Monday 15 February 2016

Our Week Ahead 15th Feb

Unit of Inquiry Reflections:

By now you might have noticed that we reflect on our learning a lot in class.  

To help us understand more deeply why we do this, we began our day examining the following quote.  We wrote what we felt it meant and tried to give supporting evidence (examples) to help strengthen our theories.



We shared and discussed some of our thoughts about this quote. 


This then led to our reflections we will be focusing upon this week to help us consolidate what we have learnt during our Unit of Inquiry exploring the central idea: Organisations allow people to come together to take action.

In addition to reflecting on what we have gained from our unit, we have also begun learning how to structure a reflection text:

Introductory Paragraph (Description):
  • What did I / we do?
  • What was the purpose?
Body Paragraphs ( Impact on my Thinking ):
- Why is it important to know?       - What about it was interesting?
- What did it make me think about?    - What do I understand about it?
- What was easy or challenging about it?
Summing Up Paragraph  ( Outcome / Result ):
  • What have I learnt?       -  I used to think……….Now I know…….
  • - How did it help me deepen my understanding of our central idea



These reflections in addition to how we feel our Unit has helped us to develop Learner Profile, PYP attitudes and key PYP skills will be shared with you at the end of the week to discuss with your child.


Taking Action:

Enquiring into NGOs and the types of action they take to help make our world a better place inspired us to also want to take action.

To deepen this, we have been enquiring into the PYP action cycle and starting to find out for ourselves how this might work and look:

Some really inspiring ideas for action and how to conduct it successfully are starting to form:

° PAK
Kayla, Ayana, Pavi, Chiara, and Julia were inspired by reading 'I am Malala' in reading partners.  They are planning to create and sell bookmarks with inspired quotes printed on them to help raise funds for the Malala Foundation which amongst other things, helps supply books and stationary etc for children in developing countries. 

° PET PAWS
Layane, Sophie-Marie, Jules and Nadia have created their own NGO called Pet Paws and want to help stray cats in the Lausanne area.  This weekend they are planning to visit a nearby animal shelter to assist in caring for cats there and will be also using this opportunity to find out other ways from the carers there that they could take action with this cause.  This afternoon, they created a 'cat play box' to donate to the shelter for some cats there as part of their action.


° Wildlife Garden Sanctuary
Lewis' passion for animals is leading him to want to create a wildlife sanctuary in his own garden. He is thinking of ways he could raise some money to buy a tree and last week was busily making a wooden bird house to place in his garden to attract and help local birdlife.  We are really excited to see the birdhouse he made!

° Courtesy Campaign in our Cafeteria
Maxi, Andrea and Salim are working on two possible actions.  Firstly, they are hoping to encourage the primary children whilst in our cafeteria to use polite manners amongst each other and to the cafeteria staff serving.  They feel that there is a lack of manners taking place and so want to take action to fix this.

Together with another group (Ryu, Carl and Diego) as their passion is football, they are developing an idea to hold a friendly football tournament amongst ISL children. They are enquiring into supporting a charity such as Charity Ball which was started by a 10 year old boy who raises money to buy footballs for children in Mozambique.  each football costs 25 US dollars so they are wondering if they could encourage children to pay 1.50CHF each to participate in the match to help buy a football to be used in a village there. 

° Inspiring Quotes
Ryu, Carl and Diego were inspired by looking at the website Kind Spring and are planning to create inspiring quotes about learning to display in the hallways around our school.  They are hoping this will raise positivity amongst all of us at ISL to learn to our best ability.



° How Climate Change Impacts Wildlife
Adam and Hugo are taking a unique approach to their action cycle. They are busily researching a personal enquiry into the impacts climate change is and is predicted to have on wildlife in Switzerland.  After their research, they will then think if there is or isn't something they could do that would help with the situation.  Understanding that the most successful action takes place when we are knowledgeable about the situation is definitely being explored here. 


° Kindness Campaign
Neha is busily thinking of creating a kindness campaign where she will leave surprise gifts for students at ISL with a message of passing that act of kindness on to others. She is coming up with some very interesting ideas and now focusing on how to make it achievable.  







Maths
In maths this week, we are continuing to explore our central idea:

When angles co-exist, connections and relationships are formed.

All of us have chosen areas related to angles and shapes that interest us and have been making our own investigations to share with our peers later this week.

Some amazing mathematical discoveries are being made and all student-led and owned.

Our maths reflective summative will be shared with you also at the end of the week.


Literacy

Our focus this week is how to write reflection texts and continuing with our reading partner discussions using key reading strategies we have been exploring this year: inferring, connecting, determining importance and questioning.


Visual Arts

In visual arts, we are continuing to explore an art-form called Zentangle. It is a creative meditation where we are problem solving with design elements and being inspired by each other with different design ideas. Whilst drawing our designs, we practise mindfulness by listening to meditation music.


Some samples from Pavi:





















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