Weekly Updates

Wednesday 30th June

What a wonderful year! Thank you so much to all of you for being such amazing families and being so supportive. We are very proud of our 4SL family and what you have all achieved this year.

Have a well-earned restful summer and we will see you next year!

Thursday 24th June

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Adding and Subtracting Fractions

• Friends Dress Up Day

• Enjoying Esperanza Rising

• Completing and publishing our historical websites

Thursday 10th June

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Exploring the properties of light and watching the dissection of a real eye!

• Simplifying fractions.

• Being gripped by and noticing important details in Esperanza Rising.

• Creating our our websites based on our research questions.

• Finishing the last MAP assessments of the year and cashing in bonus points!

• 4SL Talent Show!

Thursday 3rd June

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Exploring the properties of sound waves by using battle ropes in the gym!

• Wrestling with fractions through 'Bryony's Triangle' problem.

• Looking at how characters are affected by the historical context in Esperanza Rising.

• Continuing with our research questions for our websites.

Upcoming MAP Assessments:

Sunday 6th: Science

Monday 7th: Math

Thursday 27th May

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Using the fantastic squishy circuits to explore how electricity travels.

• Collaborating to create a catapult which shows how mechanical energy works. Check out our Seesaw posts!

• Diving deeper into fractions and equivalence including some great tangrams work.

• Creating a historical timeline to provide context to our book Esperanza Rising.

• Researching open questions about or sub topics for our incredible websites.

MAP Assessments

MAP assessments begin on Wednesday 2nd June. A member of staff will be online to proctor the tests with the children who are distance learning:

Wednesday 2nd: Reading

Thursday 3rd: Language Usage

Sunday 6th: Science

Monday 7th: Math

Thursday 20th May

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Dressing up in the fabulous clothes of our countries to celebrate the DAA International Festival.

• Exploring how fractions are all around us in our everyday lives and creating our own units of measurement.

• Designing and exploring different electrical circuits and forms of mechanical energy.

• Discovering how historical fiction can teach us about the past in our new reading unit.

• Deciding on a research topic for our informational writing topic.

Thursday 6th May

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Writing cinquain poems, number poems and haikus.

• Solving word problems involving division.

• Researching forms of energy and electrical circuits.

• Understanding prepositions and prepositional phrases.

Thursday 29th April

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Writing pyramid alliteration poems, acrostic poems and senses poems.

• Dividing 3 and 4 digit numbers using a variety of strategies.

• Researching natural resources, renewable and non-renewable energy sources.

• An introduction to the Periodic Table in science time.

• Using personification to enhance our writing.

Thursday 22nd April

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Starting the week with a fantastic Ramadan Assembly

• Beginning our super new poetry unit in literacy.

• Exploring how to recognize factors and multiples in numeracy.

• Beginning our new inquiry topic 'How does energy influence our lives?'

• Celebrating 50 years of Earth Day.

Thursday 15th April

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Learning about 1st, 2nd and 3rd person point of view when reading.

• Continuing with our creative writing.

• Continuing with long division, area model and distributive property.

• Delivering and debriefing our sustainable cities projects.

Thursday 25th March

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• The final week of sports week. Congratulations to the Red and Blue teams.

• Creative Writing Week.

• The final of 4SL of Shark Tank 2021. Congratulations to the 4SL representatives Celine, Lea and Mai who pitched to the Sharks!

• Continuing with division using place value method and standard long division algorithm.

• Continuing to build our sustainable cities on CoSpaces.

Thursday 18th March

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Farewell to our wonderful friend Hide and all the best of luck at your new school in Japan. We shall miss you.

• A fabulous book character dress up day!

• The launch of sports week. Go red and blue teams!

• 4SL Shark Tank 2021 was a huge success with every team putting together a wonderful commercial. Congratulations to the winning team of Celine, Lea and Mai who created the 'Supercharge Power Bank'.

• Introduction to division and what it looks like in the real world.

Thursday 11th March

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Lights, camera, action! The children have been working on their Shark Tank 2021 commercials. Watch this space!

• Learning how to multiply 2-digit by 2-digit numbers using the standard algorithm.

• Designing maps of our new, sustainable cities.

• Understanding how to use compound sentences and coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS).

• Showing reading agency - choosing our own books and completing a written response to reading each day.

Sports Jersey Day – Sunday 14^th

In honor of sports day week and our official Sunday morning opening ceremony, children can wear the jerseys of their favorite teams to school or online.

Book Dress Up Day - Tuesday 16th

On March 16^th, 2021 DAA Elementary will be celebrating March Into Reading with Book Character Day. Students are invited to dress up as their favorite book character, and we are encouraging them to be as creative as possible. Store bought costumes are not necessary, and we would love to see some creative, outside the box ideas. We would like to remind students that costumes should be based on book characters only; not movie characters and no Halloween costumes. The attached poster might give some inspiration for easy, fun, literary character costumes! Additionally, we would love to see photos of your child in their costume with the associated book. We encourage you to post photos of your child’s costume with #BookCharacterDay and #DAAReads. Let’s get creative and have fun reading!

Parent-Student-Teacher Conferences – Wednesday 17^th and Thursday 18^th

We are very much looking forward to these conferences next week. Please note that children will not attend school on these days and will join on . If you weren’t able to secure an appointment with a Teacher due to appointments filling up, please do not hesitate to contact the respective Teachers you wish to arrange an appointment with or alternatively you can contact the Elementary Secretaries to help you arrange this with the Teachers.

Jessica Oppermann Gr3- Gr5: j.oppermann_daa@gemsedu.com

Saturday 6th March

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• The launch of MARCH INTO READING month with brand new reading journals and a fantastic pajama day

• The children have been working on their Shark Tank 2021 scripts thinking of all the techniques they can use to persuade the Sharks to invest in their product.

• Learning how to multiply 2-digit by 2-digit numbers using area model and partial product method.

• Continuing to generate, sort connect and extend our thinking about the problems that cities face with regards to sustainability.

Reading

• Every child has access to the school library and we also have books in the class library for children to read. Children are expected to read for at least 20 minutes each day for pleasure. This month we also have a reading bingo challenge to complete. Please share the joys of reading with your child and ask them all about what they are reading.

CAS Project including students from Grade 4

Please see this exciting message below from Sabina Saktaganova, a Grade 11 student at DAA:

My project is called “We Can Help” and its goal is to help younger kids to learn skills with the help of their teachers (high school students) online. Skills include either school subjects or creative skills, such as dancing, drawing, creating crafts, and others. The lessons are going to be conducted online via Zoom and we will have a class on different topics each day, so students can choose which ones to join depending on their interests. I feel like it is especially important to help younger students to develop their interests and socialize even during the times of the pandemic and that is why I am so passionate about this project. Me and my partners want to promote this project to the 3rd and 4th graders as they are the ones who will be our primary age group for the start of it.

Our project’s instagram page is called @wecanhelp_daa (https://instagram.com/wecanhelp_daa?igshid=1lenvdz4ivnbt), where a lot of information regarding the project and the schedule of classes will be posted very soon!

Saturday 27th February

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Shark Tank 2021! The children have been designing products and working on 'persuasive' marketing campaigns to pitch to the intimidating shark panel.

• Coming together as sustainability experts to dream and design our sustainable cities of the future.

• Using the solution fluency model and our knowledge of multiplication to plan a party on a budget.

• Launching our new reading journals and 2021 reading lives.

• Writing short stories in only 30 minutes and publishing them.

Pajama Day - Monday 1st March

To celebrate the beginning of 'March into Reading' month, children can come to school dressed in their pajamas.

Saturday 20th February

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Beginning to explore our big question 'Can we build a sustainable City?' by becoming experts in one field of city planning.

• Solving 2 step word problems using all of the multiplication models we have learnt so far.

• Exploring exclamatory, interrogative, declarative and imperative sentence types.

• Continuing to improve our note-taking skills through extreme weather research.

Switching from distance learning to in-school learning

If you intend your child to return to school tomorrow after a period of remote learning and have not yet informed the school admin team, please send an email to Ms Jessica Oppermann stating your intentions to switch.

Thursday 11th February

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Opening up our new Inquiry topic by asking ourselves 'What is sustainability?'

• Learning how to take good research notes when comparing natural disasters.

• Continuing to explore multiplication using the area model, standard algorithm and partial product methods.

• Exploring subjects and predicates in sentences.

• Completing our Reading and Language MAP assessments.

Valentine's Day - Sunday 14th February

Children may come to school dressed in Valentine's Day colors of pink, red and white.

MAP Assessments

MAP assessments finish this week. A member of staff will be online to proctor the tests with the children who are distance learning:

Sunday 14th: Science

Monday 15th: Math

Friday 5th February

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• An incredible virtual visit from the famous author Mac Barnett.

• Exploring multiplication using the area model and partial product methods.

• Working in groups to write a 'persuasive' letter to Mr Cantlie.

• Answering the question, 'can a volcano pop up anywhere?'

• Exploring metaphors and similes.

MAP Assessments

MAP assessments begin on Wednesday 10th February. A member of staff will be online to proctor the tests with the children who are distance learning:

Wednesday 10th: Reading

Thursday 11th: Language Usage

Sunday 14th: Science

Monday 15th: Math

Friday 29th January

What great week of remote learning. Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Designing a solution to the problems humans face from erosion and weathering

• Recording and presenting our teaching videos all about different natural disasters

• More fun with area and perimeter

• Exploring the different persuasive strategies used all around us

• End of week 4SL mega kahoot!

Remote Learning for all children - Sunday 31st

We look forward to welcoming all children online at 7:40 am on Sunday 31st January. School reopens on Monday 1st February.

Friday 22nd January

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Starting our new multiplication math unit by exploring the formulas for area and perimeter

• Researching and preparing in groups to teach each others all about different natural disasters

• Exploring the question "Do mountains last forever?"

• Exploring the true meaning of what a sentence is in order to improve the accuracy of our writing

Remote Learning for all children - Sunday 24th and Monday 25th

We look forward to welcoming all children online at 7:40 am on Sunday 24th. As always, the daily google slides and relevant zoom codes will be released to the children via Seesaw at 7:15 am.

Friday 15th January

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Creating our own wacky inventions using our knowledge of affixes and root words.

• Continuing our new math topic all about metric measurement focusing on mass, capacity and word problems

• Writing our own small moment stories.

• Discovering how tectonic plates, erosion and weathering affect our landscape and lives.

• Using CoSpaces to create an augmented reality merge cube representing different landforms around the world.

Friday 8th January

What a great first week back! Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• Beginning our new math topic all about metric measurement by disproving a theory of Leonardo De Vinci's!

• Writing our own independent opinion pieces

• Learning all about 'for loops' in coding

• Discovering how the earth's processes shape the landscape

Thursday 11th December

Well what an amazing term it has been in 4SL!

It has certainly been a term full of adventure! I would like to take this opportunity to say what a wonderfully enjoyable privilege it has been learning with the children of 4SL. In challenging and ever-changing circumstances, they have shown incredible maturity, kindness, resilience, creativity and joy. We are immensely grateful for all of the support shown by the families of 4SL and we wish you all a fantastic winter break.

Here are a few of the learning highlights from our last week of term:

• Daily shenanigans and mischief caused by two visiting elves named Eric and Bobby!

• Creating and delivering our innovative designs to overcome accessibility challenges

• Creating a fully budgeted settlement in numeracy

• Writing a full opinion piece

• Two holiday sweater days!

• Pajama Day!

Holiday Learning

The children will all receive a Seesaw post with suggestions and links for activities that will help them prepare for the new term in January. We have discussed this as a class and encouraged the children to be ‘self-managers’ of this learning over the holiday. These activities will only take a short amount of time each day.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1X5UPnoOlsb2E7ORpG3XTswX_YcggjhoHNwegZ3Hydnw/edit?usp=sharing

Have a great holiday and we look forward to welcoming you all back in 2021!

Friday 4th December

Here are a few of the highlights from our two-day week:

• Celebrating UAE Commemoration Day and UAE National Day with two fantastic assemblies.

• Expressing our opinions about why we love ice cream and why we love Dubai.

• Completing our Module 1 post-assessment in numeracy

• Through our inquiry unit all about structures and functions, the children have been thinking about what accessibility means to people in our community. Using their research from tech week, they have been collaborating and designing something that will overcome some the accessibility challenges faced by people today.

Holiday Sweater Days

Children can wear their holiday sweaters on the 6th and 9th of December this week.

Pajama Day

In celebration of all of the hard work the children have done this first term, we are taking a more relaxed approach on Thursday and children can come to school in their pajamas! Please make sure that the pajamas are appropriate for school (i.e. no spaghetti straps and only opaque pajamas) and blankets are also allowed.

Friday 27 November

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are a few of the learning highlights from last week:

• Heart-warming thanksgiving gratitudes posted by all of the 4SL community on this padlet. Thank you to all those families that posted. There were tears!

• Expressing our opinions about why certain animals make good pets.

• Examining text structure in non-fiction texts.

• Finishing our class read aloud 'There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom' by Louis Sachar.

• This week, the children in 4SL have been developing their skills as Collaborators and Researchers through our inquiry unit all about structures and functions. In groups, the children created their own fantastic Minecraft models of the human body and its vital organs and systems. They also had to explain the function of each part of the body. Each group then presented their findings back to the class who, as always, provided useful 'glows and grows' feedback.

Calling all writers - The Literary Leopards!

4SL is pleased to have its very own Benjamin Leandro on the editing team of the new elementary literary magazine; The Literary Leopards. This is a monthly publication that will include published works from the children at DAA Elementary. As avid, creative writers, the children of 4SL have been encouraged to do their own independent writing at home or during independent learning time at school for submission. There is a designated folder in 4SL where the writing can be submitted or alternatively it can be emailed directly to Mr L or Ben. This is a great opportunity for the children to develop their writing and gives it a real purpose. Any genre of writing is welcome! All writing will be published in the 4SL classroom and those chosen by the editing committee will also be published in the school-wide monthly magazine.

End of Day Pick Up Location

Please note that we have moved our pick up point from under the covered cloisters area to just in front of the Robotics Lab where the other Grade 4 classes are collected.

National Holidays

Due to the upcoming National Holidays, the children will only be attending school on Sunday and Monday.

Saturday 21st November

Here are a few of the learning highlights from last week:

• An exciting few days of robotics exploring structures and functions using SamLabs, Ozobots and Hummingbird

• Continuing to enjoy 'There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom' by Louis Sachar

• Beginning our unit on opinion writing

• Beginning our unit on non-fiction books and setting up our book groups

• Solving single and multi-step word problems with addition and subtraction

• Completing the science and numeracy MAP assessments

Just a reminder that there will be no school on Thursday due to the long thanksgiving weekend.

Children are still permitted to wear sportswear on Sundays and Tuesdays this week.

Saturday 14th November

Here are a few of the learning highlights from last week:

• Creating models of the internal organs and main systems of the human body in Minecraft.

• Exploring coding with origami.

• Continuing to enjoy 'There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom' by Louis Sachar.

• Solving subtraction problems using tape diagrams and standard algorithms.

• Completing the Reading and Language MAP assessments.

• Supporting our favorite teams on jersey day!

Map Assessments

The children have made an excellent start to this period of MAP assessments. The two final assessments will be on Sunday at 8:00am (Science) and Monday at 8:30am (Numeracy).

Hats for PE

PE lessons will begin to move outside as the weather cools. It is mandatory for children to bring hats and water bottles for our PE lessons on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Saturday 7th November

Here are a few of the learning highlights from last week:

• 30 x 30 activity week. The children have created their very own 4SL workout video so watch this space for the big release!

• Publishing our wonderful personal narratives.

• Exploring the 5 story elements - settings, characters, events, problems and solutions.

• Continuing to enjoy 'There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom' by Louis Sachar.

• Solving addition problems using tape diagrams and standard algorithms.

Jersey Day on Monday

Students will come to school in the usual uniform all days next week apart from Monday when it will be Jersey Day and children can wear their favorite team jerseys or DAA PE kit.

30 x 30 Video

The children have shot, choreographed and edited their own fitness video which is currently in the editing suite and will be available to view early next week!

Halloween Montage

The children have also put together a short montage of some the Halloween pictures taken last week which is available on the class website and via this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v6ujAyBV0k

Hats for PE

PE lessons will begin to move outside as the weather cools. It is mandatory for children to bring hats and water bottles for our PE lessons on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Saturday 31st October

Here are a few of the learning highlights from last week:

• Halloween celebrations and wonderful costumes!

• A visit from our friend Pepper the robot and the launch of our new inquiry project 'How do living things thrive?'

• Writing new personal narratives working through the whole process independently.

• Exploring the themes of the stories we are reading.

• Working with our new reading partners.

Resources needed for upcoming tech week: please could each child try and bring in 1 cereal box and 1 roll of tape (any kind) this week.

Hats for PE: PE lessons will begin to move outside as the weather cools. It is mandatory for children to bring hats and water bottles for our PE lessons on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Saturday 24th October

Here are a few of the learning highlights from the last short week:

• 7 excellent presentations from our inquiry project 'How are the countries in our region interconnected?'. The presentations included slides, videos and quizzes!

• The beginning of our new addition and subtraction math topic.

• Publishing our small moment stories.

• Beginning our read aloud ‘There's a boy in the girl's bathroom'.

• Beginning our pratice of cursive handwriting.

Resources needed for an upcoming tech week: please could each child try and bring in 1 cereal box and 1 roll of tape (any kind) before next Sunday 25th if possible.

Homework Expectations: while there is no official homework, the children have decided in 4SL to have the following expectations of themselves for homework:

Reading: to read for between 10 -30 minutes each night and update their reading journals. We will facilitate this process by introducing reading partners and book clubs at school.

Math: to practice fluency (math facts) for 10 minutes each day using the Xtramath.org program. This can be supplemented with Zearn lessons and 'Hit the Button' fluency practice.

Cursive Handwriting: to practice cursive handwriting patterns and letters for a short amount of time each day (10 minutes).

Monday 19th October

Dear Families of 4SL

It was a pleasure to talk with you all last week and share with you all of the great things your children have been doing as well as setting goals for the next part of the year. Here are a few of the learning highlights from last week:

• Hearing our first group presentation from our inquiry project.

• Mid-module math assessment focusing on all of the place value work we have done so far this year.

• Publishing our small moment stories.

• Finishing our read aloud ‘Tiger Rising’ by Kate DiCamillo.

• Learning about the meaning and history of the word 'introduction'.

Resources needed for an upcoming tech week: please could each child try and bring in 1 cereal box and 1 roll of tape (any kind) before next Sunday 25th if possible.

Friday 9th October

Dear Families of 4SL

Here are a few of the learning highlights from last week:

• Learning how to round numbers to the nearest 1, 10 and 100 thousand.

• Editing our small moment stories.

• Enjoying the daily read aloud of ‘Tiger Rising’ by Kate DiCamillo.

• We have had a huge focus on reading this week looking for significant details that authors give us about their characters. Please see the photo gallery of the children searching for repeated patterns, significant details, story arcs and trying to use more precise vocabulary to describe their characters.

• Learning about parts of speech with a particular focus on contractions and quotation marks for speech.

• Learning about influential figures and the culture of the UAE and surrounding region.

• End of week 4SL Mega Quiz on Kahoot.

New Dismissal Time

Please note that children will now be dismissed and ready to collect at the earlier time of 2:45pm each day. Tuesday dismissal time continues to be 1:35pm.

Hope and Dreams Parent-Teacher Conferences

We are very much looking forward to our Hopes and Dream parent-teacher conferences next week on Wednesday 14^th and Thursday 15th. We would be grateful if you could complete the questionnaire in this link before the weekend in preparation for the meetings.

Important members of our student support team are our two counselors, Mr. Antonio Tyson and Dr. Lesley Clark. Mr. Tyson works with KG2, Grade 1 ( 1NJ, 1DL, 1AA ), 2 and 3 and Dr. Clark works with KG1, Grade 1 (1LM, 1CH, 1KH), 4 and 5 students. If you would like to meet with them on these two days please feel free to book a time by emailing them at the following email addresses:

Mr. Tyson: a.tyson_daa@gemsedu.com

Dr. Clark: l. clark_daa@gemsedu.com

Gmail: All children have their own Gems DAA Gmail address (@gemsdaa.net) which they should be checking on a regular basis as we sometimes communicate directly with them through this.

Headphones: Please make sure your child brings iPad-compatible headphones into school with them each day.

Saturday 26th September

We are very much looking forward to welcoming many of our children in school full time tomorrow! The classroom has been adapted to accommodate more children at a safe distance and we are ready for learning.

Here are a few of the learning highlights from last week:

• Learning how to compare numbers using the symbols > < and =

• Planning our small moment stories using 4 carefully crafted scenes

• Learning to think about connections, summarizing and synthesizing when reading

• Learning more about the parts of speech used in everyday sentences.

• Collaborating in our research groups to decide where we would settle on an island based on our knowledge so far of resources

• Continuing the ‘Terrible Two’ during class read aloud.

Feedback on learning

As much more of the learning will be happening in the classroom, we are thrilled that children will be able to receive more feedback given in the moment of learning where it is most effective. Feedback after the lesson will also continue to be given via Seesaw and via googleclassroom assignments where appropriate and effective.

Remote Learners

For those children who are continuing to learn remotely, 1:1 and group conference calls will be scheduled for more detailed feedback and progress updates.

Saturday 19th September

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend and are raring to go tomorrow! Here are just a few of the learning highlights from last week:

• Learning how to write numbers in standard, expanded and word form including another exciting end-of-week Kahoot quiz

• Using lists, timelines, webs and water melons to generate narrative writing ideas

• Setting up our Reading Journals (small green notebooks) to record our reading responses throughout the year

• Exploring the meaning, etymology, morphology and phonology of the word ‘interconnected’.

• Working in our research groups to explore the questions ‘how are we all interconnected?’ and ‘why do people settle in the UAE?’

• Continuing the ‘Terrible Two’ during class read aloud.

As discussed at our welcome evening, the first 10-20 minutes of our live zoom lessons are crucial so we really appreciate the children being prompt in attending those. The daily schedule is available on the google slides published each day via Seesaw. I have also attached a copy of the weekly schedule. We are currently on Week 2 of the A/B cycle so Group B are in school for the next 2 days with Group A remote learning.

We are looking forward to another great week of fun learning in 4SL. See you all tomorrow!

Kind regards

Mr L

Thursday 17th June

Here are some of our learning highlights from the week:

• A superb Decades Day dress up and 4SL talent show.

• Publishing our informative and well-researched websites.

• Immersing ourselves in the world of Esperanza with a laundry task!

• Creating our class currency - Bonus Points, Pinkleponks and Quogwinkles.

• Fraction action!