Page 5 - Grade 4

ISB Lower School Specialists’ Newsletter

Serbian as a Foreign Language

Grade 4 students were busy working on Natural Disasters unit. We focused on four
types of natural disasters: an earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption and a tornado.
Students read texts and non-fiction stories about these disasters. This way they de-
veloped understanding as they became more familiar with a language form that is

Ivana Jovanovic not used in an everyday conversation. The students researched and gathered data
Serbian language Teacher about a disaster of their choice. Then, they used an interactive map
(education.nationalgeographic.com – map maker interactive) to label all important
places and dates related to this disaster. This way they learned names of some
countries and cities, and practiced making connections between English and Serbi-
an. We focused on imperative sentences. The students wrote instructions on what
to do in a case of each of disasters, and created related posters using
www.jukeboxprint.com – free poster creator. This unit combined learning non-
fiction language, imperative, instructional speech, geography, data collecting and
presentation; and it is an excellent groundwork for the exhibition next year.

EAL

This month Grade 4 students continued learning about grammar. We defined and
identified nouns, verbs and adjectives. We learned about the comparative and su-
perlative forms of adjectives and identified basic spelling generalizations. We also
reviewed our understandings of syllables, consonants and vowels. We read books
about natural disasters and talked about safety issues. Other books we read (The
Great Kapok Tree, The Shaman’s Apprentice) offered great topics for discussion:
they dealt with the importance of rainforests, the knowledge developed by indige-

Visnja Plecas nous tribes and the impact of the modern world on the environment. Henry and
EAL Teacher the Kite Dragon inspired us to talk about how different communities of people learn
to live together and to integrate into their new environment. We talked about con-
flict and conflict resolution, tradition, languages, and acceptance and inclusion. In
this period we also focused on developing the students’ listening skills and oral ex-
pression. When reporting back or talking about a character or theme, students
were encouraged to use complete sentences and include the new vocabulary they
Page 5 had acquired.