Sometimes kids just "get it." I have never written a blog post like one this week. Below is an account of how we launched our new unit of inquiry. Please enjoy!
Posed with the question, "What do you want to know about how the world works?" students wrote questions that interested them. They shared and answered their questions with other in an activity. We read the questions aloud as a community and found common ideas - "Humans" and "Nature". With these BIG ideas, students thought about this phrase "Describe nature and the day". Each student became a scientist, went outside, and recorded their observations using their powerful senses. When we returned to class, we wanted to create a central idea - or something to help focus our senses that connected with our BIG ideas of "Humans" and "Nature". This proved challenging, so we decided to to think about what types of activities we wanted to do that related to "Humans" and "Nature". They came up with: go outside, posters, songs, stories - more specifically myths, and experiments. These activities helped focus us and we came up with this central idea:
Nature and humans can impact the weather. This central idea connects to all the ideas and activities they want to do, as well as our unit's theme:
How the World Works.
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| Here's how they created our new weather unit. You can see our thinking start broadly and then narrow. Superb Work! |
Since they wanted to continue the experiments, we decided our next steps were to focus on weather. We described it, defined it, and will explore specific elements of weather. Our first element was temperature. What is it? How do humans measure it? Why do humans talk about it so much!? We will further our inquiry into temperature as we go outside and leave thermometers strategically located around the campus. Each day, we will read and record the amount of heat or coldness in the air with this measurement tool. This is just the beginning...
The power of choice, curiosity about the world, and willingness to inquire is a risk. This week's launch and creation of our new unit is testament to the power children have when they take ownership over their own learning. I am proud of our community and what we accomplished this week.
If that's all you believe we did this week, then again! We finished up our study in data and launched into probability and the study of "likelihood, chance, luck, and more." We continue to read in our book clubs very challenging books. Our focus continues on using fix-up strategies - read on, re-read, and infer - when we encounter unknown words and events that need clarifying. We did finish
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan and began a new read aloud,
Storm Runners by Ronald Smith. (How fitting that it connects to our new unit of inquiry. Who knew?) Ms. Magda has helped us sharpen our skills in writing: paragraphs, topic sentences, supporting details, and when to begin new paragraphs. This has helped us greatly during Morning Mania as we write our journal responses to our weekly writing prompt. We started our January/February book shares and it is apparent that everyone has worked super hard to practice and find creative and unique words that help tell the story they read. Excellent work! Finally, we have a long weekend. Please enjoy the holiday!
Homework this week: Read each night and make sure you
are prepared for your historical fiction book presentation!
Tuesday: Do the first half of your country’s weather calendar
(January through June) . In each box you should illustrate and describe what is
typical for that month. You will need some information from your
parents on this. Do not guess! Bring it back to school to
discuss. Include weather symbols and a couple of word descriptors
for each month.
Wednesday: Do the second half of your country’s weather
chart. Bring it in and be ready to talk about it! Remember
to use a weather symbol and a couple of descriptor words for each month.
Thursday: IXL,
W.1, W.2, W.3
Friday: Read and have fun!
Marker, marker cap, Riccardo... what else is there to say?
Morning Mania activity.
We did a fishbowl, where there are two circles: inside and outside. Students discussed their ideas about migration and how their learning has changed them.
Recess brings us many treasures: Smiles and triangles.
Working together to construct proper paragraphs!
So, what's your question about "How the world works?"
Our final attempt at what mean, or the average is. Yup. We tried to find the height of the "average" 4th grader. Talk to Hurriyat about it.
Our powers of observation at work. (Disclaimer: No child was harmed during the activity. I am not sure if tree bark is something I would regularly eat though.)
We deciphered the central idea!
Two Dice Sums activity. Do you think it will be very unlikely, or likely that we will enjoy learning about probability?"
Those smiles are true learning, true investigating, true friendship, true fun. It's getting hot in here!
