3rd Unit of Inquiry - How We Organize Ourselves

Transdisciplinary Theme
How We Organize Ourselves

An inquiry into the interconnection of human-made systems and communities; the structure and function of organizations; societal decision-making; economic activities and their impact on humankind and the environment.

Central Idea :

All members of a group have rights & responsibilities as they work towards a common goal.

Lines of Inquiry:

• How members of a group work together to achieve a common goal
• Groups in our local community and wider afield
• The reasons people form groups

Key Concepts :

Connection, Responsibility, Causation

Transdisciplinary Skills :

Thinking, social, research

Learner Attitudes :

Enthusiasm, creativity, curiosity, independence, cooperation

Learner Profiles :

Inquirers, knowledgeable, principled

Creating the central idea puzzle.

Crossing the Green Sea of the Dragon
It is all about working as a team, communication and knowing what your responsibilities are within your team.

Key idea shared by the class - things that helped them work together.

Maths - Measuring

Comparing non standardized units of measurement

Where do we use measurement and what do we measure?
The student's brainstorm

Exploring length.

2D shapes around the school

We found a range of different shapes throughout the school 

Our playground has many different shapes that we were able to name and  talk about.

Simple circles and rectangles are everywhere.

Compound Word

Compound Words

We played the trading game as we discovered some interesting facts about compound words.

What are the words that are actually compound words.

off + ice ....office???

Bridging to !0 - Assembly

Reviewing the Bridging to Ten Strategy

The ten frames are essential to building a contract picture of how we can manipulate numbers to help us calculate.

Describing the charts.

Doubling Monosyllables

The Doubling Flowchart 

This flowchart was developed to help consolidate our learning about what happens when we add suffixes to simple words.

Reading out the steps.

Constructing the chart.

Checking to see if it is correct.

2nd Unit of Inquiry - Where we are in place and time

Transdisciplinary theme

Where We Are In Place and Time

An inquiry into orientation in place and time; personal histories; homes and journeys; the discoveries, explorations and migrations of humankind; the relationships between and the interconnectedness of individuals and civilizations, from local and global perspectives.

Central idea

Our experiences are similar and different to those of people from the past.

Key concepts

Connection, Form, Change

Lines of inquiry

• The origin and members of our families
• Changes in daily life over time
• Stories, toys and games our elders enjoyed
• Similarities and differences between aspects of daily life

Transdiciplinary Skills

Thinking, self-management, research .

Learner Attitudes

Appreciation, cooperation, confidence, curiosity, empathy, respect, tolerance.

Learner Profiles

Inquirers, knowledgeable, reflective.

Our Skype interview with Mr Jim's sister.

During this unit we have looked into the past and change in many ways. We started out by helping Mr Jim find out more about his own family history. We conducted a Skype interview with his sister who gave us lots of information. From there we created a big class mindmap.

Here we are conducting our interview.

The mindmap

Using artifacts as a source of historical evidence. Mr Jim's father's Tam o' Shanter cap.

Recording our ideas

The hat

Drama

In our drama we took on characters based on typical fairy tale characters. We investigated the mystery behind the break -in at the house of the three bears from the Goldilocks story. Children had the opportunity to ask questions of each other in role both in small groups and as a whole class.

We created name tags to make it more real.

Asking our questions in whole group setting.

Drama is an important tool for developing oral communication skills. It is also a wonderful stimulus for personal writing.

Lung Experiment

After a session in the pool looking at lifesaving techniques we investigated how to replace water with air in a jar. We also estimated and then measured the capacity of our lungs using a measuring jar. 

Filling the containers

Demonstration of how to do the experiment.

Helping construct the tools.

Story Map

We created a story maps which are visual representations of the key events which occur in a known story. It is a good way to strengthen recall of important events.

Grid Drawing

We took simple pictures and enlarged them using a rectangular grid. This activity uses knowledge of fractions and proportion to be successful.

Interesting and Boring Suffixes

Learning the suffixing rules in English can sometimes be tricky. We have learnt to investigate the patterns which occur in English and in particular looked at the doubling pattern. We will soon be using a flowchart to further embed this knowledge.

We sorted words according to how they were spelled.