Today’s students are culturally a different bunch than when I went to school. You’ve seen the images going around from National Geographic about what Americans will look like in 2050. The images are beautiful, and I am excited that I get to see this every day where I work at an international school in Japan. […]
Tag Archives: Grade 5
As we draw nearer to our final presentation of the PYP Exhibition, I’ve been reflecting on our process. Students have done a good job. They’ve been dedicated, engaged, serious (for the most part) about this complex task we’ve all embarked upon. Mostly, they’ve reflected. Today, we talked about the thinking skills they had acquired. Metacognition […]
Several years ago, we began a teapot project. Created in collaboration with teachers from China and YIS in Japan, the idea took off and has been running the last several years. The teapot has traveled from Japan to the US to Indonesia and then back to the US. What it involves is willing teachers, upper […]
Found this today while browsing the Twittersphere. Wished I had this at the beginning of our research. On first glance, this looks really good. I don’t know who put this out, but kudos to whomever. It’s a way to sort through all of the mounds of information out there in one glance. Wow is all […]
How much help do we give students during Exhibition? The big question. After 5 years of facilitating the Exhibition, my answer is…quite a bit. The Exhibition, designed for a student who has been involved in the PYP for many years, with a sound fluency in English, is challenging on so many levels. It’s exciting, engaging, […]
Students have got it: their big ideas and some driving inquiries. After some weeks of thinking and filtering, students have a bigger idea or issue to dig into. They also have some guiding concept questions or lines of inquiry. Students chose one of the ideas from their brainstorm with their parents and the community (see […]
As we continue our journey into the PYP Exhibition, we are venturing into some bigger issues. As our central idea is all about how our passions inspire and sustain our learning, we’ve been wondering how to branch out into bigger ideas. As the Exhibition guidelines state, students need to investigate an issue of significant importance. […]
And so we are off. Exhibition begins. For the 5th time, I begin, along with the students. Where will this Exhibition journey take us? Our theme is the same as it’s been for the past 4 years: How We Express Ourselves. We are starting with the same idea: the students’ passions or interests inspire and […]
Today, on my way home, I stopped, dumbfounded. The hill near my house had been stripped–of bushes and trees. We had received a notice in Japanese that it was going to happen, but I didn’t understand the implications. Reinforcements is what I remember they were doing, shoring up the hill. Somehow that now translates to […]
What are literature circles? In grade 5, students meet regularly (2x/week) to discuss books. They choose a book, decide pages to read each week, and then create questions, connections and do other activities at home to prepare for a good book discussion. And then…They meet. They meet in groups with students reading the same book […]
