Is coding the new literacy for 21st Century Schools? If so, how can it enhance a transdisciplinary program of inquiry? This past December I initiated our school’s first ever Hour of Code, the global event that introduces coding through games and activities, both online and offline. The Early Years to Grade 5 classes who participated…
Field Trip to Santi Rama School for the Deaf UOI: How We Express Ourselves CI: People can create and manipulate messages to target specific audiences. To introduce ourselves to students at Santi Rama School for the Deaf…Grade 4s prepared an ASL version of Owl City’s “Fireflies”! The purpose of this trip was to build a…
UOI: How We Express Ourselves People can create or manipulate messages to target specific audiences. Finding Out: The Function of Advertisements This week students used a series of visible thinking tools to find out more about how messages are manipulated and created to target audiences. Student-chosen adverts As a homework tasks to get them thinking…
Emily & Erin pave the way for ASL in 4J! This week we were lucky to have a special presentation by Emily & Erin on ASL (American Sign Language). Since our current Unit of Inquiry How We Express Ourselves focuses on communication and targeting specific audiences, these 2 students took action to share their learning…
Mathematical Thinking & Teaching Inspired by Marilyn Burns Re-Building 100s Chart In preparation for 2-3 digit addition/subtraction operations, it became evident early in the first week of school that grade 4s needed a major refresher of 0-100 numbers. The 1000s project completed in week 2 gave way for investigations into number patterns and number bonds…
Student Reflections & Sharing This week students finished their 1000s project and presented their findings with the class.Everyone completed a rubric & a group reflection(see below) on their project that explained the thinking behind their maths and also the challenges they faced throughout. Students then gave their first presentation to the class, and had classes…
Day 3 of school, day 2 of 1000s Project… [Continued from previous post] Today students brought in what materials they were able to collect for their 1000s project. Most remembered and one group actually went over 1000 when they counted out their flowers and leaves! Â ORGANIZING their MATERIALS 1) Students had the opportunity to meet…
Today we started a 3-day project called the 1000s Project… The project has been modified from the resource book by Julie Pier Brodie called “Constructing Ideas about Large Numbers” by Creative Publications. We started the lesson by watching a keynote presentation that prompted students to ask questions about the images they saw: Some comments they…
Today I was so happy to welcome 17 smiling faces into 4J. We are still waiting on 2 more to join us which will bring our class up to 19 students! We had a busy morning multi-tasking to complete some ‘start of the year’ activities to get us thinking about our goals for Grade 4.…
Literature Circles Part 2 Background: Before starting these Literature Circles, I consulted with MYP teachers to inquire about language used in the Language B classroom. I was given a list of terminology to expose students to such as: Plot, Exposition, Rising/Falling Action, Climax, Resolution, Metaphor etc. The students in my EAL class have only…
Innovative Learning 