Undokai fun and sweat

You'll know it's the week of Undokai because everyone is wearing their PE uniform, the schedule changes daily, and energy and excitement fill the corridors and classrooms.

Sule, Miray, and Suheda are honored to be this year's English language announcers.

It's important that we be well prepared, so a good amount of time is devoted to practicing marching and standing to ensure that the ceremonies go smoothly.

This year's musical numbers have been the best I've heard!

We have been blessed with lovely warm weather for exercising outside.

We still manage to squeeze academics into our hectic schedule. The students truly developed their capacity for assessments and examinations, skills that will serve them well as they move on to middle school and beyond!

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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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Focus on academics

This was an odd week due to the Wednesday holiday, ISA trial tests, and being after a Celebration of Learning. Considering the International Schools Assessment, we have focused on academic skills, especially in mathematics.

The fifth graders' understanding of division showed that they could use some review of some key concepts. One way to do this is through a 'hands on' activity. By modeling division equations by cutting, drawing, coloring, and labeling, they deepened their understanding through an inquiry approach.

Another way to improve in advanced mathematics is through practice. I have stressed the importance of independent thinking, mental strategies for calculation, and perseverance. 

Of course, people are social learners. After independent work, we always take time to share our results, identify errors, and discuss strategies.

They haven't exactly 'enjoyed' our mathematics practice this week, but seeing how they work problems with increased confidence has shown me that the work was well worth it.

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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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Counting down...

These last two weeks of Term 1 have started very well, with all of the students very engaged with their inquiries and excited to learn with their friends at school.

It has been a particularly busy week for Miray, starting with her blog post about one of her favorite television programs. Below is the tweet from our class Twitter account (twitter.com/jiesgrade6).

Miray blogged about a #greatstory, @digeryarimatv! http://t.co/UwzTZJtXg4 #Turkey
— 'Uniters' JIES Gr5/6 (@JIESgrade6) December 8, 2014

Sule and Miray worked together to measure the area of the school playground as part of Sule's inquiry into 'how many soccer balls would it take to fill the playground?'.

Congratulations to Suheda for completing XtraMath! Each student in our class practices XtraMath daily and can easily access their account from the JIES Grade 5/6 wiki (jiesgradefiveandsix2014-15.wikispaces.com).

It was difficult to keep the secret, but many students at JIES planned a surprise birthday party for Bushra!

Of course, finishing inquiries and preparing for the Winter Performance Celebration of Learning takes quite a lot of work. The class is collaborating to write a trilingual script about alien abduction and cultural perspectives over time. View their work in progress by clicking this link!

They also made a fun discovery while writing their script:

We have discovered the chat function in Google Docs. BAHAHAHA!
— 'Uniters' JIES Gr5/6 (@JIESgrade6) December 12, 2014

We're very excited for next week! See you on Thursday!

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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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Wrapping up inquiries

This week, we started the process of finishing our inquiries for the first unit, Who we are. We have been exploring Rights & Responsibilities in depth, including collaborating to create a Human Rights Awareness Survey to learn about people's understandings and beliefs about human rights. Please click on the link below to complete the survey and participate in our inquiry.

CLICK HERE: https://docs.google.com/a/jies.jp/forms/d/1Esv0Ed3N7NGgEr9xSyz_MnfcEg67K6BISG6pYP8Gr7A/viewform

To support our inquiry, we have also been studying data handling. I was very impressed by everyone's careful attention to detail and creative graphs!

We're ecstatic to (finally) start our musical keyboard inquiries again. Each student will work at their own pace through our piano method book and develop their own compositions. Suheda and Bushra began to work together on a piece, which including a lesson on music notation!

Next week, we will put on a classroom carnival for the younger students. It's a great way to have fun learning about probability and economics! On Friday, we took a shopping trip to Daiso to purchase essential materials.

Next week is Literacy Week, and also the final week of our unit. I'm very excited to see the students' presentation and exhibition at the Celebration of Learning on Family Fun Day!

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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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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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