Memoir Publishing Party

During Writers Workshop, we have been working on writing memoirs. A memoir is a collection of personal memories related to specific moments in the author's life. In other words, it is a window into a person's life.

As authors, we worked through the writing process to publish our own book! A focus point for this unit was to make our writing come to life using metaphors and similes. 

We celebrated our published pieces by hosting a party to share our books with other students in the school. 

We chose to make our party a "Fancy French" theme and set up a restaurant with menus for people to order food and drinks from while they listened to our memoirs.

The servers were VERY busy!

We are so proud of our accomplishments! 

If you were not able to make it to the party, feel free to take a look at the books in the Grade 5/6 classroom library!

Christmas Tree

Although it's a bit early, this week we enjoyed decorating our Christmas tree together. 

We were quite happy with how we looked in the end!

Thank you to Adam and his family in Slovakia for donating the tree!

Designing Buildings

We have been exploring the following Central Idea: 

The construction of buildings and structures is dependent upon environmental factors, 

human ingenuity, and available materials. 

As architects, we used our research skills to gather information about a particular area in a city. 

We then each designed a building to serve a particular function considering the following questions:

• How do environmental factors, contexts, and communities influence architecture?

• How will the construction of my building influence the community and the environment?

Take a look at the description of the project below to find out more!

Architectural Styles

Last week, we zoomed into the following line of inquiry: 

How architectural designs have changed over time. 

As we used the thinking move of "observing closely and describing what's there", we sorted photos of various architectural styles into five groups based on the features we noticed. 

As we sorted, we were also working on developing our social skills as well as our communication skills. 

The first video below shows our first attempt at working together as a team. In our reflection discussion which took place afterward, many of us mentioned that having multiple conversations taking place at the same time made it difficult for us to communicate ideas to each other. The positioning of our bodies also made it hard for us to hear our classmates who were far away from us. 

After reflecting, we improved the quality of our discussions in several ways. 

First of all, we decided to sit in one large circle so that we were able to see everyone. 

Secondly, we took turns to talk to make sure all of our opinions were heard. 

Thirdly, we placed the photos and paper in the middle so that everyone was able to reach them. 

Take a look at this video showing our second attempt! 

In this learning process, we used our thinking skills (metacognition) as well to improve the quality of our discussion without relying on the teacher to tell us what to do! This way, we are becoming more independent in the decisions we make in our learning journey. 

Below are the groups of architectural styles we found out about. We were also able to order them into a timeline just by judging from the features!

See you again!

Wonder Wall

Wondering and asking questions are the driving forces of inquiry! This year, we created a class Wonder Wall - a space for us to post our questions. 

This project was inspired by the song Wonderwall by the band Oasis!

We watched the music video and discussed the tools the band used to make their video impactful and memorable.


Take a look at how we channeled our inner rock stars!

This is what our Wonder Wall currently looks like in our classroom.

We will continue to add our wonderings throughout the year!

Thinking Moves

For the past week, we have been learning about thinking moves. 

Thinking moves, coined by educational researchers at Harvard Graduate School of Education, are thinking dispositions which directly support the development of understanding. 

Becoming aware of how we think and learn helps us plan the types of learning engagements necessary to progress in our units of inquiry. This understanding is important in PYP schools since learners play an active role in shaping the direction of the unit.

In order to help us understand how the thinking moves work, we discussed units of inquiry from the past few years and identified specific learning engagements in which we used each thinking move. 

For example, over the past two years in the Grade 4 class, the book club discussions were centered around questions posed by the learners (thinking move: wondering and asking questions). During such discussions, we often looked at the plot from the lenses of various characters (thinking move: considering different viewpoints). 

This process of reflecting on past lessons and experiences involved a thinking move as well: making connections!

Here are all of the connections we were able to come up with in relation to the eight thinking moves. 

We will continue to add to the list throughout the year!

We also visited an art exhibit at Kobe Fashion Museum where we continued to practice using the thinking moves to appreciate the artwork. 

This year, our electronic portfolio using the Seesaw platform will be organised by thinking moves. 

We are very excited to further develop our thinking skills throughout various areas of the curriculum!

The Release of The Lion King DSK Movie

Big news! 

The Lion King movie featuring the Grade 3 and 4 classes of 2018 to 2019 has finally been released!

Sit back and enjoy the show!

Welcome, Grades 5/6!

Welcome, Grades 5/6!

On the first day of school, we were so excited to see new and familiar faces!

We did many community-building activities to get to know each other.

For example, in the photos below we are working in teams and looking for similarities we already have, such as favourite movies, places we've been, and what we like to do during our free time. 

We also worked on some group challenges to strengthen our collaboration skills and discussed what we would like group work to be like. 

Social skills and communication skills will often be applied throughout the school year in various contexts. 

It's so important to build a strong foundation at the beginning of the year!