This week in 4L, we began with our weekly class meeting focused on what it means to have grit and resilience. As we head into the last weeks of school, we talked about how to remain motivated to finish strong. We watched this video:
...and then this one:
Finally, we reflected on what we thought the main messages of these two videos were, and talked about what we could learn from them. Our thoughts were:
We agreed to keep these inspirational messages up to remind ourselves of what we can do when we feel overwhelmed or tired.
In unit, we looked back at our economic activities from last week. When the students left on Friday, they left behind many little objects they had purchased from the auction-some of them already broken. This encouraged us to look at Line of Inquiry 3: Our responsibility as consumers and producers. We began with a conversation about what happens to all that 'stuff' we buy and discard - especially the little plastic 'stuff' some of us are so easily persuaded to buy because it's cheap and appealing. We watched a video to begin our investigation:
From what we heard in the first video, we decided we wanted to know more about the gyres, particularly the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, so we found this video:
Here was our thinking:
Next, we got into pairs or small groups and decided to dig a bit deeper into the issue in order to help us understand what we could do to make a change.
Sofija and Eva began to seek facts on how marine life is affected by our pollution
Benas began to investigate ways to reuse or recycle waste, while Yigit and Basel became curious about how plastic is even made
Krista and Sofia sought out answers to our questions about HOW we can properly sort and recycle waste in Lithuania
Steven finds an organisation that attends to the pollution in the Baltic Sea
Rojus and Nora discuss what they have found regarding what actually happens to human garbage
We shared some of the information and sites we found. We watched this video:
After the video, some big questions we had were:
What can we, as 10 year old kids, do now?
What can be done with the plastic that's already there?
What is the proper way to take care of electronic garbage?
We also noted the extra R in the slogan 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' which was 'REFUSE' plastic to begin with. This thought prompted us to think about what types of plastic we use the most. We investigated alternatives for water bottles, shopping bags and had many conversations about how we could take action.
Eva, Benas, Shourya and Migle discuss their thoughts on what we might need to find out
These small groups naturally migrated into one larger group with a larger goal
Veronika shares her ideas as Liza, Krista and Sofija listen
Basel and Yigit discuss their plans for action against plastic pollution
We broke off into discussion groups and we came up with some ideas (in blue).
Some of us quickly realised that to make any of this action come to fruition, we would need to be organised in our efforts. The orange part was our thinking about where we might begin:
Since our passion was growing away from our initial unit specifications, we agreed that those who have wrapped up Passion Projects could be the foundation of this group effort and would spend their Genius Hour time getting started. The rest of us would join as we finished current projects.
Sofia shares her shopping bag made from a recycled T-shirt
Sofia helps Aleksandras create his shopping bag
Benas and Migle research facts about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that they think will persuade others to change their plastic habits
Basel and Yigit follow a DIY video to repurpose plastic by creating something new with it
Krista and Sofija explore how they could recycle some of the plastic they've collected into crafts to sell
Rojus and Antanas discuss a possible t-shirt drive so 4L could make reusable shopping bags to hand out in the community
We pursued these questions in our beginning research and activities. The students have begun to respond to these inquiries and have hung their findings for us all to use to move us forward in our effort to help minimise plastic pollution.
In language arts, we celebrated World Book Day all week! Some of us enjoyed dressing as our favourite book characters.
Krista, Shourya, Nora, Sofia and Basel show off their character day costumes
We also had the great privilege of hearing stories from around the world from various guest readers.
Yigit and Ms.Yasemin shared Turkish tales with us about a Singing Frog and a Boy Who Could Fly
Nora and Ms.Jelena shared the Frog Princess with us in Russian
Shourya and Ms.Pooja shared oral stories with us in Hindi about a Clever Monkey tricking a Crocodile and Two Geese and a very talkative Turtle!
We also took photos with our favourite books of the year. Can you guess who's who?
In writing, we began to publish our poetry. We discussed and decided that we'd create a class poetry anthology into which each of us would submit at least one poem. We also decided that we'd each make our own small poetry book with all of our own favourite poems.
In math this week, we prepared for our Unit 6 Assessment. We completed a rubric self-assessment and spent time practicing skills that we thought needed improvement. We took the assessment and demonstrated great grit and resilience as we tackled the Open Response! Finally, we took the opportunity to learn from our mistakes, as always, by inspecting and correcting our mistakes.
Grade 4L shares their background knowledge on fractions
We then worked on a bit of review breaking different pattern blocks into equal shares and putting fractions on number lines.
Rojus and Antanas think about how to divide a hexagon into 3 equal pieces
We had the opportunity to attend two different exhibitions this week at VIS. The first was a preview of the PYP Exhibition. Knowing that this will be what's in store for us next year, we were delighted to visit the exhibition to observe, learn and offer feedback to the grade 5 students.
We also got the chance to visit the MYP Personal Project Exhibition. We were surprised how much like our Passion Projects these were!
After visiting this exhibition, we took time to reflect by comparing/contrasting it to the PYP Exhibition and to share our thoughts on what we saw.
Both of these exhibitions offered us a lot of big learning that we could apply to our own Genius Hour Passion Projects. This led us into Friday inspired to work with passion!
Sofia shares her book "The Cats I Know (Some Are Quite Mysterious...)" she created on Zoombooks
Krista shares an interactive mat she made for her dog to search for her food so she wouldn't eat too quickly
Steven continues to explore domino towers and invites someone to come knock down his creation so he can video it
Eva sought advice and assistance from Sofia to create a book about the best places she's traveled on Zoombooks
Yelyzaveta draws fashion creations to add to her fashion website
Nora works with her photos to create a video of her "Help Homeless Cats" project process
Finally, we enjoyed a sunny day at the park with 4A. This week was all about catching up with friends who've been away on holiday, letting out our spring energy with plenty of running, discovering and caring for little creatures coming back to life as the weather warms, and climbing trees.
We look forward to another fabulous week together!
This week in 4L, we continued to inquire into economics. After our two attempts at 'running a business,' we took a step back to investigate what actually goes into getting business right. The first thing we looked at was how the production and cost of goods are connected. To build this understanding, we participated in a simulation where we had different stalls at a bazaar. Each team of 3 was given a hypothetical item to sell, as well as how much it cost to produce that item. Before the sale could begin, we had to decide with our teammates how many of the item to produce and how much to charge for our good. The only information we had about our consumers was that there were 15 of them and they each had 2 Euros to spend.
Yigit, Nora and Sofija decide on how many felt ornaments to produce
Aleksandras, Benas and Eva debate how much to charge for one origami figure
Sofia, Basel and Antanas calculate a fair price for cookies
Once our bazaar stalls were ready, we were open for business...again! We agreed that we could only buy one of our own products and then should spend our money elsewhere if we so desired.
Let the shopping begin!
Leave your money in the cup, please!
So much to buy, so little time!
Once all shopping ended, we went back to our own stall to count our earnings. We calculated how many goods we sold based on the amount of money in our cup at the end of the sale.
Krista, Steven and Veronika tally their sales of handmade greeting cards
Shourya, Domantas and Elena count their earnings for snowman pencils
Then came the fun part... it was time to compare how much we spent vs how much we made!
How much each team produced and spent
How much each team actually made when all was said and done! Only two of us managed to make a profit...
Each group shared how they determined how many to produce and how much to charge for one of their goods. Some of us chose numbers completely at random, while others had a more mathematically thought-out strategy based on number of consumers and their spending money! It was our first introduction to being in the red vs being in the black. This led to an interesting discussion about what happens when a business doesn't quite get it right, and how they would owe the bank money for any negative amounts. The students reflected on their learning from the simulation below:
To continue with the idea of cost and production, we then played a game called "Lemonade Stand". This online game is a simulation where we are lemonade stand owners. We choose how long to run our stand. We are then provided with the weather each day and must decide how to prepare our lemonade. We invest in materials like sugar, lemons, cups and ice, and decide how much to buy and use. We get customer feedback and watch as our revenues go up or our supplies run out. At the close of each day of business, we see how many cups of lemonade we actually sold vs total potential consumers, and how customers rated our stand. Some of us found winning recipes, but hardly any of us got sales ratios higher than 30/90!
Yigit and Basel share a lemonade stand
Aleksandras and Antanas focus their efforts on finding the perfect recipe
Sofia and Nora team up for their lemonade stand
We then took a look at supply and demand. For this simulation, we each had 2 Euros and were attending an auction. There were several items up for bid, but we had no idea how many of each there might be. The items ranged from pencils, to bookmarks, to erasers and even a few whiteboard markers. Once the auctioneer reached the eraser in the special box, the bidders became restless. No one could understand how anyone could secure the item if everyone possessed the same amount of money...until two students decided to pair up to out bid the others! This bidding drove the cost up to absurd heights on some of the items at the auction!
Happy bidders in action at the auction
Final prices for items auctioned
In language arts this week, we completed our spring writing prompt. We wrote a persuasive essay to the prompt: "If you could change any one thing about the world, what would it be and why?" Our responses included everything from ending war to simply being more responsible pet owners. We spent one session drafting our ideas, and a second to revise and edit our work. We will spend time next week rating ourselves on the rubric to see how our writing compares to our last prompt work.
Basel works on his first draft
Antanas uses some of our usual writing tools as he revises and edits his work before starting his final draft
Eva types out a final draft as Steven reads for revision
In math this week, we reviewed work with measuring and drawing angles with a half-circle protractor. We also investigated rectangular coordinate grids for maps as we used letter-number pairs and ordered number pairs to locate points on a grid. We investigated the island of Ireland, as well as an imaginary campground to practice our skills. We explored the global coordinate grid system and used latitude and longitude to locate cities on each continent of the world. We learned how to report location using degrees and direction from the equator/prime meridian. Finally, we spent a bit of time challenging our division skills by working with 2-digit divisors, though many of us have already been working with these during number talks. In honour of Earth Week and upcoming Earth Day, grade 4 spent time cleaning up Tymo Park. Some of us ended up enjoying the treasure hunt for garbage even more than playing!
Trash becomes treasure!
Grade 4s clean up their beloved Tymo Park play places
Groups gather around to find 'interesting' garbage findings
Unearthing a buried glass bottle in tact!
The melted snow has revealed endless bits of garbage
Excited about some of the 'treasure' they discovered while picking up rubbish today
As some of us struggle to maintain the motivation to see our Genius Hour Passion Projects through, we have one student who has taken some amazing action this week. For the past 2 months, Nora and her parents have facilitated a club to help save homeless cats in Vilnius. What started as a single passion project in the winter for Nora, turned into a club for 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students. The club worked for weeks to build cozy cat houses and collect cat food donations to give to a local animal shelter. On Friday, the students involved in the 'Help Homeless Cats Project' finally got to visit the Tautmiles animal shelter. They gave their donations and spent time playing with the cats and dogs currently housed in the shelter. What an inspiration this group has been! A simple illustration of how one passion can turn into action and make a difference in the world!
