This week the students took ownership of their learning and continued working on their chosen action individually and in groups. We carried this student agency and responsibility into our Maths as the children reflected on which areas they wanted to improve and work on in the next few days. They chose to consolidate their understanding, accuracy or speed using online resources such as Mathletics, written calculations, hands-on practise with clocks or through writing and drawing. We also have a potential investigation into sun-dials. In our writing we have been looking at comic strips and poetry. We used our unit of inquiry as inspiration. Here are a range of poems about habitats and animals. Their comic strips which illustrate the time sequenced flow of a food chain are a great example of trans-disciplinary learning. During Daily 5, the children were asked to explore biographies of people connected to any of our units during Grade 2. They then chose one person who they found inspiring and shared details of this person. We also found time to visit the annual Big Eyes, Big Minds Film Festival during which we watched eleven short films from around the world. On our return to school the children retold their favourite film using a comic strip format. We also enjoyed the fantastic Art Exhibition and Middle School Performance of Once upon this island, which highlighted what talented students we have at ISS. UN Sustainable Development Goals #4 Quality Education: This week has seen the students engage with multi-disciplinary learning and take action.
Student Action: Hugh shared a video clip of a strange animal that he had seen with his family which we were all very curious about. Lots of great suggestions- Maybe it was laying eggs on land? Where you near a river or lake? How big was it? It looks like a worm. Maybe it had come up from the earth after the rain....
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This week, on their return from the Vesak Day holiday, all Elementary students reflected on what they found calming. We also had three sessions with some Grade 4 students exploring the ISS value of being "open-minded". The students were encouraged to find a partner they didn't usually work with to: play a balloon game and share facts about their home country. In our Maths, the children explored time in various ways. They practised reading and saying times (using the vocabulary: quarter past, half past and quarter to). They showed times using small clocks, some were also able to convert analogue time to digital time and many chose to write time comic strips. In UOI, this week, we explored some of the consequences of imbalance within habitats. The students first came up with their own list of some of the things that they knew caused imbalance within habitats: deforestation, agriculture "taking land for farming", urbanisation "taking land for buildings", greenhouse gases, hunting, marine pollution. Later they researched and suggested possible solutions or things we could do to help. We ended the week by suggesting and selecting ways we could share our learning or take action. Here are the children's ideas:
UN Sustainable Development Goals: #13 Climate Change, #14 Life on Land, #15 Life Below Water The student actions support these goals. Student Voice: "We learnt from Grade 4 about how to be open-minded and I wrote that I will ask new people if I can play with them in the playground." Yuuki "This week was very fun because Grade 4 came to teach us about being open-minded." Hyuga Student Action: Some Grade 2 girls found an injured butterfly which they rescued and created a habitat for. They tried to save some of the eggs but the Tawny Coaster butterfly died. This led to some research about this animal and its habitat.
This week, Grade 2 visited Kent Ridge Park to conduct some local research. Beforehand, the students hypothesised what animals and habitats they might see and why they thought this. For example: I think I will see frogs and birds because I know that they live in rainforests. While there we identified habitats such as a pond, lake and rainforest. The children made observations and recorded any animals that they saw. We reflected later on our data, working to interpret and go deeper with our thinking. Here are some comments: Sara- "We saw fewer bigger animals. I think the animals might have been hidden because of the rain." Ray- "I did not see many big animals maybe because there are fewer big animals that live there." Maria- "There were fewer birds because of the rain." Isabelle- "The construction noise scared the birds and bigger animals." Hugh- "There were no monkeys or snakes because they were scared of the noise." Yun Ho- "I think that there are more bugs in a rainforest. What I found is just bugs, bugs, bus and BUGS!" Fedor- "There are more small animals than big because they don't need so much food or space." Yuuki- "I saw ants. I will estimate 1,000,000 of them." Hyuga- "We saw lots of insects. I think this is because there was lots of food for them." Charlie- "I saw lots of ants because there is lots of food." Shoichi- "There were lots of insects because there was lots of food." Later in the week, Hugh's family brought in their pet cat, Bella. The children loved meeting her and tried hard to make our classroom a suitable habitat for her in the hope that she would decide to stay for the rest of the week. They made sure she had FOOD, WATER, SPACE/SHELTER (turning off the lights in case she preferred darker places) and TOYS. We found out that Bella was a rescue cat and that Hugh's family were interviewed before they could take Bella to make sure that they were responsible enough to take care of her properly. The children thought of what questions they would ask- Do you have a big enough space?, Do have a dog or other pets?, Are you rough?, Have looked after a cat before? We also learnt that owners should take pets to have vaccinations or to the vet to keep them healthy. Afterwards, they extended their thinking to identify our responsibilities towards pets versus wild animals. Here are the ideas the children had. Pets We should:
Wild animals We should:
In our writing, the children are experimenting with sharing their knowledge of animals and habitats through poetry. We revisited some of the styles of poetry from earlier in Grade 2. These will be shared on the blog next week. In Maths, we applied our understanding of fractions to solve problems. We also asked the question "Are halves always the same?". The children explored this question through cutting and folding various shapes. They used scissors and rulers which helped their fine-motor and accuracy skills as well as "to be mindful" (Yuuki). When they shared their creations, we concluded that the size of a half (or quarter, eighth, sixteenth etc) depends on the size of the whole. We all agreed that half of $100 is more than half of $10. UN Sustainable Development Goal #15 Life on Land and #14Life below water: The children continue to make connections between the habitats and animals on Earth and recognise that we can impact these.
Student Voice: Student Action: Maria, Charlie and Yuuki will introduce their Earth Book in next week's Assembly and are taking steps to organise a fund-raising event for the WWF. This week, we have been thinking about the different habitats of the world in more detail, using the concepts of Form, Function and Causation to guide us. Form (What is it like?) What are the habitats like? How are they the same? How are they different? How can we describe them? What do they look like, sound like, feel like? What lives there? Causation (Why is it like this?) How are the animals suited to living there? What can happen to change this habitat? Function (How does it work?) How do the animals get what they need to survive? What are the food chains and food webs within this habitat? How do the animals and plants work together to maintain the habitat's balance? The students realised that habitats can differ depending on TEMPERATURE and amount of WATER and that these factors would affect the kind of animals that live there. They began noting down questions they had and researching using books and online resources. We connected our Literacy and Daily 5 lessons by continuing to explore descriptive language. Using a thesaurus, the children searched for alternatives to hot, cold, wet and dry. Later, using different parts of speech, we gradually built our sentences using rich and evocative words. Starting with a noun, we added adjectives, adverbs, verbs and time connectives. For example: bird--- a small bird--- a small bird sits warming her eggs ---- in her nest, a small bird sits warming her fragile eggs-- In the early morning, deep in her nest, a small bird sits quietly warming her fragile eggs. In Maths, we began looking at fractions. Many of the children were unfamiliar with what a fraction was.
After some discussion and hands-on practise, we defined fractions as "equal pieces of a larger whole". Then we explored when we might see or use fractions in our lives and decided that we often used fractions when we needed to SHARE. 10/14 of the children associated fractions with sharing food. We collected some more data about the class which we expressed as fractions. Later we connected our maths and UOI thinking and estimated what fraction of the whole world was made up of the different habitats. The children explored maps and presented this data using symbols and colour. We used a globe, our previous knowledge and some good thinking skills to make some decent estimates and then checked with some research. UN Sustainable Development Goal #12 Responsible Consumption and Production Many students took part in the Grade 3 Clothes Swap this week. Student Voice: "PE was fun this week- we played Flag Tag." Jiahna "I learnt that phytoplankton are plants that live in the sea." Yun Ho "I enjoyed Listen to Read this week." Sara "I learnt about habitats. My favourite habitat is the ocean." Evan Student Action: Maria and Charlie continue to work with other Grade 2 students on their book and video clips about "How to save the Earth". Ray and Hugh began creating a food chain game, taking turns to be an eagle or snake. During the thunderstorm on Wednesday, many children set up a little viewing area. They ate their snacks while watching the wind and rain outside. We celebrated Fedor's birthday with some delicious donuts. We also began our last unit of the year in which we will inquire into how "Animals and their habitats are connected". The children have been excited to share their knowledge and observations about various animals and habitats. They started by drawing and sorting animals. We realised we could sort animals by the TYPE of animal it was or WHERE it lived and began creating lists for both. Reptile, Mammal, Insect, Fish and Bird were the animal categories suggested by the children while Desert, Forest, Rainforest, Ocean/Sea, River, Pond , Arctic, Tundra and Grassland were habitats they named where different animals might be found. After this Evan, Yuma and Jiahna showed us the Habitat song that they had learnt with Mrs. Vaughan. From this great base of existing knowledge we then explored what all animals had in common and Fedor quickly commented that they were all living things. This led to the introduction of our first line of inquiry- the needs of animals. We remembered that NEEDS are things that are important and vital for us to survive and we created a list of animal needs. Food was identified as a need and this led to our second line of inquiry- Food chains and food webs. The children loved the Planet Earth clip of a hatchling iguana escaping hungry snakes and identified the predator and the prey. We gathered questions and then used the Library to find and select relevant books, which we sorted and labelled back in class. These will help us as we move into the Finding Out stage of our inquiry. In Maths, we have been inquiring into maps and directions. To tune in, the children thought about where they were in the world and using atlases, globes and Google Earth gave examples of places North of them, South of them etc.
Later, the children investigated maps, compass directions and the symbols used on map keys. They worked in pairs or small groups to find North and created various compasses within class. They also discussed and drew maps and used compasses to give directions to different locations around school. |
AuthorGrade 2.1 are a class of 7 and 8 year old students who attend ISS International School in Singapore. We learn together and play together and enjoy sharing our discoveries with you. Archives
June 2019
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