Thought Provoking

This week we began our new Unit of Inquiry (UOI).  It is an inquiry about history, called Where We Are in Place and Time.  It is designed to have students look at where we are today, through the lense of a research historian.  It will get them to look at how discoveries and exploration has led to the way we live today, from social, technological, and many other perspectives.  This week we had a very interesting event at our school which directly relates to our school, and coincidentally, it relates to our unit of inquiry. It was apparently on the news here in Uzbekistan.  Ask your child about it.  They were v-e-r-y excited.  

Next week we will be sending home a permission form for an upcoming field trip to the State History Museum.

Our new UOI creates many different opportunities for math and language.  For example, a big role in this inquiry will be that of collecting data.  Of course with data comes the need to analyze and manipulate it, to put it into a format which makes sense...such as graphing.  Today in our math groups we already began working with data and graphs.  See the attached pictures below.  Next week, we will use data from the student's BEEP tests in PE to make graphs.  Ask your child about BEEP tests. Being able to interpret and predict what graphs tell us is an important research skill.  

Of course, history research lends itself extremely well to noting, collating, gathering, speculating, analyzing and ultimately recording our thoughts about events, discoveries, inventions, and explorations. Writing our thoughts and notes is a daily activity in their living journals.  This week the students wrote a story as part of a writing assessment. We decided to gather all of the stories and publish an anthology.  It will be very exciting, and we hope to have more information for you soon.

On another note, we are planning to have a Passion Hour Exhibition.  On the day of our holiday party, during the last week before the winter break, parents will be invited into the classroom to see the efforts of their child's research.  Passion hour is a weekly time where the students are able to research and focus on something of their choosing--something that they are passionate about.  There are so many great ideas, I know you will be impressed.   

I hope  you have a wonderful weekend with your families.

Mr Shawn