AIS - Grade 5: October 2019

Sunday 27 October 2019

October 21-25 Problem Solving in Society

After getting a sense of what society is, students delved deeper to figure out positive ways to discuss and find solutions to social problems. Students had several different opportunities this week to work in groups to talk about important issues and current events.

UoI:

Students created a mock United Nations as a format for discussing important issues and troubleshooting problems. Groups of two were selected to represent a country of their choice and each country's delegates had their opportunity to present their data to the committee. After everyone had a chance to say their opinions, the class voted and made appropriate compromises. Some topics of discussion were pasta vs pizza, cell phones in the classroom, and should nuclear weapons be legal. Students researched their topics and presented an educated argument for or against the issue.

English:

In order to better understand what is going on in the world, students selected an article from Kids News to share with the class. Each group read, researched, and highlighted the important information in poster form. They also presented their information to the class as a news report.

United Nations debating

What is Society?

Kids News: discussing current events

Monday 21 October 2019

October 7-18: Personal Journeys and Reflection

Personal Journeys

These last few weeks have been focused on the end of our unit and the Summative Assessement. We also had some guest visitors along the way who enhanced our learning. Here are some of of the things we did in this time:

Journey Role Play: To conclude our unit in a fun way, students worked together in group to write and act in a play. Their focus was to tell an engaging story about one character's change which they did with flair and imagination.

UoI Summative Interviews: Students selected someone to interview about their personal journey. In this interview students had to construct questions that would elicit a deeper conversation rather than simple yes/no answers. Questions were centered around how change has impacted their lives both positively and negatively as well as how those changes made them who they are today. Students interviewed family members or Abroad teachers and found some interesting information and better understand how change impacts the people around them.

UoI Summative Fictional Journey: In this part of our Summative Assessment students selected a fictional character to analyze. Such characters included heroes like Goku from Dragonball Z to the villainous Dr. Octopus from Spider-Man. They had to give a summary of the important events and difficulties from the lives of these characters and describe a before and after character traits that led those characters to their eventual fate.

Guest Visitors: Ms. Lilly, an intern at our school, spoke to Grade 5 about what life in Germany is like and the various changes and opportunities she has encountered in her three month stay here in Osaka. A representative from India came to speak to grades 5-8 about the youth organization called IIMUN and invited students to get involved. He discussed how the program resembled a student-led United Nations style group and there is an opportunity to get involved and join the coming workshop in Tokyo this November.