IST 4R

IST 4R

What Happens in 4R

Introducing… Genius Hour!

All week I’ve been telling my students “I’ve got something special for you…”

Last week, I gave them a choice. They could have an object or an idea. Not surprisingly, the object won out, and we went through a process of learning how to select a special rock, then spending some time with our rocks, seeing what we were inspired to do. We had poems, illustrations, questionnaires, descriptive writing and more.

This week, it was time to give them the idea.

We started with this video:

And followed it quickly with this one:

Then I put up this chart paper:

What is GH?

Students, in small groups, were given 20 minutes to answer the question and prepare to report back. They got right to it:

After, during our report back students shared their summaries, as well as some of the resources they’d found. Among the videos shared was this one:


After their quick inquiry, students returned to share findings, clarify understandings and pose questions. The first question was a hopeful “Are we going to do this?”

The answer, was “Yes.”

Our chart had transformed.

GeniusHour2015 007

Before we can throw ourselves into our projects students will need time to thoughtfully consider which of their passions they might like to explore. What sorts of questions and inquiry might support them to deepen their skills and understanding? This would be a good week for students to speak with their families about what ideas they have in mind.

Here’s what students can expect:

  • 1.5 hours to work on their project per week at school.
  • It can be worked on as much as they like at home as well
  • Any passion might qualify. It can be a topic to learn about, a skill to acquire, a problem to solve, a product to produce and likely many others…
  • Most passions should be expressed as questions
  • Each passion proposal will need to be teacher-approved
  • Each student will develop and follow a learning plan
  • Each student will be expected to share in a reasonable time frame, preferably in a way that can be shared globally through our blog
  • The assessment will mostly focus on skills, attitudes and self-regulation in inquiry

For some examples of digital products from last year’s Genius Hour explorations, have a look at the Genius Hour page on this site.

It’s going to be great!

 

 

Recycling at IST

recycling

Huge Thanks to the Student Action Council!

We would like to inform you about the project that we have been working on. Recycling!!! We have already put recycling bins next to the canteen and small ones in the grade 2 to E.C classrooms. Here are the things we are recycling:

  • Clear glass bottles
  • Green glass bottles
  • Brown glass bottles
  • Cardboard
  • White paper
  • Cans and Tins
  • Plastic bottles

 

If you have any more questions about the recycling you can ask or Email Mrs Rehana the head of the student action council, thank you and happy recycling. If you have any ideas please tell your class rep, we need all the ideas we can get.

RecyclingGuide_Page_1RecyclingGuide_Page_2

Multiplication & Division Facts in our Pockets!

Many things have changed over the years in education, but one thing that’s remained constant is the need to learn your times tables. The reason for this, I suppose, is that this knowledge really is something that so many people use in all sorts of situations, every day.

In 4JR this is one of the really important bits of math content that we are addressing. What we are looking for in this case is called, in math terms, automaticity. In other words, memorizing.

We’ll be approaching this in various ways over the coming weeks, but one home-school connection will look like this:

FACT in My Pocket

What this means is that each day each student will be selecting a multiplication/division “fact family” triangle card. They’ll be memorizing the associated equations, choosing one to write a word problem about, and keeping the fact card in their pocket (or bag, or sock or…) for the rest of the day.

At any point that’s not otherwise disruptive other students and teachers are invited to ask them “What’s the fact in your pocket?”, to which the student should answer immediately with both a correct multiplication and division equation from their fact triangle.

If they can’t recall one, they need to take out the triangle, check it, re-memorize it, and put it back in their pocket to be quizzed again later.

Parents! Please quiz your child several times in the evening and help them to return the card to school the following morning so they can add it to their pile of “known equations”.

Additional multiplication and division practice can be easily found online through many of our Math resources page here.

Happy multiplying!

Mathematically Thinking Videos

This week we’re gearing up for our next Everyday Math unit assessment. As we approach these we usually take a couple days to review some of the strategies of the preceding few weeks to figure out where our strengths and weaknesses lie. Today, to dig deeper into the places students felt least confident, many made instructional videos to teach others how to solve the problems they struggle with. These can be viewed in this video playlist:


 

How Does this Connect With Children’s Rights?

There was a powerful moment in 4JR today.

Each week we have a special “Team Time” where students are split up amongst the 4 fourth grade classes with a variety of focuses. This time, we decided to try a provocation for our new unit, an exploration of how Children are a unique part of our society who have special rights. 

The idea was this, all students were given the same responsibility: To create a travel poster for Tanzania, in around 45 minutes. Their rights and resources, however, varied tremendously from room to room.

  • Room 1 had laptops set up with easy-to-use templates, images to drag and drop, lots of adult support, popcorn on every table, and upbeat music. Students had the right to work independently or in groups.
  • Room 2 had simple paper and writing and drawing materials, plus examples of travel posters, and some adult support. Students had the right to work independently or in groups.
  • Room 3 had a range of materials, and students had freedom of grouping, but their time was repeatedly interrupted by (phoney) fire drills, and marches out to the field.
  • The final room, Room 4, had little scraps of paper, broken pencils with no sharpeners, an angry-seeming, authoritarian teacher, no right to sit or talk, no air-conditioning, and the constant threat of being sent to the principal.

 

Not surprisingly, when students regrouped after 45 minutes to share their posters it was a very emotional moment. Some students were proudly raving about what a good time they’d had, others were near tears with the stress and sense of relative failure in their responsibility. Others were angry about the interruptions that had made it so difficult for them to succeed. We discussed the following questions:

  • How successful do you feel you were in your task?
  • What rights did you have?
  • What resources did you have?
  • How did your rights affect your success?
  • How did your resources affect your success?
  • Did any big events make it difficult for you to be successful?

 

Finally, we dug into the big idea…

We know that people all around the world all want basic things like home, community, food, health and education. But people have very different rights and resources.

What are some connections between peoples’ rights and resources and their opportunities for success?

Some students took a while to make the conceptual leap, but others made connections. Rediet, in particular observed: “I think we’re all like the people in (Room 1). We have all these things to help us and people who are nice to us. We’re not used to not having enough resources, or to having people take away our rights”.

It felt like a very powerful way to launch our inquiry into these sorts of ideas and it was fascinating to see the conceptual connections that students made.

We’re ready to continue our tuning in to the ideas around the rights of children. The animated text video below may be a good tool to begin some conversation…

A Day in the Life of an IST PYP Student

Our class was invited to take part in the school’s a day in the life project, chronicling a day in the life of one student in each division of the IB programs. Our student was challenged to spend an entire day wearing a stopwatch and carrying a camera in her pocket, taking one photo every ten minutes. Of course, every day is different, but the result is a nice snapshot of what one day in the life of an IST PYP student might look like.

Bagamoyo: Memories & Reflections

Our grade four trip to Bagamoyo this year was wonderful. Students had the chance to come together as a class while enjoying what was (for may of them) their first time away from family overnight. They faced real and significant challenges like unlocking and locking doors, keeping track of keys, making balanced food choices and taking responsibility for their roommates and friends. The slideshow below was their first experience using their new Google accounts collaboratively to create a reflective presentation. Enjoy!

Bagamoyo Info Session Presentation

Dear Grade 4 Parents,

Thanks very much to all of you who made it out for the Bagamoyo information session on Friday. It’s going to be a wonderful and powerful trip for the students and they are enormously excited about it. If you have any further questions, please do get in touch with your child’s teacher. For a reminder on some details of our presentation, feel free to have a look at the presentation below. Also, please remember that some elements of the itinerary as it’s described may be precisely adhered to.