Happy 100th Birthday Roald Dahl!

Roald Dahl continues to be my favorite author of all time. I can't recall the number of times I have read Matilda, or decide which is my favorite book. Right now I am reading The Witches to the class and am reminded of the time I had to give a monologue in high school. I chose one of The Grand High Witch's speeches and it was a hit not only with the teacher but the other students too.

Today Roald Dahl would have turned 100 years old. We kicked off the celebration yesterday in the library listening to a passage from The Twits and checked out his books. Thank you to Mrs. Feller for getting the week started right. Today we watched some segments from past celebrations and did some project to go with the videos. See the links below:

Puffin Virtually Live 2012  

Puffin Virtually Live 2013

Puffin Virtually Live 2014

After watching a clip about how they make sound effects for audio books, students got together and used items around the classroom to add sound effects to a made up sentence that would be found in a Dahl book.

Of course we also ate candy and read from The Witches. Then we drew Willy Wonka with Quentin Blake and created a new sweet for the chocolate factory.

We will continue to celebrate this week watching some clips from the 100th anniversary video and so some more activities this week. It is not everyday that an author comes along who changes children's literature in such a huge way. I am happy to spend time with my kids honoring such a great author!

Exhibition Photos

Oh boy is the end of year busy for everyone, but with the three huge events for ISL grade 5 in the past month, I have barely had time to come up for air. Today the students are up in middle school for their shadow day so I have some time to breathe, catch up and give attention to some things that have been recently neglected, i.e., the blog.

Exhibition has come and gone and seems so far away, but in reality, it was just only a month ago. I could not have asked for anything more from the kids and they were wonderful, not only on Exhibition day, but all of the 8 weeks working and preparing for the event.

This year our topics were impressive and I was so proud of the depth in which they dove into their topics. The topics covered breast cancer, video game addiction, consumerism, endangered animals, brain health, food waste, sexism and homelessness. Here are some photos from the big day!

 

Sorting Out Exhibition Information

Exhibition is going really, really well and the students got started on writing their central ideas and lines of inquiry this past week. We followed the following steps with much success!

• Created notecards with facts on them as a group
• Sorted the notecards into categories
• Wrote titles for the categories and determined if more research was needed
• Did more research
• Sorted the categories into sub-categories
• Learned how to write an outline and created outlines for our research
• Examined the POI and discussed the elements of a "good" central idea
• Looked over lines of inquiry for Units of Inquiry throughout the school
• Drafted, reflected and revised central ideas as a group
• Used the central idea checklist to evaluate our central ideas
• Looked at the key concept questions linked to our research and started to draft lines of inquiry

I am so proud of all of the hard work the kids are doing. Their knowledge and hard work on the PYP elements has been wonderful!

 

Religion Morning with Parents

Last Friday we welcomed in our parents and shared with them our projects on our researched religions. Students had to learn about their religion and come up with a project to teach about it. They wrote lesson plans, practiced their teaching and showed their knowledge. It was wonderful to see them so enthusiastic and excited. As I was walking around participating, it was amazing to hear all of the parents share that they learned so much. Thank you students and families for such a successful event!

Movember in 5R

Grade 5 is an important year. Students transition from PYP to MYP and take part in the culminating project, exhibition. Throughout the year I try to show important events occurring around the world and help them understand global issues that they might find interesting. I also try to emphasize the importance of taking action and making a difference in the lives of others.

One way to take action is through awareness. Movember is a great chance to teach the students about a movement to raise awareness about men's health issues. We discussed the reason for Movember and why it is important to teach people about cancer of all types.

Students get to share in the fun too by putting on mustaches. Take a look!

 

Skype Date with Geologist

Last  Wednesday we had a chance to Skype with a geologist graduate student who has been working in Greenland and Antartica. Ruth is the cousin of Elena, one of our students. She spent about 45 minutes visiting with us and answering our many questions. She created a google presentation of photos from her travels and shared them with us so that we could follow along with her presentation. It was a wonderful experience and I am glad that we were able to learn so much from her! If you would like to follow her here is her website and her program's blog at Dartmouth. Thanks Ruth!

 

Convection Currents with Mr. Simon

Last Monday we headed upstairs and collaborated with the upper school science teacher, Mr. Simon. He invited us into the science lab for our very first science experiment. It was a wonderful experience and the students really got a good understanding of convection currents and how they move the tectonic plates. Thank you so much Mr. Simon for volunteering your time, expertise and enthusiasm!!!

If you would like to try some more experiments with convection currents, check out these videos and links below.

Home Learning: Convection Currents
Heat Convection in Liquids