Learning Never Stops

The students are currently using the writng process to do their independent writing. Whole class writing I asked them to think of a familiar topic and they thought of the volcanic explosion in Iceland. During group work they wrote about the PYP exhibition. I loved the way they came up with eye catching headlines! Group A Group B Group C Group D Group E We now plan to publish a fortnightly class newspaper. Keep your eyes glued ! :) and find out what's happening around school.

Learning about space always excites my grade 4 students. They are curious and have such a vivid imagination! However, the unit does not allow scope for much inquiry. The knowledge is out there and they basically need to identify and sort information. We came up with the idea of creating a board game for the summative assessment.They had to use their knowledge of space and invent a game with an instructional manual. The results were amazing. Ride on a comet and zoom to the desired destination; get sucked into a black hole; hitch a ride on Voyager... Spinners, based on their recent Maths topic "Probability" were ingeniously used. My colleague and I were delighted by the results. Unfortunately I am having loads of problems uploading videos on the blog. The excitement, the buzz was quiet obvious there. What I liked about the lesson was that it was not planned. The students had to invent their own rules and figure out what works or doesn't work....

Chicken or egg? The kids have been studying myths. We poured over myths from different cultures, analysed the differences between myths and folktales and thoroughly enjoyed a week of story telling. The students asked their grannys and grand pas  about myths and came back with an amazing repertoire. The writing followed next. We made an impressive class checklist that the students would use during independent writing time. I modelled one with my class, and then the kids attempted to write one in groups. Finally they wrote their own myths and we published them during our writing workshop. All the pieces were assessed following the 6 traits of writing and the kids got a descriptive feedback which helped them improve their writing considerably. The final outcome was a Grade 4 Anthology of Myths that have been displayed in the school library for the rest of the school to enjoy. The reason I am writing this blog post is because of what happened next.It was a...

A good communicator is... knowledgeable charming animated uses hand,body gestures well to persuade the other person does not invade another person's space giggles politely when s/he does not agree :) Watch the video Teachers need to emphasize to their students what a good communicator looks like. I wish my teachers had in elementary school. Some things I had to learn really late in life. Broadly speaking, students need to understand that rules change when they communicate within small groups. Respect, eye contact, personal space,the ability to listen to another's point of view, and making "relevant" contributions.These could be put up on a chart as a visual reminder. Discuss with the students if they come from different cultures, what constitutes respect. A great way to bring internationalism into the classroom. Otherwise connect with another classroom through Skpe. With a larger audience in mind, they would need to throw their voice, hide their unea...