Week 4: May 6-10

I'm happy to see everyone again and hope you all had a fantastic Golden Week!  We have gotten back into the groove at school and have started some new things.  Each month we are selecting a different trait from the Learner Profile and focusing on it, and this month our theme is Communicators.  Students are discussing different methods of communication and trying to find positive ways to communicate what we need and want to others through various methods. 

We have also been continuing our Transdisciplinary Theme of Who We Are and here are some of the highlights from this week:

Unit of Inquiry (UoI):
In continuation of our theme of health we have begun talking about the differences between Physical and Mental health.  Students have begun researching various mental disorders and how they affect the physical state of health as well.  We have made comprehensive mind maps analyzing different aspects of the mind such as emotions, personality, and illnesses. 

Students constructed a trivia card game about Physical health and parts and systems of the human body.  We will be expanding this game to Mental health next week and making connections between the two as we approach the conclusion of our first unit.

English:
This week we have discussed different learning styles and how each student learns in different ways.  Three learning styles we have discussed are: Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic.  Different methods of communication and learning styles help us learn and express ourselves in a variety of ways, and students will be applying this to a lesson of their own next week.

Thank you again for all of your positive support and feedback.   Happy Mother's Day to all of our mothers.  Have a great weekend!

Making a mind map

Making a mind map

Researching mental health

Researching mental health

Researching mental health

Researching mental health

Researching mental health

Making a card game about physical health

Making a card game about physical health

Making a card game about physical health

Making a card game about physical health

Demonstrating positive communication by making a thoughtful card

Week 3: April 23-26

Another action-packed week here at Abroad International School!  Thank you to everyone who was able to join our Family Picnic on Saturday.  Students have been talking about it all week.  We have expanded our exploration of how the body and mind work this week as well as a followup on current events that we began investigating last week.   Here are some of the things we've been up to:

Unit of Inquiry (UoI)
Brains!  Students have been making a map of the brain and analyzing the regions found therein.  We are breaking down the different parts of the brain and exploring what each part does: memory, motor control, hearing, vision, etc.  Next week we will be expanding on this and going into more depth about mental health.

Our human body art from last week was so popular with both teachers and students from other classes that Grade 5 did a special teaching session for Grade 3.  They taught the younger students about the different areas of the human body that they weren't likely to know and then gave the a trivia session at the end of their lesson.  It was exciting to see the kids embrace their role as teachers!

English
Following student interest in current events, we have made videos of students in the role of news reporters and experts.  Students have combined their research with acting skills to make an easy to understand record of the fire at Notre Dame and the first photograph of a black hole.  Videos will be viewed by all primary kids so that they can learn with along with Grade 5.

I am including pictures of our work with the human body and English video preparations in addition to some highlights from the Family Picnic below.  As there seems to be a few problems with uploading videos on the Blog at the moment, I will send a link through email of our news reports.

Happy Golden Week everyone and see you again soon!!!

Week 2: April 15-20

We had a busy week learning about different parts of the human body and reviewing important current events.  Here are some of the things we've been doing:

Unit of Inquiry (UoI)

Human body!  Students traced themselves and made a life-size human body.  They included all the organs and wrote facts about each one.  Caught up in what they were doing, students included extra details such as examples of bones from the skeletal system or lymph vessels from the lymphatic system.  They wanted to add as much information as they could!  We had a lot of fun creating our humans and learned a lot along the way.

English

Current events and communication.   We have been talking about the different methods of communication and applying it to some issues in the news.  Some breakthrough technology has enabled scientists to take the first photograph of a black hole using satellites.  Students are also discussing and researching the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France.  Videos, articles, internet, and word of mouth are just a few methods of communicating news and information across the world.

Here are some pictures from class last week.  More to come soon!

Tracing our human bodies

Everyone hard at work

Researching Notre Dame

Researching black holes