End of Week 4

Dear all,

1 month of school term has passed by. Please take good care of yourselves as the weather is especially bad with the temperatures soaring very high or it raining heavily. Drink lots of water and refrain from the heaty food. Take good care of yourselves.

Here is a recap of what we covered today:

English

We went through the supplementary worksheet for Unit 6. The key points lie in the synthesis and transformation section:

The word 'being' is a verb and the word that comes after that is an adjective.
e.g Being sickly, ................ Being careless, .................. Being impulsive, ...................

We always use whom when we have a subject (person) before and after the word.
e.g My father whom I am close to......... Peter whom the principal dislikes................

Some verbs can be changed into its noun form. You need to take note and read up.
e.g Invited (verb) --> Invitation (Noun)
     Improve (verb) --> Improvement (Noun)
     Close (verb) --> Closure (Noun)

For comprehension open-ended, always take note of these key skills:

• Read the questions first and do the pre-reading thinking activity.
• Read the passage, understand and ask yourself who are the main characters, where the story is take place, what the main actions or events are and why and how they happened.
• Read the questions. 'Why' questions ask you for reasons and to explain. Take note of the tenses to answer in. 
• Spot for clues in the passage and underline and draw arrows to link them. 
• Answer in complete sentences and take note of your punctuation and spelling too.

Science

We talk about the different communities and habitats, namely on the Mangrove community and how Mangrove trees adapt to the environment. Mangrove trees have strong aerial roots which grow at the surface and above the surface of the water. Mangrove environments are usually filled with much mud and as such, it blocks off sunlight and much oxygen from going into the water. As such, we do not find much plants growing in the Mangrove swamp. Mangrove trees have aerial roots to reach up for air and get the oxygen needed for survival. 

You can watch more about the Mangrove community in the videos below. 

Take note of the classification of the types of living organisms in different communities as written on the board for you during lesson. 

We went through the layers in a soil sample and you need to know the different layers. In the presence of water, the heaviest item will sink to the bottom and that is the stones.Water will then fill the space in between the stones. Next, the rough sand and fine sand will collect on top of the stones followed by clay and dead matter. Some dead matter may float on the surface of the water too with it being lighter than water. 

However, in the absence of water, the stones will sink to the bottom but the spaces in between the stones will be filled by the sand. Air is lighter than sand and as such, sand will rush in to fill the space in between the stones. Water, on the other hand, is heavier than the sand and as such, it will fill the gap between the stones. 

This is the main difference I taught you about the soil sample in the presence of water and without the presence of water. 

Homework:

Journal Writing

Have a good weekend,

Sincerely,

Mr Nelson Ong