Week 7

This week we were invited to visit a couple grades and observe the summative projects. Grade 1 designed and build houses for to conclude their units. G5 students were quite impressed with G1's homes. Some of their comments:
"How did they build that?"
"They have such good ideas and they made them. I don't see how they made them."

"They are above grade 1 level."

"They are like William [Kamkwamba]. They built things from reused trash."
"I like that Mahamoud added a gas shop by his house."
"Yusuke's house had a pool and a garden." "Yuto's house was huge! I think if his house was real, it would be very expensive."

On Tuesday, we visited G2's Exploration Museum. These students chose any area where future exploration should take place. They created brochures and visual presentations to teach G5 students about why these areas should be explored, giving us the positives and negatives of the exploration, as well as what materials would be needed for their exploration. G5 students were blown away with their effort and the detail they put into this work.

Tuesday was also the day when G5 students talked one-on-one with me about their selected picture books that they read as part of their summative. Students shared lessons they learned from these books along with changes these people underwent as well as the changes these people had on the world. I was very impressed with how much they learned from these books!

This week we also began researching our International Children's Festival country: Saudi Arabia. The students have enjoyed learning about a new country and culture and creating photobooth props and finding images and maps for decorations of the PreK-B classroom. Tasneem is our in-class expert, who answers any of our questions, and her dad even helped us with the flag! :)

We read Beatrice's Goat by Page McBrier. During our reading of this book, students were given an assignment to think deeply about the story and generate LOTS of questions. I also asked them to write at least two life lessons this book teaches it readers.

This questions for the book gave us a natural opportunity to understand the "pattern" for writing questions in English. We also realized that correct helping verbs are essential in getting our meaning across to the reader.

We ended the week with analyzing our new central idea for our Sharing the Planet unit.

We try to allow time for art on Fridays after a long week. It's definitely a time each week that I anticipate because the students are taking a great deal of pride and ownership in creating beautiful pieces of art.  

Week 6

This week, we discussed a way in which people can record their own or another's
journey is through interviewing. Our mentor text for interviews came from the website:
Humans of New York.
I had previously selected a few interviews that would be age-appropriate or had
opportunity for students to change their perspective while reading.
Selected interviews and student "takeaways" below:

"I learned that maybe I should go outside to play a little bit more."

"I learned that if a school has a counselor, maybe that is good for all the kids to not be angry."

"Why did her dad call her stupid?"

"I think maybe they should have taken turns to get up. I wonder what my parents did." 

"It must have been really sad not having her mother around for so long." 

"He did not give up on his dream to be a doctor even though he had to start over."

Because we have missed several classes due to the holidays and because we focused on learning
specific reading and writing skills, we had to be creative in how we thought about our summative
assessment.

Summative Task Options:
1. Research a famous person.
2. Interview an adult.
3. Analyze a picture book (class library).
4. Write a memoir.

Week 5

This week our English focus helped guide our unit exploration. The students asked me to read
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind to them during morning meeting and so began our study
into William Kamkwamba and memoirs.

Through our study into memoirs, we learned about verb tenses, pronouns, and descriptions
based on the person's perspective.
We used excepts of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (chapter book) to find evidence to
prove it is indeed a memoir.

The students had more questions after out "chapter teasers," so we researched him online and
found two of his TedTalks. The boys and girls had many questions about HOW all the items
used to make a windmill (bicycle, tractor fan, PVC pipes, etc.) were easily found in the trash.
This topic can be another idea we inquire into for the following unit: Sharing the Planet.

William Kamkwamba TedTalk (2007)

William Kamkwamba TedTalk (2009)

Later in the week, we read The Doctor with an Eye for Eyes: The Story of Dr. Patricia Bath
by Julia Finley Mosca.

Akito shared a connection he made: "She reminds me of Hideyo Noguchi. He's 

on the 1000 yen money. He loved science too!" This student was currently 

reading a biography on Noguchi in Japanese class, and I love how he made 

connections from text to text (and shared them with me)! 

During the reading of The Doctor with an Eye for Eyes, Kaku noticed that the words "in locations like Harlem, where
money is low" could be a possible reason to explain the blindness in her patients. Connecting
to our first unit about the body systems, he explained that if the people were poor, this could
mean that they "didn't have money to to buy healthy food that would be good for their bodies"
or "...maybe if they are poor, they can't go to the doctor too!" 

For this unit, G4 is studying human migration, and Mr. K asked G5 for help with a
provocation. With little information, only "Let's go visit G4 and see what they're doing this
unit. We'll talk about it afterwards."
G5 and I traveled to G4's classroom, where we were visitors in a new land. At first,
the interlopers (G5 students) were stared at by some and ignore by others.

When the "new wore off," they continued their work and completely ignore the visitors.

Kaku found interest in Chinmay's pencil, but Chinmay immediately asked for it
back.

Sally and Tasneem sat alone, isolated from G4 students, taking notes on what they
saw, heard, and experienced in their room.

While Akito tried to help the class by cleaning their dry erase board, Emre sat and 

visited with Fatima, attempting to understand what it is they are doing in their class. 

G4's Perspective of Our Visit

Week 4

For this week, we have continued our UOI diaries, which are part memoir and part reactions to our unit readings and connections made during the unit. The students write in their diaries any time they want, and I respond to their writing and ask follow questions. When the students receive their diaries, they read my responses and write back. It has been a fun way of "talking" to the students about topics that we may not have ever discussed in a class setting.

Students used time in class this week to research music that changed the musical world. They could choose a famous singer or an instrument that "changed the world". It was only an introduction to how music can change people's lives. I would like to have more time to delve into this more.

Mr. Taiki, the new PE and Japanese teacher, is teaching them active games. This week I asked students to tell me how his PE lesson connected to our unit. The beauty is that EVERYTHING they experience can connect to our unit: It's all about perspective (how they look at the experience)! They played a team vs. team tic-tac-toe, where students had to run and make one move in the team tic-tac-toe game. Some of the lessons learned were...
"I learned that when I am trying to be fast, I make many mistakes."
"I learned that I am very nervous when the team is depending on me."
"I learned that we think different. I made a move, but my teammate didn't do what I wanted him to do next."

Mr. Derek (G2 teacher) asked G5 to help him introduce the concept of land being "discovered" by other people to his G2 class. The G5 boys and girls were ecstatic to "conquer" G2 and plant the G5 flag in their classroom. The boys and girls added their artwork to the G2 walls and placed their belongings in the desks of G2 students. Of course, G2 students were NOT happy at all about our "discovery".

This provocation was not only great for G2, but it was also fantastic for G5 as well. It gave us a first-hand experience as to how one experience is completely different based upon the person's perspective:
"It was so funny!" vs "[Student] was so serious."
"Did you see me, Ms. Dana? I wrote 'G5 class' on their board" vs "[Student] kept saying, 'This is so rude.'"
"I couldn't stop laughing!" vs "[Student] kicked our flag and left the room."
This discussion easily progressed into famous explorers from the past and how they treated the people who were indigenous or native to the land. This topic can continue into our next unit, so we'll stick a "pin in it" as the saying goes.

Our major text for this week was the storybook: The Girl Who Thought in Pictures: The Story of Dr. Temple Grandin. This book taught us many lessons about life, specifically how people's brains are different and how we need to be open-minded to those differences. Our discussion made turns into our real lives and how we have noticed that people who are different from us are not allowed to participate in the same activities or go to the same schools. We made realizations that this isn't fair and that we can learn from all people. This topic, too, can continue into our next unit, so we'll stick a "pin in it" as well. 

We ended the week enjoying some fun competition at Sports Day!