We’ve now had a week’s buffer to think and reflect on our Grade 5 Exhibition How the World Works.

What a journey it was! It seems miles away now that students and teachers have had a week’s holiday to ‘decompress’ from the long but rewarding journey!

Some Challenges in review…

This was definitely a challenging topic to do for exhibition but the results demonstrate that it is indeed possible for students to base their independent inquiry around a scientific topic. The greatest challenge for students and teachers was the high amount of technical vocabulary. Even with front loading (see December blog ‘eDictionaries’) the high percentage of EAL learners and new-to-PYP students presented an additional challenge for independent inquiry and research.

We’ve also realized the need for more science in earlier PYP years as many of the terms (‘force’, ‘work’, ‘machine’ etc) and scientific concepts were brand new to the majority of students. Even with heavy scaffolding of the Scientific Method throughout the first 3 units (as stand-alone), students still required some support to produce experiments that were scientifically accurate and a ‘fair’ test.

Many success in review…

While there are challenges in every unit, all the teachers and students agreed that this was an extremely successful experience. Students blogged about their personal growth and the difference from the beginning of our 10 week journey (see previous posts) to now is significant. The scientific terminology continues to be used day-to-day as students come across different examples of simple machines.

Here are some examples of blogpost reflections from my EAL students:

Hyung Joon’s Blog

“My own thinking about Exhibition: The exhibition is finally finish and we had a hard time and we did a lot of hard works and then we had a party to have a break and we only had 1 party and we had like 6 dancing and showing our board it was so hard. We went to the foot ball field we shout scream EXHIBITION! and it feel very good because we ran and we don’t have exhibition now. I still know we learn the dance and move it and that all showing board we did it we tried our best. First all the dance and parents movies was hard and now we can do our self if we do good and we had like 1 week holiday and we put lot of work in our exhibition also our teachers nagged us but now we need to do our self.”

Brian’s Blog

“I did Exhibition i finish it so i feel very good now i want do exhibition again because I make good exhibition I make IT, and interviewing gerobak people i feel my English is better than before. I like my group and exhibition first when our parents came i was very nervous but i think i did pretty well.”

Keisha’s Blog

“In the  Exhibition we did lots of work like the data handeling, make the question for interview and many more .  In the Exhibition it was fun but some of them were hard and some of them were easy . We only have 9 weeks  to do the Exhibition journey. In the exhibition display there was all our work that we do for 9 week only. The fist time i met my group i do not know  3 of them but i communicate then i know all of them.”

To view more blogs click the homeroom CLASS BLOG

Opening Night ~ March 20th 2013

Opening night was full of energy and enthusiasm…and nerves! Parents, teachers and our CEOs joined in on the celebration and spent the evening exploring how Simple Machines impact on every day life.

SWA G5 PYP Exhibition Opening Night & Day 2

Welcoming 150 guests from other schools

Here are some shots of our final day, welcoming students from neighbouring Indonesian IB schools (Global Jaya and Sekolah Cikal). We had over 150 students and teachers visit and share their reflections.

The Graffiti Wall was engaging for visitors and encouraging for our Grade 5s!

Lots of wonderful messages that will be a keepsake for these students in future years. They have all matured so much in the past 10 weeks.

Our visitors also enjoyed the hands-on activities on the ground floor. These included

* games made by EAL students

* inquiry-type activities that had students compare ‘work’ with and without simple machines

* a quiz

It was wonderful to see our Grade 5’s as the experts for a change. They enjoyed sharing their knowledge and confidence with the visiting schools. Many of the teachers complemented the variety of growth demonstrated: the creativity of the dance, the confidence in their speaking (during assembly and at the boards) and their overall knowledge about science and simple machines.

Sharing our journey with Middle School students:

Celebrate good times!

The celebration afterwards was enjoyed by all. Some students were emotional Amazing how it took 2-3 days to set up the boards and displays, and all of 15 minutes to tear down! We’ve decided to keep the boards up regardless, as it is a nice reminder of the hard work they are capable of, and a celebration of their learning.

Here is a short final clip of exhausted exhibition students celebrating with a round of ‘Hallelujiah’ and ‘Gangnam Style’: