Learning about Culture

Our third unit of the year has the following central idea: 

Our culture and our origin are expressed in different ways.

Over the past few weeks, we have been using our research skills to find out about different cultures. 

As a first step, we went to the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka as investigators!

It was exciting to find out that depending on the culture, people live in different homes...

wear different clothes...

have different beliefs...

make different kinds of art...

and also use different things to live. 

At school, we continued our research using computers. 

 With the help of a graphic organizer, we searched for important information to record so that we could share our findings with our classmates. 

We also looked at pictures of children from different cultures. 

We used a visible thinking routine called see, think, wonder to help us sharpen our observation skills, connect to what we already know, and pose wonders. 

We also learned that celebrations are important parts of cultures! 

After watching a video about Chinese New Year, 

we decided to create large dragons with the grade one learners! 

Here, we are using our social skills to work together so that we can plan out the pattern for the scales. 

Who knows? You may be seeing the dragons at school sometime...!

Have a great weekend!

Sharing our Personal Learning Projects

As our unit with the central idea, 
"Understanding our place in the world develops our understanding of our personal journeys" 
is coming to a close, we have been working on our personal learning projects. 

We all chose a skill or knowledge which we wanted to learn. 

We each thought about the following questions:

-What will I learn?

-How will I learn?

-What will I use?

-How can I show my learning?

Gabriel chose to learn how to sew an owl. 

Akiho learned to use stencils to draw a Christmas tree. 

Kate learned how to make chocolate brownies. 

Skye learned how to draw SpongeBob.  

He said he "kept trying and trying and got better and better!" 

 

Tallis learned some soccer tricks. 

 

Urara learned how to make a snow globe. 

 

Riana learned how to make a Christmas panda. 

 

Daichi learned how to sew Jibanyan mascots.

 

Ibrahim learned how to make a Lego car. 

 

Rina learned how to oil paint. 

 

Alice learned how to make mini Christmas trees. 

  

Minori learned to make necklaces and bracelets using stones, shells, and beads. 

While we were presenting, our classmates gave us feedback!

Feedback helps us understand what we are doing well, and what we can work on. 

When we give feedback, we help each other grow!

After the presentations, we used the feedback we received to teach our classmates our new skills or knowledge. 

We recorded our learning using cameras and tablets. 

This will help us reflect on our learning later on. 

Phew! It was a lot of work with lots of learning!

See you next time!

Independent Writing Project: Paper Puppet Play

During writing choice time, Kate and Pierre chose to work together to create a paper puppet show!

They wrote the story together, thinking about the characters, setting, problem, and solution. 

Kate is reading the story and Pierre is moving the characters. 

Enjoy the show!

Designing our Learning Space

For the past few weeks, we have been learning about learning!

This week, we decided to work together to design our learning space!

We started off discussing how the furniture in our classroom should be laid out. 

We thought about how the classroom layout would affect our learning. 

In the picture above, Pierre is drawing a classroom map to share his idea. 

We used our social skills and communication skills to make decisions together. 

Here, Skye and Minori are discussing that if we have extra desks and chairs, 

we could move to a different spot if we get distracted by our classmates so that we can stay in the green zone. 

Together, we made an exciting decision that we will no longer have set seats! 

From now on, we will each choose a spot where we think we can learn in a safe and focused way! 

This means that some of us will work on the floor or couch, while others will choose to sit or stand. 

Once we made our plan, we all got to work!

We cooperated to give our classroom a makeover!

If you are around, come and check out our new and improved classroom learning space!

Thanks for reading!

What is "learning"?

Howdy everyone!

Recently, we started off our second unit of inquiry with the central idea, 

"Understanding our place in the world develops our understanding of our personal journeys."

We started off the unit with a challenge to build the tallest standing structure! 

We only had 20 straws, one sheet of paper, and some tape. 

We worked together in small groups to come up with our best ideas!

Afterwards, we reflected on the process of how we worked to acheive our goals. 

On Tuesday, we brainstormed what we think it means to learn something. 

Here are the ideas we came up with.  

We then became detectives and explored our school to take pictures of things that help us learn! 

Here, Gabriel is taking pictures of things that helps children learn in early years!

After our exploration in our school, we transferred what we found out onto these yellow cards. 

We used our social skills to make sure we didn't write down the same ideas many times. 

We cooperated in our groups and made decisions together. 

In the next few lessons, we will be looking closely into what we have found out. 

We will be working together to see if the information on the cards can be sorted into different categories. 

If you see a second grader, ask us, "What are some things that help you learn?"

Till next time!