bring their foolscap paper for dictation, and to leave a line in between their writing so that they have sufficient space should they need to insert missing words.
• Several pupils got mixed up between the homonyms "when"(indicates time) and "went"(indicates action & past tense of 'go'). It is advisable that they should know the difference in its pronunciation and meaning.

3) Topical Test

Please note that your child will be having his/her English topical test on Tuesday, 2 Feb.

They will be tested on Tenses and Subject-Verb Agreement.

We have done revision for SVA in class using the Grammar Workout book. I will return the books to pupils for revision on Monday. Please remind your child to bring the book back for lesson on Wednesday.

Also, your child would have written their notes on SVA in their self-study notebook.

Below is taken from Qi Zhen's notebook (very neat work!):

4) Grammar

We have also discussed about demonstrative pronouns (This, These, Those, That) and their uses based on here or there, and singular or plural nouns.

The pupils also learnt about Affixes (Prefixes and suffixes) as parts added to a word to change its word class and/or meaning. They worked with their 3 o'clock buddies on Friday to look closely at the suffix -ful which gives the meaning of filled with or full of. After a 10 minutes working time, each pair shared a word with the class and we have compiled an incredible list of words!

You may like to continue this activity at home to encourage your child to include more words into his/her list.

I will be uploading more pictures of notes taken from the pupils' notebook this week, together with a few resources for your child to learn at home.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Ms Cindy Chan