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!

 

Exhibition Action Film Festival

We are in the process of brainstorming, drafting and receiving feedback on our action plans. Over the next few days we will be examining some videos and articles that show people taking action throughout the world. Enjoy a glimpse into our film festival with these selections.

 

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!

 

Exhibition Celebration!

Yesterday the students celebrated their work on Exhibition. They all worked so hard throughout the process and learned not only a ton of facts, but also a bit about themselves as learners too. Ms. Skye and I were so proud of them and loved watching them flourish and shine in front of their families and the ISL community. Congratulations kids!!!

 

Exhibition In Full Swing

The students have been working hard and getting excited for Exhibition Night 2015 on Wednesday. Here are some photos to show the progress throughout the process.

 

Kindness Boomerang Video

I showed this to the class last week for video Friday. I was critical of it because all of the diverse characters were playing homeless people or blue collar employees so I decided not to post it, but one of my students requested that it be put on the blog.

I previewed the video prior to showing it to the class and did notice how many stereotypes were shown, but made a decision that the message was still a good one so it was worth showing. Was it the right thing to do? That question is certainly up for debate. I think it was alright as long as I have a discussion with my students about the stereotypes that they saw and what message those stereotypes help to send and perpetuate discrimination. I also am going to ask my class to reflect and think about this question: if they were to recreate the video, what changes would they make and why? What do you think? Send your thoughts below.
 

Growth Mindset: Mistakes, Challenges and Failure Lead To Learning!

With the Final Exhibition beginning, I have been teaching some lessons on growth vs. fixed mindsets. Today we discussed how mistakes, challenges and failure make us feel and then examined why this is. The kids were then asked to think of these in a positive light. They came up with some great responses for when these are positive events. They loved watching this video and asked me to share it on the blog so that they could view it again.