Grade 5 Assembly!

Students in 3R were given a choice of writing topics today during Period 2- Writing. One of my students, Yuna, took the time to write about the Grade 5 Assembly. This is an independent action that I wanted to share with the IST community.

The Grade 5 Assembly

 

We walked as a class to the assembly. I was excited because my brother was in it and because it was about Mikumi. After the assembly I felt happy for the kids because they earned books, T-shirts and toys so they could enjoy them as much as we enjoy them.  It was a very interesting assembly, but that's not all.

 

They had nice and interesting costumes like a camera, binoculars, monkey costumes and lion costumes too. The grade 5s were really risk-takers. What I mean with risk-takers is they stood up for themselves. This was one of the funniest and best assemblies.

 

Now, as the teacher I have to not only have pride that she wrote about the assembly, but that she also used many concepts in her writing that we have been teaching in class. These include: details and interesting words, transition words in time ordered writing, using commas in a list of items and the PYP attributes. Way to go Yuna. You made your teacher proud!

PYP Econimics Unit: Business Fair

The PYP economics unit this year is new for us as a grade and a school.  Therefor, it has been a challenge to find age appropriate resources and books as well as think of ideas for teaching to the central idea and key concepts. 

When we began our planning of the unit, we knew we wanted the kids to start their own businesses for the summative assessment.  As we are about a month into the unit we are on a roll with the businesses and the students have some great ideas. To help with the business plan, I created this document. The idea is for them to plan their business, advertise, and participate in the "business fair" that grade 3 will hold before the December holiday to sell their product or service. At the end of the unit, each class from grade 3 will be collecting their profits and giving a micro-finance loan to a local entrepreneur.

One book that we have used to teach economics and the concept of micro-finance is One Hen. Not only have students learned about micro-finance, but since we live in Tanzania, students have been making really meaningful "text-to-self" connections. Many people within the IST community have provided micro-finance loans to local community members and the students can also relate to the characters. It is a wonderful book.

During the business planning stages, students used this document that I created to help them organize their plans. It has really helped. The final draft of this document will be on display during the business fair so that visitors can see the process that students went through to plan their business.

In addition, I also created this feedback interview document to assist them in the planning stages. Sharing business ideas within the classroom has allowed us to have some interesting discussions on a variety of concepts. For example, some students are realizing that they might have competition within the classroom and others are realizing that people might not want to pay as much for their product or service as they thought. Given the feedback that the students have gotten from their peers, business plans are being modified and adjusted.

 Please feel free to download these (just click on them) and look forward to photos and an update on the business fair in a few weeks!
 

Writing: Teaching Voice

At IST we use 6-Traits Writing. This year we have already covered concepts in 5 of the writing traits (the easier ones,) but grade 3 is the first time we teach and asses the concept of "voice" and I still had not introduced this skill. This is a difficult concept for children to understand and master in their writing so I wracked my brain to come up with a fun way to teach it.

During planning a few weeks ago, I thought of an exciting way to teach "voice" using character cards (cards with different story characters printed on them.) The focus concepts were:

• using describing words to tell about a character
•  using dialogue with proper use of quotation marks
• different words for the word said 
• adding "voice" to stories

I chose a character card and out it up on my Smartboard using my document camera. The students and I then put describing words around the character to give them an identity. After that, we wrote 3 sentences using dialogue for what this character would say in a story. After I modeled for them and we did the task together, the students got to draw a character of their own, create describing words for that character, write dialogue for them and then create a story about their character. We used the printable below to complete this task. It turned out to be a successful introduction to the concept of writing with "voice."

 

Human Body Models

 During our Human Body PYP Unit, the kids worked together to create models of the different body systems in art class. We shared these with families during our PYP Unit share. The kids worked so hard on them and they turned out wonderfully.

 

Student Action: Class Riddles

 At recess, a few of my girls have been making up riddles for the class. This is a basic, yet really cool student action and I wanted to share some of them on the blog. These relate to our Body Unit from last month. Enjoy!

I am very small. You need water to make me move. What am I?
Answer: blood

What is your sixth sense? It ends with sense.  
Answer: common sense

 

Stop Motion Animated Body Video

 I am so proud of my kids! They worked together successfully and completed a stop motion animation video that takes you through the circulatory system and explains where blood cells go within the body. Check it out and leave a comment. The kids would love to hear from you!

 

Multiplication Math Games

Happy holidays to my Awesome Owls! As I spend my last Saturday of the holiday on the couch watching my San Francisco Giants in the World Series, I find time to catch up on some blog work. I published many new multiplication math games to go with our new EM unit. Click on the EM Math Game page and enjoy!

Also, I know many of you are trying to improve your basic math facts/number bonds/minute math. Here is a great game where you can practice your fast math.

 

Bake Sale Results!!!

Thank you to all of the families and students who helped bake goods for our CCBRT Bake Sale! It was a wonderful event. There were so many tasty treats and one of my girls even made some earrings to sell! The kids were thrilled to sell their goods and watched as their blue frosted cupcakes, chocolatey brownies and homemade breads slipped through their fingers in the name of a good cause.

Overall, we raised 422,500 Tsh for CCBRT. One generous grandmother from the US even sent a donation all the way across the oceans right into our collection can! After the baked goods were sold, Yuna and her mother took the left overs to CCBRT and gave the patients and their families some treats as a surprise. All in all, it was an amazing day and I am happy to be part of such a fantastic student led event. My class is truly.... electrifying!



 

Spending Money

This past week we began our unit on Economics. We are learning how we organize ourselves with economics and started with the concept of goods vs. services. Next week, students will be thinking about and predicting what their family spends money on and then working with their parents to determine and discuss what their family actually spends their money on. Using the list we created, will then discuss whether each item is a good or service, and then later on in the unit, whether each item is a want or a need.

For all of you teachers out there, I created this printable to guide this activity. Please feel free to download it and use it!

 

Unit Video In The Making

3R has been working extremely hard over the past few weeks putting together a stop-animation video all about the circulatory system. The video will be unveiled soon (thanks to our film producer, Mr. Mikey) but I realized that I had not shared the photos of us hard at work creating.

The kids decided what part of the film they wanted to work on and divided into groups. Some students wrote the script, others designed the human body and a few broke up into small groups and created the prop body parts and diagram labels. The kids have worked so hard on this and I can't wait to share it with everyone very, very soon!

Writing the Script

Creating the Blood Cells

Drawing the Heart (by Hand!)

Working on the Lungs

Designing the Set (the Body)