FORM: What are hormones and what do they do?

Central Idea: 

    Hormonal changes during puberty allow for the possibility of reproduction. 

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This flowchart in our classroom shows the mini-enquiries we will be exploring during our unit to gain a deep understanding of our central idea:

We searched the internet to find interesting facts about cells and then sorted our findings:

 Line of Inquiry:   What hormones are and do

We learnt what hormones are and how they are responsible for transformation of a frog and a butterfly.  We learnt how to create flowcharts in literacy and wrote explanation texts from reading we had done. 

Reflecting on what we have learnt about hormones and what do we still want to learn about them?

Flexible Seating Proposal

We are trialling a new idea for learning in our classroom which we are calling flexible seating.  Instead of having assigned seating arrangements, we now have the freedom and responsibility to select places and with classmates who will best have us to learn.  

Studies repeatedly show that children should not be spending long periods of time seated at tables, so we have created standing tables for times during the day we want to stand and do a learning activity.  

To help us with this proposal, we used the following visible thinking routine to discuss how we can make this successful:

How our flexible seating classroom looked today for our writing activity:

FORM: What hormones are and do DRAMA

Central Idea:  

    Hormonal changes during puberty allow for the possibility of reproduction. 

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Our first line of inquiry to help us understand our central idea is:

       FORM: What hormones are and do

To find out about hormones, this week we have been learning that hormones are chemical messengers to cells in living things.   We read about the role hormones play in the transformation of a tadpole to a frog and also with the caterpillar-butterfly. To help solidify our understandings of hormones and to develop our creative skills, we created and performed some short plays that explain how hormones help to transform the caterpillar-butterfly.

Here are some of our scenes:

Unit of Inquiry: Who We Are

We are beginning our new unit of inquiry under the PYP Transdisciplinary Theme: Who We Are


Our central idea is:

Hormonal changes during puberty allow for the possibility of reproduction.

Our lines of inquiry (help us to understand our central idea):

° Form: What hormones are and do

° Change: Physical and emotional changes from hormones

° Function: How humans reproduce

° Connection: How cells, hormones, puberty and human reproduction are connected

As mentioned during the parent-teacher evening, each week I will send you a fairly detailed email updating you on what we have learnt during the week and what we will be learning about in the next week to give you an opportunity to discuss with your child their understandings of changes they will experience during puberty and sexual reproduction.

This week, we are enquiring into what cells and hormones are by looking at the role hormones play in the transformation of tadpoles to frogs and caterpillars to butterflies. By understanding what hormones do in bodies, next week we can take our understanding further by enquiring into the endocrine system.

The following 2 weeks, we will learn begin enquiring into the physical and emotional changes hormones create in the human body during puberty (The PE teachers will be focusing on social changes that may occur during puberty).

After learning about how puberty prepares the body for the possibility of reproduction, we then will enquire into the sexual reproduction systems and the following week how babies are created and develop in the womb.

The final weeks of the unit are open to children to enquire into topics of their own interest related to the central idea.

Throughout the unit, should you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

In literacy, we are focusing on the reading strategy: Determining Importance

Our writing focus is explanation text writing.

In maths, we have begun our unit enquiring into the central idea:

Maths Unit: Fractions / Decimals / Percentages

We began our new unit enquiring into fractions, decimals and percentages by looking at our central idea and in table groups, writing down everything we knew about it.

The purpose behind this was to:

° pre-assess where we are at with our understandings

° start tuning the learners into what we will be enquiring into by reflecting on what we already know

° help us gain an understanding of why it is important that we learn about how to use fractions / decimals / % as we do use them in our daily lives

Some of our understandings:

After jotting down our understandings, the groups passed their posters around. They read through the other group's ideas and circled one idea they felt was interesting.  The posters were continually passed around so that everyone could read and think about different understandings we have.

Tomorrow, we will revisit these ideas and each student will choose 3 skills of using fractions /decimals /%   to learn how to do during the week and discovering how we might use those 3 skills in real life situations. 

This will enable each student to take ownership of their learning by evaluating their own understandings and levels and where they feel their next steps should be. It will also allow for a greater range of differentiation as fractions tends to be that particular maths strand where we have so many differing levels of understandings. 

They will be encouraged to buddy up with other classmates who identify the same skills and at the end of the week, they will create an activity that teaches others in the class the skill the enquired into in a creative way.

This will help them further understand our earlier enquiry into the learning pyramid which we often refer to:

We know have a pretty solid understanding in our class that we should be teaching others what we have learnt to help us deepen our understandings and to help retain new knowledge.  

Personal Enquiries

Central Idea: We can discover and share conceptual understandings in a variety of ways.

With our personal enquiries, we are exploring and reflecting on different ways we can creatively and effectively share our understanding.

This is also helping to reinforce our enquiry into the learning pyramid (below) which taught us how we best retain information and can deepen our understandings by teaching others what we have learnt. 

Here are some of our creative ideas for sharing thus far:


Julia and Chiara created an innovative quiz game to help teach others about their findings about what is happening with marine life:

Lewis created a modern fighter plane to help teach the differences in their structure with those used during WWII which he enquired into:

Ayana created a game to help teach about animal testing. 'Animals' needed to run to the safety of a an animal welfare organisation without being caught by scientists.  Quiz questions aimed to teach about found facts about animal testing were also used:

Kayla had made a collage of an Egyptian pyramid to help teach what she had learnt about them:

Pavi had made an interactive display using magnets and a quiz card matching game to help teach what she had learnt about marine food chains and penguins:

Neha had created an IT resource, board game and hunt to help teach what she had learnt about species extinctions since the time of the dinosaurs:

Our Appreciation Messages we are Sending to the Medair Volunteers

Dear Medair Volunteers,

Thank you for coming to teach us about refugees in our migration unit. We would like to tell you a little bit about what we learned from the experience and thank you for coming.

Thank you so much for coming! It a very special and different day! It really would have felt like if we had limited money if some people hadn't brought like 500$ casually. It was good that it rained, so we could get the full experience. Thank you so much for your time. Sincerely, Tim	From Ayana: Dear Medair Volunteers, You were so generous to come to ISL and teach us about refugees for our migration unit! I appreciate that you took your time and effort to create a simulation project to help us learn. It was such a good idea, and I enjoyed doing it with a family. It was very thoughtful that you gave up your Wednesday for us even though you could have gone to work. The experience taught me a lot about collaboration and what refugees have to go through. Before, I did not know what it actually felt like waiting for hours, days, weeks, just to get to the next step. Once again thank you so much for coming, and we learned a lot from you!                                                                        Love,                                                                            Ayana =)
From Nadia: Thank you! You have been so kind and selfless to  give up your Wednesday for us! I really appreciate how you took all your time to help us at ISL, and I loved learning all about how it feels like to be a refugee by actually being a refugee, and I think it is very thoughtful of you to come to our school and teach us about migration, refugees, and collaboration. Thank you so much! Love, Nadia :)	From Jules: I have learnt lots of things i really liked  the way that you have  organised this what i have learnt is that i know how refugees feel like when they have to migrate also we had to  walk around the football pitch and was pretty long so i wonder how it is to walk as long as the refugees?
Thank’s for all the volunteers ! Dear Medair Volunteers, I really appreciate that you came here and helped us organize our refugee Unit    From Diego	From Layane: Dear MedAir volunteers, Thank you very much for this organisation you made for us to be able to understand the life of a refugee. I found it fun but hard to be a refugee. Thank you to have let us make our shelters, it made me feel like a reel refugee living in a temporary house. Again, thank you very much for everything you did, bye. Layane ;)
From Neha: Dear MedAir Volunteers, Thank you very much for coming to our school. It was very kind of you. I wanted to tell you thank you because you sacrificed your time for helping us learn. I really learnt that  refugees had to do a hard job to be safe and healthy. It also made me feel like a refugee in the temporary house. I really enjoyed the day. From Neha	From Kayla: Dear Medair volunteers, I would like to thank all the people that kindly volunteered to help me and my year level gain a deeper understanding on a refugee's life.   In addition, I would like to tell you how much i learned from this experience. I learnt lots more collaborating skills, lots more communicating skills, i learnt how hard it is to live a life as a refugee and how to build great shelters/cubby houses! Kayla
From Pavi: Dear Medair Volunteers, I think, it was very kind of the volunteers who came ,to help us learn. I want to say thank you because you sacrificed your time to come to ISL for the whole day and help with our refugee simulation. The simulation was interesting and fun because we actually felt what a refugee family will feel on a journey, only they will feel worse. We used skills like collaborative skills, communicative skills etc. This experience has been exciting and interesting. Pavi	From: Carl Dear MedAir, I thought it was really great that you gave up your own work time to help us learn about refugees around the world. I think you did a great job and that it felt very realistic with all the things we had to get for example medical check, lunch coupon, the store and the place where we sold things. I also learnt all the feelings that you go through as a refugee. And it was just a great day.
From Lewis: Dear Medair volunteers:	I learnt that being a refugee is VERY hard because they stay with a family that probably they don’t know very well or doing all those forms for 1 thing. In addition,I learnt that you have to not eat for about a day and we  had to buy food with only 190 CHF was hard to earn more money or do all those things and only get a quarter of the land because we could only afford that much but on the  bright side we learnt that life is unfair and that yelling is NEVER the answer and also learnt a lot about collaboration which was very good for year 6. Furthermore,having to run 5 laps to get 50 or 100 chfs helped because we needed the money so we could get the passport or to get the medical checks or to get all the forms done and stay patient in the line was hard but we made it. Likewise,it was hard to find something that we could sell was hard because it was all things that was ours and it was hard to give it in.
From Sophie-Marie: Thank You Medair Volunteers that you came to us to teach us how it is to be a refugee. I learned that if you are a refugee your life is very unfair, due to the supermarket womens made very high prices or the real estate brokers said:“Run three laps and you get a house.” In addition, you only had about 200 CHF  for the day, that means to buy food, medicine, blankets or tates.	From Chiara : Dear Medair volunteers, I thought it was really nice that you gave your own time up to help us learn about how migration works. I learned that refugees don’t have an easy time migrating because they have to worry about food if they have enough or water because they don’t get money like that, they have to sell stuff like their jewelry and precious stuff that mean a lot to them just to get a bit of money to buy food to eat, medicine and water. Additionally I learned that refugees have to HOPE that they make it because this is what I think if you say something is impossible over and over again it will be impossible but, if you say it’s possible and believe in it, it will be possible at least that's what I think and for me it works.

Migration Board Games: Creative & Reflective Thinking

Creative Thinking:

Design a board game that helps teach some challenges, risks or possible opportunities people face when migrating.

Write clear instructions for how to play your game as you won't be able to explain it to others. 

Medair Refugee Reflections

What did we learn about what refugees might face?

(See happening?     Felt?     Heard happening?)

What did our experience help us understand about collaboration?

Medair Refugee Simulation

Medair Learning Experience about the Situation of Refugees Initial Reflections:

Tim There is a lot of robbery. Migrants have a hard time finding a home. It is super expensive to live s a migrant. That charity REALLY helps for them to get money. It was a bit too easy because Andrea brought 500$ along. It is really hard to be a refugee when it rains.	Adam: I learnt that migrants just have to hope. I learnt that migrants have a hard life. I learnt that unless a country or organisation helps them then they can’t survive. I learnt that if you are just a bit sick then it needs to be treated so that it doesn’t spread. I learnt that it helps a lot to have a large family to carry stuff and work.
Ayana That refugees have to do medical check to enter a country. If you are not healthy, they make you buy medicine Having a waterproof sleeping bag/blanket is very useful Medair helps refugees and gives them money to buy shelter or homes or what is needed. Working with a family or other people is way better than doing it alone Valuables that you think are priceless are actually only sold for 200-300 dollars You should carry a lot of money with you when you are traveling, because you never know how much money you are going to need	Nadia Refugees have to do a medical check before they come into a country If you are sick or have only a little fever or sickness they will make you buy medicine Migrating with other people is much better than doing it all by yourself because they can help you. sometimes when you want to sell things that are valuable they under price it you need a lot of money when you are migrating because sometimes things that seem like nothing cost A LOT. you need to cooperate a lot when you are migrating in a group. You have to fill out a lot of forms You need to negotiate a lot when you are shopping because sometimes things are overpriced. When you are a refugee things are always unfair There are about 16 million refugees around the world.
Maxi. I learned that refugees have an unfair lie. I learned that refugees just hope to get to a safer country. I learned that refugees have to fill out lots of forms and sheets tt healthy of by organisations	Andrea                      I learnt that  refugees have to change their water when entering a new country. I learnt that refugees need to make visa. I learnt that refugees need to make an ID. Although I already knew a lot a lot about  migration, i realised how tempting it is to steal.
Jules: I have learnt that you need to buy things  like medicine, toothpaste  and  toothbrush,  also a mattress maybe I have learnt that refugees have a hard  time to migrate into another country If you are sick you have to pay a lot of money to  get better again if you want to by stuff of the smugglers why do people begin war? i ahve learnt tow things and that are	Ryu I learnt that migration is so difficult . That means like if we haven’t money,  we can’t buy house, food, tent, useful thing. I learnt that refugee life is not easy . I learnt that teamwork is so important. because If the teamwork is not good, I think we can not make something like  shelter , and buy  something. I learnt 60 million refugees are in the world. some people unifier in the tennis court. Sometimes it so boring trying Sad (somebody can not enter the safe country.) fun  (make a shelter) Teamwoork
Diego:     I learned that it’s important to to work as a group, buy only what you need, negotiate with people to pay them a cheaper amount of money,That there are Millions of refugees in the world, That it’s hard to be a refugee,the refugees robe other refugees,they walk long distances to arrive in another country,You should carry a lot of money with you when you are traveling, because you never know how much money you are going to need,	Layane °People have to do a medical and military check before entering a refugee camp °It is very challenging to be a refugee °It is a long walk before you arrive to a country °It is hard being a refugee family
Neha It is hard to be a refugee It is very challenging to  be  a refugee In a refugee camp, people start robbing others There are some of the organizations in a refugee camp There are markets and hospitals in a  refugee camp There are some people who start yelling at us say that we cannot live there and things like that There are people from the news who take interview and send it to the news people The news reporters ask us many questions about how we live and etc Migrants have a hard time finding homes	Kayla What I learnt About refugees °refugees need to go though a lot of paperwork to stay in another country. °refugees need to do a lot of compromising to pay for life needs. °refugees need to sacrifice valuables so they can buy items. °refugees can not bring tents, sleeping bags, cooking items etc. °refugees unfortunately don't live a very fair life. °refugees should carry as much of their money with them. °refugees have to bargain their way to money and food etc.get °refugees must find it really hard to  live like this.
Pavi They have to sacrifice valuables so they can buy items to live. Refugees have to suffer because they don’t have enough items like blankets to use. At markets, refugees need to bargain for basic needs of life, like water. Their life is unfair because they might be sent back or thrown out of the country for wrong information. They have to keep their valuables safe for it might be stolen. Refugees aren’t ensured that they are safe Their life is tiring because they have to walk long distances.	Carl there are 60 million refugees in the world people feel it is: unfair tiring sad hard challenging. they walk long distances carrying heavy things you need to cooperate a lot
Chiara ° That people steal and no one does anything about it sometimes °Unfair ° Frustrating ° Sad that people have to do this everyday ° They walk really long distances ( we didn’t but real ones have to ) ° They have to carry a lot of weights ( Water, Bags and Food ) ° Really Challenging ° You need teamwork ° I learned that it is really difficult moving to another country like that	Lewis   . I learnt that it's not easy to move from one country to another. . There are a lot of mean people in the world. .People take a lot of hard risks just to have a better life. .Migrating is impossible to do without hope.
Salim Sometimes you have to steal to get throught- Refuges have really hard lives because they need to do medical checks and if they need something they need to buy it and sometimes people put the price ten times higher than usually. maby u have to spend your money wisely. look for cheap stuff. negotiate. it's unfair for some people. I learnt 16 millions refugee  is the world.	Julia °That it is really hard to stay with a family you don’t know then live with them. °To go so far when how many things you have may not be enough and you may need more. °Unfair °Trouble °Cooperation °Sad °Harsh °Hope °Respect
Sophie-Marie °It is very hard to stay with your family when you are migrating °That it is very tiring to walk with very heavy things for kilometers °It is unfair °It is sad °You have to hope a lot °There is a lot of trouble °It is challenging