The Middle Primary Class @ ISOCS

Group Surveys and Concepts

2012-03-05T20:45:00.001+01:00

Last week's Personal Connections task really launched our unit today. Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed and/or help arrange interviews with others. This data was crucial to the next stage of our discussions. Students took it in turns to share their interviews in small groups. From this students identified four connections that were made amongst the responses and four differences. We noticed for example that many of the groups were work related, connected to a church, to the town they live in or to the family. They also pulled out vocabulary connected to the unit. Interesting words like participate, obligation, share, system, responsibility have begun to emerge. This task is much more difficult than it sounds as the students really had to listen to each other to draw out connections and be able to record their ideas clearly. Our next step is to analyse how our interviewees defined 'community' and come up with a common agreement about what it means. Only then can we take our next steps forward!

The PYP is a concept driven curriculum, which means we identify the big ideas that are significant to build our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in. It's more than learning facts and skills. Today we looked at the eight key PYP concepts: form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective, reflection and responsibility. I asked the students which concept was connected to our question from last week: What groups do I belong to? The students suggested it could be a FORM question: What is it like? and a CONNECTION question: How is it connected to other things? From here I asked the class to work with a partner and think of lots of questions we could ask about our unit and sort them into the concepts. They really came up with some great ideas:

FORM: How big does a group have to be to say it's a community? Who is in a community?
FUNCTION: Do communities need to have team work in them? How does a community work?
CAUSATION: What is it like to be in a community?
CHANGE.How does a community change? Can a community change to a different place? Does a community change it's size?
CONNECTION: In what community am I? Why is a community connected to a system?
PERSPECTIVE: Can you call every group a community? How do you start a group?
REFLECTION: What do we know about communities?
RESPONSIBILITIES: What are the most common responsibilities in a community? What are your responsibilities in a community?

These are such inviting questions for us to investigate. These and more are posted in our classroom.

One student made a very interesting point and asked could rights be a concept too as we'd studied rights and responsibilities last year. Yes, absolutely! There are more than just eight concepts to explore, but the IB has chosen eight main ones that cut across the subject areas and these are the starting point for our planning and teaching. A concept needs to be timeless, universal, abstract and transferable and so in our unit we will also be exploring the related concepts of networks, systems, community, needs and relationships. We'll be adding and sorting new questions throughout the unit, really trying to live up to our curriculum being 'concept driven'.

Our Unit Showcase

2012-03-01T08:58:00.000+01:00

It was wonderful to see so many visitors at our unit showcase yesterday. We appreciated having such a supportive and appreciative audience. There are many ways to share learning, but I think this showcase really demonstrated how our students had found their poetic voices to express their ideas, interests and creativity.

Kathy documented both the main rehearsal and our two performances for us, so please enjoy the slide shows. The fourth slide show is a collection of shots taken throughout the unit. You'll see the students going through all the many steps we took as we explored this unit. There are some shots of the students expressing themselves through dance with Miss Helen too. Enjoy!

Personal Connections 28.2.12

2012-02-26T13:44:00.002+01:00

Please note I will set this on Tuesday.

This week visit our new Communities wiki for instructions.

Plus: Tracks and reading

Our New Unit of Inquiry

2012-02-23T20:25:00.000+01:00

Welcome to 'Communities'! This is our fourth unit this year and it falls under the transdisciplinary theme 'How we organise ourselves'. We started the new unit by heading down to visit The Wall and finding where our unit falls in our school programme of inquiry. We usually start here as it is good to put our learning into context. The students from last year remembered we had investigated systems that helped us get organised in school and at home. This unit will build on the understandings we took away. We've already noted that word 'system' is a big concept word.

The conversation naturally moved into talking about what a community is. Some students made suggestions such as a community is somewhere they live. From here we dashed back upstairs and jotted down any thoughts we had at this initial stage. Next we used the 'Generate, Sort, Connect, Elaborate' routine we used on Tuesday. Each student wrote down groups they belonged to. It was interesting to hear students asking could they be part of a group on line, at a church, in school.........the ideas flowed very quickly. Then in groups the students sorted and connected their ideas, finally checking everyone was clear about the groups. We've generated a big selection of groups including family, friends, Teuflibach, clubs, ISOCS, religious groups and nationalities. Our next stage is to ask: Are these groups communities? How can you define the term community? The photographs show us working in a groups:

What makes a good performance?

2012-02-21T18:25:00.000+01:00

Please check out Mr. V's new blog Maths Inquirers! This blog keeps you informed about mathematics in the Middle Primary Class. Use the subscribe option on the right hand column to keep you updated.

Today, one of our main tasks was to think about the criteria for putting on a successful poetry performance. To gather and generate ideas we visited our wiki and watched ourselves performing our sound poems, viewed the London Schools' poetry site and then read information from two websites. We used the Visible Thinking routine 'Generate, Sort, Connect, Elaborate' to collect and organise our thinking. Students recorded one idea per post it note as they listened and read. Here's the rest of the routine step by step in pictures:

The students are ready with their ideas on post its.
The question is at the centre of the map.

The students go around in turn reading out their idea and place it on the chart.

The students begin to group similar ideas together as the routine progresses.

Students finalise the groupings and draw a line around each group.
They make and explain connections between groups.
They then elaborate by discussing some of the groupings they have made

Students make sure all the post its are stuck down!

The concept map is complete and on display.

Our final steps next week will be to label each group and create a rubric so we can assess our performances we are currently putting together for you!

Thinking Made Visible

2012-02-20T20:30:00.000+01:00

We are always using the word 'think': What do you think of that? What are you thinking? Use your brain and think! Think harder! However we seldom stop to think about what does 'thinking' actually involve.

Researchers at Harvard University have been looking at why thinking is a fundamental to learning. They've discovered that it's crucial for us all to be alert to the opportunities to think and care about wanting to think deeply. It's also important for us all to understand how we learn and be aware of our own thinking processes (metacognition). Without thinking deeply we do not truly understand what we are trying to learn or become enthusiastic, independent learners. In order to help students (and adults) uncover their thinking Visible Thinking has developed routines to help us think deeper and suggested ways to share our thinking and make it visible. I've used a number of these routines since I was exposed to these ideas while in my previous post and by attending a Visible Thinking workshop two years ago. Before the holiday I held a workshop for our teachers to explore why developing a culture of thinking is crucial for our students and helped them develop the practical tools to do this. It is an ongoing professional inquiry for us here at ISOCS.

In our class today we used the Visible Thinking routine called Chalk Talk. I actually started by showing students a Chalk Talk the teachers had created as a model. I then set out a number of questions to find out the students' thoughts about our closing unit. They then went from question to question adding their responses. It had real power because the students could not talk! In fact they expressed how they liked the experience of just focusing on their own ideas at first in silence and then being able to read all of the students' ideas. They could add comments or write questions or answers to what was written. This routine ensured everyone was 'heard' equally and really given time to respond. At the end of the lesson we could see how the 'discussion' on paper had grown. We'll have this routine displayed (or visible) when you visit next Wednesday.

Which Learner Profile/Attitude were you in this unit? Why?

What questions or wonderings do you have now?

What surprised you in this unit?

Discussing the responses at the end of the lesson

Personal Connections 20.2.12

2012-02-20T14:07:00.000+01:00

Please check out your Learning Log task on our wiki.

In addition:
Reading (fiction and non-fiction)
Tracks

Poetry Performance

2012-01-31T20:52:00.000+01:00

Today we used the fantastic sound poems the students created for last week's Learning Log and explored another way the arts can be used to perform. Students worked with a partner or group to experiment with sound effects using musical instruments. We really enjoyed listening to each poetry performance, giving feedback in the form of 'I liked..' and 'Next time I would..........'. We realised you have to be very organised to be ready with your sound effect! Watch the video at the end of this post to find out what our poems sounded like.

As we are coming to the end of this unit I asked students to think about how they would like to show what they have learned. We brainstormed our ideas about poems we could perform and how we could perform them. Some students would like to create a new piece, others would like to work with a poem they've already written or read in a poetry book. We also viewed some performances by other students for some new ideas, although we've collected lots of ideas along the way!

Sound Poetry Performance from ISOCS on Vimeo.

Members of the Middle Primary Class at ISOCS perform "Sound Poems" they wrote as part of their unit of inquiry into Poetry.

Personal Connections (30.1.12) and Yves Tanguy

2012-01-30T15:25:00.000+01:00

Today we looked at the work of the surrealist artist Yves Tanguy. He explored the imagination and dreams through his art work. We talked a little about what we saw in his art and wondered what he had been thinking or been influenced by. Students noticed the artist's skill to create a three dimensional effect. One student commented that maybe the Second World War had influenced one of his pieces after seeing the dates of Tanguy's life (1900-1955). This showed great awareness considering surrealism was born out of the despair of World War One. I then asked students to spend ten minutes sketching a dream they had experienced. They could also mix it with reality or the imaginary.

Sharing the dream

Using this as an inspiration students created their own dream poem. It's very satisfying to see how independently the students can now write poetry sprinkled with similes, adjectives and action verbs.

The next step was to print out the poem and cut it out. Some students have already begun to use mixture of text and paper to collage the dream to create multi-textured pieces of art work.

Personal Connections

Your 'Personal Connections' task is to choose two of Tanguy's paintings by following the link and complete a 'I See, I Think, I Wonder' routine for each. If you click on the picture, it will enlarge. Remember to be detailed in your response and use a line guide. Please write the title of the painting at the top of the page.

Plus: Tracks and reading

Due date: Monday 6th February

Check out Kathy's blog post about the poet Edward Lear. It's the anniversary of his death today. As well as writing 'The Owl and the Pussy Cat', Lear was particularly famous for his limericks.

Expressing Feelings Through Art

2012-01-24T20:46:00.000+01:00

We've been exploring and discovering so much new vocabualry during this unit, that is was time to have our language inspire our art. Following on from yesterday's 'feelings' poetry, each student chose four feeling words. Using an online thesaurus students found exciting synonyms and brainstormed these in their art journals. They then chose one feeling to explore through art. Influenced by the vocabulary and by the style of Henri Matisse's paper cuts, students created their own masterpiece. There's always such a great vibe in the room when we get creative! You can't miss our pictures on the wall when you walk into our classroom.

We also returned to discussing poetry in our reading groups, using the same four questions from last week. It was great fun to hear some new poems too by Jack Prelutsky, Spike Milligan, Allan Ahlberg and Shel Silverstein.

We've also been looking at some poems performed by students to start gathering our ideas together for our own poetry performances at the end of the unit. We will be inviting you along to be our audience! This will be after the break. Please search out a black outfit at home for your child to wear.

Our Top Similes

2012-01-23T20:11:00.000+01:00

Today we took a gallery walk around all those great ideas for similes that the students have brought in. Out of these we each chose one we really liked. In no particular order, here our 'Top Similes':

As cross as a bull.
As ruffled as a potato chip.
You are as tall as a mountain.
He is as fit as Usain Bolt.
That is as smooth as glass.
It's as easy as ABC.
As angry as a hungry bull.
As cold as ice.
As warm as toast.
She’s as smooth as a snake.
As fit as an Olympic athlete.

The students performed their sound poems too, including one with recorded sound effects, a shape poem and one with complimentary illustrations. I was very impressed with the students' choice of vocabulary. These will be up for display shortly.

Performing a sound poem

G enjoying the humour of his poem

Reading our simile chart

Sharing a Learning Log

As we were writing poetry about feelings today, I really noticed how students are making much more informed choices about the framework and language they choose. For example some chose acrostic, list or free verse. The students have begun to develop a much wider repertoire of poetry frameworks and language.

I have asked students to read, practice Tracks and visit the Wiki over the next couple of days. Mr. V. will set a maths task this Wednesday to be handed in on Wednesday 1st February.

The Explicit Teaching of Writing

2012-01-18T15:08:00.001+01:00

One thing I learned when completing a training course a few years ago was that as teachers we needed to be teaching the wider experience of writing as we often spent time on a very narrow variety of forms.

'The act of writing consists of multiple processes, strategies and conventions that intertwine and overlap. Teachers need to be explicit in demonstrating and talking to students about what effective writers do. Teachers also need to provide opportunities for students to apply new understandings in their own authentic writing contexts.'

First Steps Writing Resource Book p.1

Think of all the purposes you actually write for: shopping lists (instructions), sending invitations via email (socialise), making up the rules in our households (explain) and recording minutes to business meetings (recount). Students need to be aware that every time we write, we are writing with a specific purpose in mind. Each purpose we choose has a variety of forms and a framework that helps us organise our ideas. In addition there are a variety of language features that we use to bring out the best in our writing. Using 'First Steps' as a resource for writing there are eight purposes for writing:

Writing to Entertain
Writing to Describe
Writing to Explain
Writing to Inquire¨
Writing to Instruct
Writing to Persuade
Writing to Recount
Writing to Socialise

Today we revisited the purpose behind writing poetry in general. We agreed we used it to express our ideas and to entertain. We discussed how many forms we had already encountered in our unit including list poems, story poems, diamante poems and acrostic and the form lay outs or frameworks for these forms. We also saw that in these forms poets use language features such as powerful adjectives, action verbs, alliteration, similes, rhyme, onomatopoeia and devices such as a repeating line or refrain. Pattern and rhythm is particularly important. As poets as ourselves we are deepening our understanding and skills in order to write powerful poetry ourselves.

Using an 'Explorers' Circle' together we identified the frameworks and language features from a free verse poem 'The Song the Train Sang' by Neil Adams.

The students will now look at a wide variety of forms of poetry, including some new forms such as haiku, tanka, cinquain, rondelot, shape and lantern, and identify frameworks and language features for each using the format above.

Poetry and Art

2012-01-18T09:57:00.002+01:00

Following on from last week, we returned to the four questions we used to dig deeper into poetry.

Does this poem remind you of anything?
Does it remind you of anything you've read?
Are there any questions you'd like to ask the poet about?
Are there any questions you'd like to ask of anybody or anything in the poem?

Each reading group selected a poem and discussed these questions. When they had really talked at length each group made notes of their key ideas which they then shared with the class. We got to hear about some new poems as well as some that are becoming firm favourites. For me, I was particularly interested in the text to real life connections the students were making. We are also seeing how many poems are dramatised real life experiences.

We also finished off our animal poems by having a Quaker read where each child stands up in a quiet room only when they are ready to speak. It was a very effective strategy that allowed a quiet space in which the poetry could really be heard clearly.

We finished the day by responding * to art. I showed the class a piece by a mystery artist and asked them to record their response to the piece using the three sentence starters 'I see, I think, I wonder'. What interesting responses resulted. One student thought the shapes could be leaves coloured to represent different seasons, another thought it could be a bush hiding a secret the artist didn't want us to know, some saw hands, others seaweed, many colours, excitement, a coral reef and the shape of a clam. We thought the artist must like these colours, maybe he just did a random drawing to show how he felt, it wasn't easy to make, it's bigger than you think, the artist wanted to say something happy and funny to us and the leaves are all different. We wondered what the 'HM 53' represented in the corner, if we could make a picture like this, what was the artist thinking before he made this and if the artist liked summer and fall.

In our next step the students are going to create their own title for the piece before I reveal Matisse's chosen title. This session then leads to next week's investigation into poetic vocabulary and how we can create art to express our poetic ideas and emotions. Henri Matisse's paper cuts are our inspiration.

We watched this video in class:

*There are two element to the visual arts: responding and creating.

Action Verbs

2012-01-16T19:18:00.002+01:00

Today we looked at how interesting choices of verbs can bring our poetry alive. We used an interactive lesson exploring verbs found by Kathy. This was also a good opportunity to revisit adverbs, adjectives and nouns. Using the structure provided by the site the students created animal poetry. We are gradually listening to one another's poems giving constructive feedback. This feedback can take the form of a specific compliment or a suggestion to add or improve vocabulary. This is really helpful as it can be difficult to find an alternative word or phrase yourself.

A quick update on our Monday schedule. I have swapped over our 'Monday Routines' (5Ws and How, headline writing, DIY writing and Tracks) to after break instead of before break. I also now have a new group of students using 'Look, Cover, Say, Write, Check' to learn some words they have misspelt. They are free to add words they would like to learn too. Our headline sharing happens in the afternoon. This is something you could discuss on the way to school with your child: What could your weekend headline be?

I am noticing students sharing poetry in class just for fun, please feel free to borrow a school poetry book in your Thursday book selection with Mr. V.

Personal Connections (Homework) 16.1.12

2012-01-16T19:09:00.001+01:00

TASK 1
Similes
Stick the Similes sheet in your Learning Log. Using your new understanding of similes, create new similies using the listed words.

TASK 2
Sounds Good

On the first page:
Brainstorm
In your Learning Log write down all the sounds you can possibly think of. Here's a start:
crashing, banging, whispering, whistling, splashing, pattering

Drafting
Create poetry lines using these words. You might have more than one line for each.
Examples:
Rocks crashing down a mountainside.
Hammer banging on a nail.
Wind whispering in the tree tops.
Whispering voices heard through the house.

Look, I've started a poem!

On the second page:
Publish
Select lines from your draft and organise your lines in a way you like. Publish your poem on the next page. You can illustrate it, put the lines into shapes, in fact however you would like to present your poem. Be ready to perform your piece. (If you are using straight lines, please use your line guide.)

Plus reading each evening and Tracks
Due: Monday 23rd January

Our Earliest Connections With Poetry

2012-01-11T22:48:00.001+01:00

At the beginning of our unit students were asked to bring in a rhyme parents sung or spoke to them when they were 'really' little. We have a fine collection of these on our wall. Then I asked students to learn a new finger rhyme to teach the Early Years students. On Tuesday afternoon students worked in groups to teach the new rhymes. To end the session we all sat together and heard each rhyme in turn. You should have seen the excitement on one particular student's face as he gradually gained the confidence to join in with a rhyme. I really appreciated the care and patience the Middle Primary students demonstrated. Have a look at some of the photographs below.

It was important to put this learning experience into context. When we returned to our classroom we discussed two important questions:

Why do we listen to and learn nursery, bedtime and finger rhymes when we are very young?

To get us to sleep
It makes us laugh
So that we can learn something, it’s nice to learn rhymes
So we can do something when we’re bored
So children can teach their friends
These are things our mums & dads teach us, we can then teach them to our children and friends. We’re passing on a tradition.
It’s sharing words
Helps us learn to talk
Builds a relationship with the person we repeat the rhyme with
Calms children
Children become interested in words and actions, engages the emotions
Basic concepts introduced e.g. numbers, size, growth
Uses the skills of listening & observing
Sharing experience
Important to be exposed to rhyme early on in our lives (foundation of reading and writing).

Why did we teach the EY nursery, bedtime and finger rhymes in this unit?

So the EYs know the poems too, it’s good to share and teach others
We’re looking at poems in our unit, these are a kind of poem
These types if rhymes are often our earliest experience of rhyme and poetry
We're inquiring into how we use poetry to express ourselves.

The next day an Early Years student shared a newly learned poem from home in our 'Celebration of Learning'. It was wonderful to know this action had been inspired by the Middle Primary visit. A big thank you to the Early Years for a delightful afternoon.

Creativity

2012-01-10T15:20:00.000+01:00

Transdisciplinary theme: How we express ourselves
Central idea: The Arts create another reality and lets us discover new worlds.
Concepts: form, connection, reflection, poetry, expression, performance, creativity
Title: The Voice of the Poet

Over the past couple of days we have been reconnecting with our unit of inquiry 'The Voice of the Poet'. In our central idea there's the word 'create' and our focus attitude is 'creativity'. So we started the term off by watching the video on our wiki to help us think about what it means to be creative through language and the arts. I asked the questions:

What’s the message in the film?
How can we be creative?
Do we all have creative potential?

Watch the video and see what you think.

Obvious to you. Amazing to others. from Derek Sivers on Vimeo.
Obvious to you. Amazing to others.
From http://sivers.org/obvious
Outtake from the book "Anything You Want" - by Derek Sivers

I continued by then asking the students to discuss the following ideas in groups and then share their ideas with the whole class. It is my target this term to encourage students to go beyond the obvious and really get discussing in depth.

What is poetry?
Why read and write poetry?
What are my thoughts about poetry?
How can I use poetry to express myself?
Are there ways I could use the arts to perform and reflect on poetry? (I explained to the class how we'll be using the arts to perform our poetry at the end of the unit.)

Today we've been entertained by the poet Michael Rosen. We viewed his poem 'Michael's Big Book of Bad Things' and laughed a lot!

Then in groups we discussed:

Does this poem remind you of anything?
Does it remind you of anything you've read?
Are there any questions you'd like to ask the poet about?
Are there any questions you'd like to ask of anybody or anything in the poem?

These are really good questions suggested by the poet himself to get children engaged in the poems they read. We certainly found lots of connections to the 'bad things' we have done! We also looked at the layout of the poem and discovered how a 'story poem' can be organised. Using this as our inspiration we created our own story poems, some based on real life situations.

(Check out Michael Rosen's great website.)

image:penguin.com.au

Personal Connections (Homework) 10.1.12

2012-01-10T09:09:00.003+01:00

Exploring the Language Features of Poetry
Similes

We've been discovering that similes can be found just about anywhere; from the printed word to oral conversation; in language, literature, and music. A simile is an analogy that compares two things that are alike in one way. To help you identify a simile, know that the words “like” or “as” are always used. Examples of similes are: “cute as a kitten,” comparing the way someone looks to the way a kitten looks, and “as busy as a bee” comparing someone’s level of energy to a fast-flying bee.

Similes can make our language more descriptive and enjoyable. Writers, poets, and songwriters make use of similes often to add depth and emphasize what they are trying to convey to the reader or listener. Similes can be funny, serious, mean, or creative.

We read the famous poem by Robert Burns:

A Red, Red Rose
O My Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O My Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel, awhile!
And I will come again, my luve
Tho' it ware ten thousand mile!

http://library.thinkquest.org

After listening to the poem we discussed why the poet compared love to a red rose. Students described how a rose is beautiful and that love is special. Red is the colour of love, like valentine hearts. This led to the idea that emotions can be given colours. The rose is also the romantic flower men give to women, you wouldn't give a black rose. Finally that roses often make up wedding bouquets.

We also noticed how different the language is to the English we speak. This led to an interesting comment that maybe language changes with time. Perhaps the way we speak will sound old fashioned in years to come! We also observed there are regional differences in the way English is spoken.

What do these similes mean?

Your task:
1. Read through the sheets describing similes.
2. As you read, listen or talk this week, collect similes to bring to school and post on our simile chart.
3. Just for fun, check the Using ICTs @ ISOCS blog and try out some similes using Flickr Poet.

(Tracks begins again next week.)
Information from: http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-similes.html

A Child's Garden of Poetry

2012-01-04T20:24:00.001+01:00

For the ISOCS Middle Primary Class, which is investigating "the voice of the poet":

One of our loyal agents sent me the link to A Child's Garden of Poetry, and a video of "Hope is a thing with feathers" by Emily Dickinson.

"In this (HBO) half hour special, children discuss the meaning and mystery of poetry and recite some of their favorites by heart. Poets featured in this program are Li Bai, Matsuo Basho, Robert Frost, E. E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, Mary Ann Hoberman, Langston Hughes, Edward Lear, Claude McKay, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Carl Sandburg, William Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Wordsworth, and William Butler Yeats."

Screen shot of http://www.poetryfoundation.org/

Click through to watch and listen to "Hope is the thing with feathers", as well as two other videos of other poems.

Daguerreotype of the poet Emily Dickinson,

taken circa 1848. (Original is scratched.)

From the Todd-Bingham Picture Collection

and Family Papers, Yale University

Manuscripts & Archives Digital Images Database,

Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.

You'll find the text of "Hope is the thing with feathers" and a bit of commentary at this web page from the English Department of the City University of New York (CUNY), Brooklyn.

Read about Emily Dickinson at Wikipedia.

Force-O-Rama

2011-12-29T21:13:00.003+01:00

Force-O-Rama from ISOCS on Vimeo.
At the end of the unit of inquiry into Force and Motion, the Middle Primary Class at ISOCS decided to present a Force-O-Rama (based loosely on their visit to Technorama Science Museum in Winterthur). This 20 minute video tells the story of a whole day of preparation.

Music by Kevin MacLeod at http://incompetech.com/ used by permission under an Attribution Creative Commons license.

Getting inside the mind of the poet

2011-12-13T18:30:00.000+01:00

I am encouraging the students to just pick up a poem book and see where it might fall open. This way you might come across something new and surprising. Today I picked up a collection by Shel Silverstein and came across two very different poems. One called 'The Crocodile's Toothache' was just downright funny. The second really got us talking. After we had read 'Lester' I asked students what would they like to ask the poet. Out of this emerged a discussion about wishes. Why did he choose three, why not, two or four? Why did the wishes keep multiplying? Some students begun to be the poet and find answers to these questions. As an adult I thought, 'Oh yes, everyone would have made the connection to how often wishes come in threes in fairy tales', but the students clearly didn't. Sometimes we assume too much. It was great to unravel our ideas. Some said, well families come in threes so it's a good number, the number can be lucky, it's not too little or too small...............

Then our discussion came to the message behind the poem. It was interesting to hear very opposite views being expressed, but we discussed the concept of perspective and how we should try to be open to differing views. I listened, occasionally putting in a comment but really trying to let the students have the space to pursue their ideas. Some students came to the conclusion the poem was all about not being greedy, some that you should enjoy what you have, others that if you had that many wishes you could use them to help others.

Discussing "Lester" from ISOCS on Vimeo.
As part of their unit of inquiry into the "The Voice of the Poet" the Middle Primary Class at ISOCS listened to "Lester" by Shel Silverstein, and then talked about what they thought the poet was trying to say...

You can also visit Shel Silverstein's website for children. The presentation is very original and you can also listen to the poet perform his work.

If you come across any great poems please send them in for us to share.

image:amazon.com

Personal Connections (Homework) 12.12.11

2011-12-12T18:25:00.000+01:00

Top Secret task:
Please practice your lines for Wednesday's presentation.

For after the break:
Please learn your rhyme and finger movements to teach the EY when we come back in January 2012.

For during the break:
Have a fabulous time with your family and friends!

How We Express Ourselves

2011-12-06T16:53:00.000+01:00

Our third unit of inquiry falls under the transdisciplinary theme: How we express ourselves. So I asked the questions: What does express mean? How can we express ourselves? The students' responses are below:

How to show your feelings.

Express means show your feelings.

Also to be yourself and show what you like and who you really are.

You can do different things to express yourself poems, acting, talking, singing and really many ways. Teaching probably too.

You can express yourself by doing hobbies you like. You can show what you don’t like by not doing them.

You can also express yourself by sign language, by writing and by talking. So many different ways. Animals even communicate e.g. dogs bark when they are happy, they talk to each other.

You can also express yourself by facial expressions and by what you like and you don’t like. You can say it if you like it or don’t like it.

Do animals talk to other animals in y language we don’t know?

You can express yourself through art. You can make sad paintings. You can show you are happy by an exciting painting. You can make abstract painting.

Last year we expressed ourselves with Ms. Slavka. She put some music on and we said how it made us feel. We wrote about it.

We also listened to and relaxed to music.We made imaginary stories. We talked about our imagination.

Animals can express their feelings if we spend time looking at them. Perhaps we can find out what they are trying to say.

You can also express your feelings by puppet shows, by showing shops with paintings, paintings, museums. You can show your feelings in a book and in a diary.

You can build giant structures to express your feelings. It could be a landmark.

I looked at my dog when she wasn’t looking. I waited and you can see what they do when nobody is there. When my dog is bored she runs around. She treats a toy like her food, she throws it around.

It was fascinating to gather the students ideas together this really is a pre-assessment. I was delighted to see some of the past connections they made with previous express units, as well as connections to the world they have observed around. I was interested to see the word communication beginning to emerge as this is our Learner Profile and skills focus in this unit.

It's amazing how fast you can write a poem. We brainstormed lots of verbs, adjectives and nouns about ourselves and then chose the best to each create an individual line. We wrote these straight into a class poem. I really wanted students to see how spontaneous writing can be. We even stood up and performed it together, noticing that there were certain patterns in our poem. Someone made a link, noticing that we could read it with a rhythm, just like in a dance or music.

In Our Class......

An active, sporty tennis player.

An awesome, quick rowing guy.

A sporty, skilled football player.

A cool, energetic thinking girl.

An amazing, fast running boy.

A smart, fast thinking teacher.

An awesome, cool, strong kid.

An awesome, speedy, computerish student.

An intriguing, little, energetic runner.

A creative, helpful student.

A lover of my country.
A clever, good horseback riding girl.

(Understanding where to use commas came in useful too! Brainpop had a useful video and we consulted a grammar book too.)

Our poem is on the Starboard behind us

Personal Connections (Homework) 5.12.11

2011-12-05T15:39:00.001+01:00

To help start our new inquiry into the arts we are going to go back to our first experiences connected to poetry. 'Incy Wincy Spider' will always have a special place in my heart! Think about a nursery rhyme that you loved as a young child. It should be in the language you first heard it. Bring a copy of the rhyme into school. On the new wiki respond to the questions I have set.

Plus: Tracks and reading

Place Value and Assessment

2011-11-30T18:52:00.000+01:00

We’ve wrapped up our exploration into measurement for the time being. The class are now moving onto an inquiry into the concept of place value, although there are many connections to be made with measurement.

Mr. Vasiliy will be assessing the students over the next few days, finding out where the children are in their understanding. There are a wide variety of diagnostic tasks that will be placed in the portfolios for you to share with your child. These are taken from our maths resource First Steps Mathematics. After assessment we can then decide where the students should go next. We can also see where the students are on the mathematics continuums that we send home to you at the end of a unit.

Have a look around for numbers and notice how they are used. Are they used as a code, for counting or ordering? Practice saying numbers together at every opportunity.

Try out these games on Maths Masters to help develop an understanding of an incredibly important concept that underpins many elements of mathematics.

images: razorleaf.com & zoonar.com