Homes and Change

In our last unit, we explored the different meanings of the word "home". 

Throughout our inquiry, we created "mobiles" to show our new learning. 

Each part of the mobile represents the many things that we feel is our home. 

For example, a house, city, country, the earth, or even the solar system are all things that we could call our home. 

As we kept learning, our mobiles kept getting longer and longer!

Since one of our key concepts was "change", at the end of our unit we showed what we would like our home to be like when we are all grown up!

People used their talents to show their learning in different ways!

Some of us made models...

Some of us made posters... 

or drawings...

...or computer programs like Minecraft!

Some of us showed in more than two ways, like making a model and...

...singing a lovely song!

We all used both our speaking and presenting skills to share our creations!

On the last day before winter break, we had to say good bye to our friend who moved back to Germany. 

We will miss you lots! Good luck at your new school Tatjana!

Timelines, Fall Trees, and Learner Profile Awards

In our unit of inquiry, we have been exploring the concept of change. 

We all created timelines of our lives to think about how we have changed as we got older. 

Here, we are using our presenting skills to share what we have created. 

We also made some connections to how leaves change colour in the fall. 

Look at all the beautiful colours!

We even put some animals that might be seen in trees, like owls, squirrels, and bats. 

Last week, some of us started giving out learner profile awards to each other!

Some of the awards given out were for being "caring", "principled", "open-minded", and "balanced". 

It was so great that we started noticing the positive things that different people were doing at school!

...and here are the people who received learner profile awards in our school assembly!

We are so proud!

Osaka Field Trip

On Thursday, we went on a field trip to two different museums in Osaka: 

the Osaka Castle Museum and Osaka History Museum. 

We went to explore the concept of how different places change over time. 

It was quite an adventure, since we took three different trains from Rokko Island!

Some people got to sit at the front of the train!

Once we arrived in Osaka, we walked through Osaka Castle Park to get to the first museum. 

Look at all the colourful leaves! 

First, we sat down for some snacks. 

At the Osaka Castle Museum, we headed to the top floor where we could see the entire city of Osaka!

As we viewed the city towards different directions, we made connections to what we explored in math about north, south, east, and west. 

In the museum, we saw some videos explaining how people used to live in the past. 

In the Osaka History Museum, we got to walk through replicas of actual places in Japan in the past. 

It felt like we were travelling through time!

Afterwards, we had lunch on some giant rocks we found. 

It was a day filled with learning and lots of walking!

Osaka Christmas Market

Yesterday we went to the Osaka Christmas Market. 

We sang Christmas carols at the opening ceremony in English, German, French, and Japanese!

Check out the video to hear our beautiful singing voices!

New Unit and Fact Family Kites

Last week we started our new unit of inquiry with the central idea: 

The place we live in the universe changes over time. 

We explored the concept of "change" by looking at some old pictures of the school. 

We used our research skills to notice details in the pictures and take notes. 

We also looked at pictures showing the development of Rokko Island. 

We realized that some changes take place over a long process, just like the way Rokko Island was built. 

In math, we learned about fact families. 

This helped us understand the relationships between addition and subtraction better. 

To show our understanding, we made "fact family kites". 

Each kite represented a fact family, and had two addition sentences and 

two subtraction sentences which all related to each other. 

Wow! Look at those cool designs!

Afterwards, we walked over to the field to fly our kites!

We played some games with our kites too!

What a great afternoon!