Week 18: January 15-18

It's baaaaaaaaaaack...influenza has struck Abroad! 

This week we donned our masks to try to defend ourselves from the flu that is going around the school!!

In English this week our focus was analyzing the vocabulary words: How do affixes and roots affect words???? -tion, -al, con-, bi-, sect, dia, para

This question is not only used in English class, but it was also used throughout our math classes this week. For math, they deconstructed words in order to answer math problems, and in English this deconstructing of words allowed them a better grasp to use the words correctly in sentences. 

Another spelling strategy we are implementing is sounding out words with their syllables. This provided a huge leap in our spelling this week during practice sessions with the unfix letter cubes. 

In math, the students worked with a partner to prove the specific quadrilateral by using a very specific description. We learned new words such as adjacent and congruent and practiced using math terms such as angle, sides, parallel, and equal. 

During our inquiry classes this week, students had a bit of free exploration of different governments, and then students selected a country of interest for the summative task. Before being completely set free on the final task, we huddled up to learn about Vietnam's government, so we could work through the assignment in order for students to better understand how they should focus their reading for their own selected countries.  

This unit is definitely not an easy one since the nuance of government is posing some difficulty, but we are working hard to learn as much as we can! 

OH! Since we've returned, the class have redesigned the learner profile attribute wall and have played teacher by seeing which group could identify the best approaches to learning for our activities!

Also this week, the boys and girls have been working on a realistic or abstract piece of art that best embodies their country's government. Kaku is working on a picture of King George III. I leave you with this image: King Kaku at the park. 

Week 17: January 7-11

Happy New Year!!!! 

We began our week back from winter break with a review of the various forms of government we had studied prior.

The students took action by creating a color-coded key for our inquiry wall. They really enjoy making their connections visual with the use of different color yarn.

Our text for the week was Elizabeth Leads the Way, where students learned about the impact of Elizabeth Cady Stanton on American laws. The students compared her to previously studied change-makers: Malala, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela.

We also added some of our thoughts to the question: Why are rules necessary? The students connected this question to different areas of life: society (behaviorally as well as legally), language (English and Japanese), as well as mathematically.

Since I am now teaching the students math, I have begun the term assessing them on their knowledge and understanding of angles as well as quadrilaterals. The students also played some math games so I could gauge their understanding with place value as well as mental math practices.

We had a great first week back and are looking forward to a wonderful term!