Peace Crane Club and Suheda's snack tries to eat her

Last week, the Uniters officially started the Peace Crane Club for the Peace Crane Project. I have contacted five other teachers in the USA and South Africa and we will exchange cranes and wishes for peace with them soon.

The class enjoyed teaching the younger students how to fold origami cranes.

Sule drew this lovely illustration to represent our class and I thought it was so fantastic, I just had to share. This kind of independent and inspired work is exactly what we want to encourage and celebrate this year!

I'm glad to see the students getting so busy on their research, writing, and creating. Please visit our student blogs at kidblog.org/JIESGrade562014-15 and leave a comment as a 'guest'. We have had a few teachers around the world leave comments, and look forward to more interaction with students in other schools.

Of course, it's also important to have some silly fun once in a while. Evidently, Suheda's snack was hungry and bit her before she could eat it!

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Japanese Class

Hello!

I am Kayoko Kobayashi,

the Japanese teacher at JIES.

I would like to let you know what Grade 5 and 6 learned in my class.

Japanese class comments will be written bi-weekly.

Grade 5 and 6 students started this year's Japanese class with the poem 

"Oka no ue no gakkou de" and "Sennen mannen".

They read those poems on the reading day and drew their images of the poems. 

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Inspired & Independent

Activities this week were designed to inspire the students to pursue their inquiries with independence. While we maintain rigorous routines for language and mathematics skills building, we also use plenty of time for research, making, sharing, and reflecting.

Sule used some of her independent inquiry time to refine her sewing and doll making skills. She was very shy at first to discuss her project, but we were all excited to hear that she was making toys for her brother!

After school on Wednesday, Bushra and Suheda were joined by Busra from Kindergarten for some dance practice! Fantastic to see our 'Uniters' enjoying learning and setting a positive example for younger students.

We took our first trip to the public library. After exploring the 'pop up' books, Miray also visited the third floor to research about animals.

Suheda works on a blog post about human rights with her notebook on her lap. 

One of my goals for this year is to see the students actively following inquiry models, use their notebooks to gather ideas and research, then transfer their learning into digital format for editing and publishing.

Another addition this week is our ACTION organizer. This chart helps us to think about and share our actions in different ways, and use a model to turn our ideas into meaningful action that has an impact on the world around us.

Of course, we have been utilizing our ActivBoard extensively, especially in Mathematics. There is something special about a two meter long virtual ruler!

It seems my efforts to get the class inspired to pursue their interests are working! On Friday, they decided to build a small stage in the front of the class out of cardboard and PET bottles. Of course, they need to ask for donations of plastic bottles, so they are conducting a marketing campaign with posters and planning to make an announcement in the school assembly on Tuesday morning.

Next week, we look forward to hosting the school's Peace Crane Club. The Uniters will read aloud Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes and teach younger students how to fold origami cranes to exchange with other schools around the world in the Peace Crane Project.

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First week fun

We kicked off our school year in my favorite way: The Spaghetti Marshmallow Tower Challenge. The students worked collaboratively in pairs to build a tower out of a handful of dry spaghetti and marshmallows.

Everyone communicated very well as they suggested and tested their ideas. This activity is certainly an enjoyable way to practice thinking like a scientist.

Afterward, we recorded the students reflections about what worked or didn't work:

'Bundling spaghetti was good.'
'Keeping big marshmallow for last didn't work.'
'Not good to put more weight on top.'
'Cutting marshmallows in half was good.'
'Marshmallow melt from heat from hands.'
'Good to make a strong bottom.'
'Triangles were good.'
'Tall, thin tower didn't stand up.'
'Spaghetti breaks easily.'
'Weight needs to be same on all sides.'

That's a lot of scientific thinking that I look forward to exploring more deeply as our inquiries continue.

We also spent time this week introducing several of the digital tools we will be using. Our Kidblog, Twitter, and more are linked to our class Wiki. Please visit to share your thoughts and comments!

A very important task we completed was discussing and choosing our class name. We are 'Uniters'. I am excited to explore the theme of Unity with the class throughout the year.

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