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Thursday 30 August 2012


Tuning in for the second line of inquiry;
SIMILARITIES and DIFFERENCES

Today we watched an inspirational video; “Something from nothing” and later we read a beautiful story book; ‘Patchwork quilt’. We then compared families including ours by finding our similarities and differences.

Something From Nothing
Something From Nothing
This is a Jewish folk tale about a boy named Joseph and his grandfather. Joseph's grandfather made him a blanket when he was a little boy. As Joseph grows the blanket becomes worn. Joseph's mother tells him to throw it out. The grandfather transforms the blanket into a jacket, a vest, a Sabbath tie, a handkerchief, and finally a button. Joseph loses the button and becomes sad because his grandfather can't make something from nothing. Joseph writes a story at the end to remember his grandfather and the blanket.


The Patchwork Quilt
This picture book is about the relationship between Tanya and her grandmother. Tanya's grandmother begins making a special quilt from pieces of worn out clothes that have belonged to various family members. Tanya's mother and grandmother spend many evenings working on the quilt. Tanya's grandmother becomes ill, too ill for even Tanya to see her. Tanya worked on the quilt with her mother while her grandmother lay in bed ill. After a couple of months Tanya's grandmother got better and was able to help complete the quilt that she then gave to Tanya as a gift.

Introducing TIME
We watched some really interesting science videos, and learned about how people have read and kept time throughout history. Students discovered that early man used the shadow of sunlight across rocks and sundials, the invention of the pendulum by Galileo and of course our planet being a giant cosmic clock as well. After the videos we had an in-depth time of discussion and reflection. Students found it fascinating making their very own sundials and can’t wait any longer to experience time with their creation.

















Name Game
Differentiating between Intrapersonal & Interpersonal
Students were given a sheet of paper with two oblong circles. Each student wrote his/her name in the first circle. Then they were encouraged to come up with a word that expressed one of their positive traits for each letter of their name. In the second circle they had to write the name of someone who has had an influence in their lives. They came up with words for each letter that expressed how that person has influenced their life.








Monday 27 August 2012

What makes me so special?


What makes me so special? 


What makes me so special or unique?

Over the weekend the students had spoken to their parents about their physical, social and emotional characteristics, in preparation for their class presentations.
Monday morning students gave their presentations which were fabulous. Some of them did Power-point presentations, others had made chart presentations with very interesting and informative pictures, diagrams and write-ups of themselves . We came to know so much about each other and one student even had background music playing while she gave her presentation…
well done kids!!

After their presentations, we had a group reflection time, where they were asked to reflect on ~
How they felt when they were making presentations about themselves.
They answered ~ it made them happy, joyful and excited, especially when they discovered more about themselves and their family history.
One of them said ~
It made me proud of who I am!! 

















Saturday 25 August 2012


Displaying Research Skills
Students displayed their research skills by finding out about different countries and how people from around the world live.  ‘Different countries’ was given as a provocation to start the inquiry and then they chose a country of their choice and thoroughly researched it in the ICT lab and library. They then presented their findings as a freeze frame or a simple poster to the class. We discovered many different and new things about people living in Israel, Greece, Italy, The Sahara Desert, The Australian Outback, Vietnam, Japan, African Savannah, different regions of India and also experiences based on a book called ‘Prita’s visit to India’. Most of their presentations were very informative which facilitated a wonderful learning experience about the different cultures from around the world.