Final week

Our last week as the 'Uniters' class focused on reflection and preparing to celebrate our learning for the entire school year at the Year End Show, School Awards, and Graduation Ceremony.

The grade five and six students wait with patience for younger classes to rehearse their stage entrances and exits.

You can't hide on stage. Our rehearsals were a unique opportunity to learn and practice stage presence and other performing arts and presentation skills.

One of my favorite types of photographs is the 'preshow', taken moments before a performing group takes the stage.

The students' show, being totally student created and collaborative, was a very authentic product of their understandings of 'How we organize ourselves'. It was our summative assessment task for the unit, and a valuable artifact of learning across disciplines and elements of the PYP.

This has been a rewarding school year for all of us. I truly appreciate the opportunity to learn and grow together and wish everyone the best for their future endeavors.

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Preparing a musical

This week, we have been applying our new understandings of how people organize themselves to collaborate with the Grade 4 students to produce a mini musical.

With Suheda serving as Producer and Miray as Musical Director, the students have written a script, organized music, and choreographed original dances.

They have enjoyed working together and practicing their social and communication skills.

I was very impressed the first time I saw the 'dance battle' and recorded the time lapse video above to give you a preview of what to look forward to at the Yearend Performance.

This week has also been the final chance for a few activities, such as visiting the Harajuku Public Library. We will have more of these closure activities next week, particularly the Yearend Performance, Graduation, and Student Led Conferences. I look forward to seeing you there!

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Exhibition nitty-gritty

PYP teachers around the world agree that the Exhibition is unpredictable. When children direct their own learning, they often find was to make their learning meaningful and messy.

Suheda used this week to complete an exploding balloon painting while wearing wacky professor goggles and listening to Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra. It was great to see Sule and Miray collaborating with her to shoot video of the project and set up all the balloons.

I can't wait to see what they all come up with during Golden Week!

 

We are also looking ahead to the year end performance. The grades 4-6 will be collaborating to create a short musical theater piece incorporating music, drama, and dance. Naturally, our 'Uniters' have taken leadership roles early in the project.

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Exhibition week 1

We have literally started this years Exhibition with a BANG! Suheda has been pursuing inspiration to create art by exploding paint filled balloons onto paper. She conducted many experiments related to the amount of liquid and air to put into the balloons and methods to puncture them. 

Miray and Sule have been very cooperative whenever she needs extra help. We shared her first product on our class twitter feed:

First exploding paint balloon artwork. #pypexhibition pic.twitter.com/SoIYr2uaNQ
— 'Uniters' JIES Gr5/6 (@JIESgrade6) April 10, 2015

I was impressed that Sule began her project by making a memo book to help keep herself organized.

She struggled to think of a global issue connected to wrecking balls and building demolitions, but she's going to research Public Safety to get started. I expect that her Exhibition will include a lot of building and destroying!

Miray's passion for animals helped her to settle on a global issue quickly: Animal Rights.

For International Children's Day, she will be exploring 'Sharing the planet' by raising awareness for animal rights. 

Raising awareness for #AnimalRights. #pypexhibition pic.twitter.com/zxCWRkDaez
— 'Uniters' JIES Gr5/6 (@JIESgrade6) April 10, 2015

She rushed to make a poster, but decided to start over and take more time to make it look better.

It's very exciting to see the Uniters working independently and I expect that this Exhibition will be a fascinating experience for all of us.

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Circles & Drama

Miray and Sule had a special challenge this week to divide three circles into four equal parts. I was excited to see their creative strategies. We applied just about twenty minutes per day to the task and both were finished on Friday.

These days, we have had a strong attraction to drama. The students love playing drama games, but I thought it was the right time for them to consider their audience and create some improvised drama that is more serious and emotional.

After organizing our ideas on paper, we designed new drama games to create more meaningful improv skits.

Of course, we also take time to play drama games 'just for fun'.

The students wanted me to share the picture below as an example of them being courageous while playing jenga.

I'm glad they are noticing when they express our IB attitudes and I hope they will transfer that awareness to other areas of learning and living. We are all tired after working hard for our IB PYP verification visit and ready for a restful weekend.

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'How we express ourselves' Celebration of Learning

Finally, we finished our Paper or Plastic? art exhibit. I was impressed with the students' idea to include 'messages in bottles' about the environment and our responsibilities.

We found a lovely spot near the front door along with the other JIES art. I even shot a photo of a parent of a Jinsho student reading one of our messages about paper consumption.

This week, I've been talking more and more about Exhibition and the importance of time management and planning. I can see the message sinking in as the students often work quietly on their tasks after planning together.

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Projects and collaboration

The Art Exhibition with Jinsho has been an inspiring way to motivate ourselves to collaborate on creative projects. Working together toward a goal and with a deadline quickly approaching has tested our time management and organizational skills, as well as the abilities of our project managers.

Suheda is the project manager for our stop motion animation video about global water issues. She did an outstanding job synthesizing each of the student's 'chapters' into a meaningful story. Everyone was excited to see how she tied their stories together.

Miray is in charge of the art exhibit. She enjoyed holding project meetings to discuss our plans and has been open to all of the team members' suggestions.

I've enjoyed seeing the students' concentration this week. After reflecting together on our progress and some stern assessments by their teacher, they seemed to realize the urgency of the projects and were extremely productive at the end of the week.

Most interesting to me were the inquiries required to create their art. For example, Miray and Sule read books from our school library about paper and plastic to learn about how they are made, where they come from, and their consequences.

Today's 'warm up': Open the window and watch the snow fall.

A video posted by Bart Miller (@botofotos) on Jan 29, 2015 at 3:39pm PST

Finally, on Friday, it snowed. The whole class spent the morning meeting time with the window open, quietly enjoying the falling snow and the unique thoughts and feelings that it brings.

We look forward to sharing our learning with you at the Celebration of Learning on Friday, 6 February.

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Art takes over!

One of my favorite aspects of the International Baccalaureate Organization Primary Years Program is its integration. That means that when we are learning mathematics, we are also learning science and visual arts; when we are learning music, we are also learning language and history. The possibilities for deep, meaningful learning are endless!

This week, it has been the visual arts finding their way into all of our learning.

I noticed that Suheda using her graphic design skills to enhance her writing.

Miray and Bushra applied technology and research strategies to support themselves drawing storyboards for our stop motion animation movie.

 

Sule's art skills are helping her to draw models in mathematics which are more accurate and useful.

We will be applying our skills as much as possible as we prepare our exhibit for the big Jinsho/JIES Art Exhibition on 5-6 February.

On Friday, all the students together assembled and raised the colorful roof flags for the exhibit.

It is hard to believe that this inquiry is halfway finished! I've been very impressed with the Uniters' growing independence and confidence. They will need those attitudes and more to be successful in their PYP Exhibition.

We will be having an Exhibition Parents and Community meeting in February. I will send an email when the exact date and time are scheduled.

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Getting creative

In our current theme, 'How we express ourselves', creativity is center stage. After many weeks of practicing essential mathematical skills, for example, I challenged Miray and Sule to write a word problem that would use parentheses to solve.

It seems to be just the challenge they need and a great way to inquire into concepts and mechanics of mathematics.

Ms Ak has been helping the class to learn stop motion animation. For practice, they wrote an adaptation of The Cat in the Hat and recruited Kindergarten students to play 'things'.

 

The process of shooting was fascinating. It's exciting to see the students practicing so many important social skills like resolving conflicts, verbal and nonverbal communication, and adopting a variety of roles.

Regrettably, we learned a difficult lesson about technology when our director, excited to preview the film, accidentally deleted it from the camera memory!

However, seeing how well the class works together and with their little actors, I'm sure they will have no problem shooting the movie again when we have extra time.

This month, we are also emphasizing reading comprehension, formal writing, and mathematics in order to best prepare for the International Schools' Assessment in February.

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Last week of Term 1

After a long and dynamic first term, it's time to bid farewell until next year. There were so many outstanding events this week and the pace was so fast, most of my photos are blurry!

One of the great successes of our most recent unit of inquiry was Suheda's periscope as a way to change point of view. It's a very unique project that authentically demonstrates the concept of Perspective while exploring mathematics, optics, and construction.

As part of their Cultural Expo, the students researched and created models of fashion from different parts of the world and historical eras.

Their outfits were not only creative, but historically and culturally accurate!

Planning for the Winter Performance Celebration of Learning was a valuable lesson in planning and time management, as the students wanted to create 'sets' just one day before the show! Although they did make backgrounds, we didn't bring all the necessary equipment to quickly mount them on stage.

The students were probably most excited to share their food. Unexpectedly, the JIES community ate everything!

We were all impressed and proud of Suheda's first public violin performance. Brava, Suheda!

Our trilingual dramatic production about perspective and point of view was interesting and entertaining.

Of course, who doesn't love a heartwarming song like That's What Friends Are For during the winter holiday season?

Now, we all deserve a rest, time with family, and a few homework assignments to keep our minds sharp and continue our inquiries. I've also sent it in an email, but here is the list of Winter Homework Tasks:

1 Personal History Project (interview, gather primary sources)

2 Independent reading (30 minutes per day, at least five days)

3 Daily Tasks Form (check email, Kidblog, XtraMath, Geography quizzes; at least five days)

4 Independent inquiry (at least one reflection)

5 Journal (Kidblog; at least two posts)

Thanks to everyone for your enthusiasm and commitment to learning this term! Happy New Year!

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Sky Tree and The Fab Mind

Before the next two weeks become too busy, we decided to squeeze in a field trip as part of our inquiry into Perspective, 'point of view', and how our 'personal histories connect us to the past and help to determine the future'.

Exploring #perspective at Tokyo Sky Tree! pic.twitter.com/UgDhc2J7QN
— 'Uniters' JIES Gr5/6 (@JIESgrade6) December 5, 2014

Seeing Tokyo from 450 meters altitude provides a rare and unique opportunity to experience Perspective visually and physically. I am curious to see how students apply this new understanding in other areas, for example, interpreting research or drawing.

The Fab Mind at Tokyo's premier design museum, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, was the perfect compliment to our unit of inquiry. Our central idea, 'personal histories connect us to the past and help to determine future', might have been the theme of the exhibit. It features conceptually rich, technology and solution oriented, culturally and socially conscious, design and art work from around the world.

Next week, the students will complete their inquiries and begin to assemble their presentations for the second Celebration of Learning and Winter Performance.

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Going divergent

As our new unit of inquiry heats up, we begin new lines of inquiry. This week, on Wednesday, we starting inquiring into 'Points of view and how they change'. One fun and engaging way to explore this idea is by practicing divergent thinking through a series of challenges. My favorite is the candle problem.

Students were presented with a cardboard box containing a candle and several thumbtacks. Their instructions are to 'attach the candle to a corkboard so that it won't drip wax on the floor when lit'. To deduce the solution, one must think divergently, or see the problem in a different way.

How would you solve it?

Next, we played with circles. We all tested our imaginations by thinking of many different illustrations that could be made with a page full of circles.

I'm curious to see how each student applies their understanding of these exercises in metacognition, or thinking about how they think.

On Friday, we enjoyed modelling factorization of numbers.

Many mathematics curricula teach tricks for solving problems, but the PYP emphasizes conceptual understanding through modeling, making, testing, and other hands-on inquiry approaches.

We also finished reading The Fault in Our Stars and wrote our final reflections on the class blog. You can read all of our reflections for the Global Read Aloud by clicking this link: kidblog.org/JIESGrade562014-15/tag/gra14.

We have also been more active on our class Twitter account. Here are some recent tweets:

Please help Bushra with her #inquiry into 'blue #food'! http://t.co/q55Bb2oGIC
— 'Uniters' JIES Gr5/6 (@JIESgrade6) November 21, 2014

'How do you make yogurt?' pic.twitter.com/77oadpOEHi
— 'Uniters' JIES Gr5/6 (@JIESgrade6) November 20, 2014

Harajuku style! pic.twitter.com/FgaPTsap2s
— 'Uniters' JIES Gr5/6 (@JIESgrade6) November 20, 2014

If you use Twitter, please follow us at twitter.com/jiesgrade6. We would love to interact with you!

I look forward to the remainder of the term as we continue pursuing our inquiries more deeply and prepare for the second Celebration of Learning, the Winter Performance.

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Making, creating, cocreating

This week has been very special for me because I am seeing the students grow closer to our motto for the year, 'Inspired and Independent'. They have started more challenging inquiries by themselves, often finishing their snacks quickly to have more time to work.

Another important goal in the beginning of the school year is to build a sense of team, and they are doing just that. By choosing to inquire, make, and learn together, they are practicing valuable social and communication skills. Just as importantly, they are having fun.

This week, I introduced our Carnival Games Tycoon Probability Challenge:

The goal is to design and build carnival games for the younger students to play, but the challenge is to test the games to ensure that the tycoons (Grade 5/6 students) get back all of their tokens.

It will be a great chance for them to use their mathematical thinking skills, data collection, and perform probability experiments. I suppose, however, that they are more excited about the artistic design elements at the moment!

Bushra thought that the key to getting students excited to pay tokens to play games is having great prizes, so she went to work right away on those.

She also designed and built a magnetic claw hand for her carnival game!

We also started building a token machine. Sule and Miray are planning to play 'junken' to get more tokens from the ticket machine. It's hard to explain in a blog post, so you'd better visit the carnival to see how it works!

The students are also busy working on essay blog posts about human rights. Because expository writing is so important, we will devote a lot of effort to becoming fluent essayists and bloggers this year. I look forward to publishing their major work soon!

For now, please enjoy their journals and other posts on our blog, 'Uniters' JIES Grade 5/6.

Early in the school year, I sent all parents a link to their child's grade sheet. It has been updated regularly with scores for homework completion, spelling tests, reading comprehension quizzes, and math tests. Please find the link in your email and have a look at your child's grades!

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