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