Expressing Ourselves!

I hope you enjoyed the pictures from our learning last week. You should be proud of your children from their performance at the Winter Concert!  I'd like to give a big shout-out to the music teachers Ms. Alicia and Ms. Thurow!

We are learning to express ourselves!  That is what we are learning.  As we embark on this new Unit of Inquiry, (UOI) there is much to do before we actually begin producing art.  First, we are investigating the very definition of art.  We are learning that it is music, drama, song, poetry, dance, painting, drawing, sculpture, and indeed many other forms of visual art.  More importantly we are learning that it is the culmination of what it means to be creative.  We are creative when we produce art, but we know that you don't always have to produce art to be creative.  In this UOI we are developing our observing skills, such as when we observe and interpret various forms of art.  As we have different opinions and perspectives, we all have different appreciations for art, and some may even question as to whether they are even observing a piece of art! We are developing presenting skills--by presenting our opinions, or describing our art to others, again, using our unique perspectives.  Finally we are learning to synthesize, blend, combine our creative resources into our own pieces of art.  This is  one of the best UOIs of the entire year in my view, and students really engage in it freely and enthusiastically.

In math this week we wound up our work with direction, graphs and locating positions using coordinates.  On Friday we changed course to investingate fractions, beginning with defining and building understanding by contrasting and comparing sets and whole parts.

In language arts the students worked hard on their Rainbow Sheep stories.  They are learning that publishing a book is hard work, and that it is not easy being authors.  We began what we hope is a concerted effort as part of the writing process, which will culminate in publishing our own books within the next 6 weeks.  Last week we began a series of stations, which we will do on a weekly basis, where we focus on writing conventions such as punctuation and upper/lower case; the use of interesting words, text and literary tools; as well as logical story development and sequence.

End of Where We Are in Place and Time

We have heard wonderful biographies about Christopher Columbus's journey to North America, Amelia Earhart's solo flight around the world, Mirzo Ulugbek's important contributions to astronomy, Jane Goodall's research about chimpanzees, as well as from many other personalities in history.  As we are winding down with this Unit of Inquiry, the boys and girls in 3P have been working on their research skills by analyzing and deciphering the important information, writing biographies into proper format, and presenting their information in the form of a video autobiography.  I am so proud and impressed with their work, and they too should be proud!

This past week in math, we have been investigating about coordinates on maps, in the context of how explorers hundreds of years ago navigated the oceans.  Our Blue Bot challenge #4 was designed to have students work together in small groups so that they successfully navigate their way around the map in short order.  It was a very successful challenge, with a lot of collaboration and teamwork.

Our next UOI, How We Express Ourselves, begins this week. It promises to be an invigorating unit which all students, whether they are artistically inclined or not, will learn tremendously. The arts are a unique way to communicate a message or story--which happens to be our central idea.

This week I will be away on Thursday and Friday at a teacher conference in Oman, but the students will be in very good hands!  I look forward to meeting parents for student-teacher conferences on Wednesday.  See you then!

Biographies and Blue Bots

Hi 3P Parents;

Welcome back to the new school year. As you probably know we have been very busy so far.  Equally you have been probably wondering about what has been going on with regards to a mysterious character on campus.  Well, the mystery has been solved.  Today we had a special guest appear in our classroom.  Mirzo Ulugbek, the famous 14th century scientist and ruler from Central Asia surprised us with his visit to our classroom this morning.  The boys and girls have been doing quite a bit of research about the contribution of science from Central Asia, and of course Mirzo Ulugbek's name was the most prominent they came across in their research.  In any event, by his presence, he was able to clear up quite a bit of the mystery.  This helpful to the students as they prepare for their summative assessment next week.  They will be researching and writing a biography about a famous inventor ,scientist or explorer, as well as presenting their research in the form of a "video autobiography" where they pretend they are the person, and assume their character.  They have also been encouraged to dress up for their short video.  The children will also do a "ladder of feedback" where they provide constructive suggestions and feedback to each other.  In Math this week the focus has been to take our graphing to another level by doing cartesian coordination, better known as finding coordinates on a map.  They have been using the Blue Bots.  All in all, it has been an exciting week. They also managed to find some time to work on their Rainbow Sheep stories and their mental math.  Have a restful weekend!

Rainbow Sheep, Passion Hour and Holiday Cheer!

It is hard to believe we are about the begin our last week before the holiday.  The students have been busy writing their stories for our book "The Rainbow Sheep" which we are planning to self publish.  I will have more information on Friday at our class party.  As you may also know, the boys and girls have been working hard on their "passion hour project."  Passion Hour is a weekly timeslot where the students dedicate themselves to researching about something they are passionate about.  It could be a hobby, a leisure activity they enjoy, or a particular cause.  I have been impressed with the wide range of presentations they will make.  The focus for this activity is how to present an idea or topic, from a visual as well as a verbal perspective.  A large focus will be on communication skills, which is an invaluable skill.  In math this past week, the students have been learning about features of 3D shapes such as edges, vertices, faces and angles.  In literacy, as a result of some updated reading assessments, there have been some new reading groups established and we have reviewed how effective reading groups function.  Finally, we have been really working hard at identifying what successful "living learning journals" (LLVs) look like.  LLVs are a record of students learning and reflections about the Unit of Inquiry.  Our focus in our UOI these past two weeks have been about artifacts, and what they tell us about the past regarding how we live, as well as how discoveries have led to change.  We still have about 2 or 3 weeks of this UOI to continue after the holiday so there is much more coming.  I look forward to seeing you at the holiday party on Friday at 1:45.  We will spend about 20 minutes looking at the exhibits of the children before we enjoy the holiday cheer.  See you then!

P. S.   Be sure to see the new pictures below!

Hard-at-work Pictures

Grade 3 Students Feedbacking to Grade 9 Students

This week, 3P students were helping a grade nine design class by giving them feedback on their learning products they made.  Giving constructive feedback is a learned skill. I hope you enjoyed the attached pictures below:

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