New Unit of Inquiry

It was wonderful to meet with all students and their parent(s) for last Friday's student-teacher-parent conferences.  Having the students previously set academic and social goals, and having parents and teachers discuss their goals with them, helps students become more responsible and knowledgeable about their learning paths. It is expected that the students revisit and reassess their goals in January and again late in the year. 

This week we finished up our discussions and investigations into our first unit of inquiry, Who We Are. Much of the unit was about the students learning about how they learn best, and what thinking strategies they use to solve problem. This unit of inquiry has provided a great deal of literacy opportunities, such as when writing their thoughts in their living journals, and in math, when they record their progress on their graphs for mental math. 

Living Journals are essentially a diary of their learning, and their reflections.  We use an iPad application, Book Creator to record new knowledge, and most importantly to record their new ideas, opinions and reflections.  A great deal of attention is placed on what we refer to as the Six Traits of Writing: Writing Conventions, Writing Ideas, Sentence Fluency, Word Choice, Organization, and Voice. 

There is a growing use of technology in our classroom.  Students use iPads on an almost daily basis.  The students have been uploading their work in math, literacy, drama and other areas to their google folders.  Shortly, the folders will be shared with parents.  Parents will be able to see their child's learning only.  I encourage parents to look in on your child's learning from time to time.  As with parents' involvement with their child's goal setting, being aware of what they are learning is very beneficial to a healthy learning partnership.

This week we began our discussions about our new unit of inquiry, How We Organize Ourselves. Essentially, this unit is a deep dive into how people organize their lives around the facility of time.  The unit begins with the study into the origins of time.  Learning about time of course involves the sun, earth and moon, and naturally students have great interest in space.  History of time devices is also a focus, as well as managing our time, understanding lapsed time, telling time, using calendars, stopwatches, and collecting data. Researching and writing about their findings will be prevalent.

It is a very exciting unit of inquiry, which allows for a great deal of independent student research and inquiry.