This week 4L has been full-speed ahead into business! On Monday, we had our first sale. We sold our goods and services to our classmates and did a little shopping too! We then spent some time reflecting on what went well and what we might change for our next attempt.
On Tuesday, we became consumers. We went to 4A for their sale. It was exciting to see such different goods and services than we had produced. Most of us gladly spent almost all of our money but a few of us returned home with some foreign currency in our pockets! Our Antanas Euros got us pretty far in the 4A market! After returning from this sale, we reflected on what we could learn from being a consumer to apply to our next sale. Our thinking can be found below:
We also had an intriguing discussion about the point of business, if it's fair to barter and why certain currencies might be more valuable when we travel. Next, we began to prepare for our second sale. We used what we learned from our two previous sale experiences to modify or even completely re-create our business ideas. We focused on the Learner Profiles and Attitudes for this unit of inquiry to help guide our thinking and our 'business policies'. We also kept referring to a few guiding questions to make sure we were thoughtful and mindful about our business choices.
In order to answer some of the questions we had, we noticed that we needed to do some research before the second round of sale preparations. Many of us surveyed classmates and potential customers about details such as price or colour, while others simply canvassed to determine interest and potential.
Finally, on Friday, we invited 4A to our sale. It was fun to be on the other side of the sales counter again after picking up some tips throughout the week. We were excited that aside from 4A, a few teachers and even Ms.Rebecca dropped by for some shopping! Below are our reflections after the big sale. Almost everyone felt successful, and we realised quickly that when business isn't working...we are a group who can think on our toes!
When asked 'What next?' - we were very keen on continuing our business ventures to see how far we could stretch 1 Euro! In language arts this week, we continued our work with poetry. Our shared poem this week was 'Spill' by Judith Thurman.
We spent the rest of the week sharing poems we're currently in the process of revising. It's been amazing to get feedback from our classmates so we can get closer to our goal of publishing our work.
We discovered that more precise feedback is always most helpful, but that it's also a difficult task when it comes to poetry!
In math this week, we continued with division number talks. On Thursday, Basel ran our number talk.
We've also been working with angles. We started with a review of what we knew about angles. Then we moved on to practicing with full-circle protractors to measure acute, obtuse and reflex angles. We even tried an angle measurement number talk.
We spent time investigating how a clock face can be used to help us determine degree measurement on a circle as we've measured time in degrees! We've been reviewing telling time and calculating elapsed time, as well as data handling and organisation.
This week we got the special privilege of having the Illusions Museum come to VIS! We very much enjoyed our time playing with different optical illusions and trying to figure out how these illusions were created.
We enjoyed another beautiful spring day in the park with 4A. This week we got up to: 'hunting for forgotten things', making musical instruments out of natural elements, climbing trees, acting out our dreams, braiding hair, tag, and a capture and release team game. Another wonderful weeks in the books! Enjoy your Spring Break and Happy Easter!
I'm continually amazed at the growth and creativity of the students in 4L! This week was a particularly inspiring one as we created our own businesses, division strategies, and poems. We are never short on ideas and we delight in the chance to be inspired by one another. This week in Unit, we wrapped up our study of How We Express Ourselves. Our central idea was: Expression of self is influenced by culture and religion. After collecting and collating all of our research, we spent time reflecting on our big takeaways or enduring understandings from this unit. We used the Generate-Sort-Connect-Elaborate routine for this. We generated our learning and then connected it to one or more line of inquiry or to the central idea. As we elaborated on our thinking, fruitful conversation flowed freely based on our independent inquiries/discoveries.
Our final generate-sort-connect-elaborate work with enduring understandings
Once all of our sticky notes were posted and we wrapped up our group discussion, we reflected on what major themes kept coming up throughout the unit that would leave a lasting impression on us. They were:
No matter what religion people believe in, most people believe in some kind of higher being (though they may call it different things)
People tend to believe in religion to answer life's 'big questions'
Many people's behaviour is related to their belief in some kind of afterlife
Religion is not about science but faith (this word came up a lot in our interviews/visits)
We then began our study of Unit 5, How We Organize Ourselves. We learned that we'd have a class sale. We began by brainstorming businesses we knew. As we shared our thinking, they were put into two columns on the board. We then spent time considering the difference between the two columns. Here's what we discovered:
Student generated responses to types of businesses and how they differ
We then did a Think-Pair-Share of what goods and services we might be able to offer to sell to our classmates. We came up with these awesome ideas:
Then it was time to get planning! We spent time chatting with friends to decide what each of us would like to do, and then we got down to production!
Our goods and services included:
math times table tutoring
Scratch tutoring
fun photo booth session
games
clay sculptures
rubberband jewelry
advertising
pillows
plush animals and clothes
*A special thanks to our friend, Antanas, for creating our currency which we call 'Antanas Euros'!
We continued to work together in our own time and then had one more work day to finish production in class. We all made progress and some of our ideas even grew and changed over the week.
As part of our transdisciplinary learning this week, we worked in Art with Ms.Dayana to create a logo for a business. We spent time brainstorming the importance of our audience, business name, significance of different colours and effectiveness of different fonts.
In math this week, we continued with our division number talks. We are slowly growing comfortable with various strategies, and we even added three new strategies to our toolbox this week thanks to Domantas, Aleksandras and Nora!
Domantas discovered the 'Partial Quotient' method
Working mentally or with whiteboards on a division number talk
Aleksandras discovered the 'Halving and halving' strategy while Nora elaborated on a 'chunking' strategy similar to partial sums to include visuals
Aside from practicing division, we also began to investigate what could be done with remainders in number stories. We discovered there were 3 options:
Ignore it (if what remained could not be split or used)
Report the remainder as a decimal (often in money) or fraction (when it was something like food that could be split equally)
Round up (when the remainder still needed to be accounted for, like people needing a seat at a table)
In language arts this week, we continued with booktalks. We regularly share our own books with our classmates in Lithuaninan, Russian and English. Some of us have so many books on our 'Someday Lists' that we're reading 2-3 books per week by now! In writing, we continued our study of poetry. We focused on crafting our poetry and how revision looks different than when we were working with narrative writing. We realised that one big part of revising poetry is the need to read it aloud again and again to see how it 'feels' as we make changes. We started up our peer conferences again.
Domantas and Antanas read poems aloud for feedback
Nora offers Migle feedback on her poem
Krista seeks feedback from Benas about how to improve a poem she hopes to publish
We also added some tools to our writing toolkits. We explored some of the pitfalls of rhyme in poetry:
rhyme can result in nonsense words that render a poem meaningless
rhyme might take over other elements like imagery or metaphors, thus making the poem more shallow
filler words that water down our poems such as 'oh'and 'so'
We then looked at 'cutting the fat' from our poems. We thought about all the little, boring/unnecessary words or long descriptions that might be made more concise and tried cleaning out some clutter.
Finally, we searched for the heart or essence of poems we considered publishing. Once we found the heart, we looked at the rest of the poem and cut anything that didn't add to the heart.
We also continue to seek inspiration and guidance from famous poets, as well as peer poets. Our shared poems this week were:
'Body Art' by Marilyn Singer
From "Knock at a Star" poetry anthology by Dorthi Charles
'To the Moon' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
as well as poems by our fr
Some of us even took our poetry outside! Benas found a bit of chalk and decided the courtyard ground was the perfect place to try out some free verse!
We had the pleasure of a peaceful spring morning at the park this week! We did some singing, spring cleaning, dancing, tree climbing, music making, tagging and stick gathering!
We had a great surprise on Wednesday when Ms.Marie (one of our former 2nd grade teachers from VIS) came for a visit during our lunch recess! It was awesome to get some Ms.Marie time!
Finally, we had the pleasure of celebrating our friend, Steven's, birthday this week. We wish him a happy 10th year ahead!
In honour of Anti-Bullying Week, we spent time throughout our week talking about friendship; what it is and what it isn't and how to keep our relationships healthy. We began our week with a class meeting, as we do each week. The question of the day was, "A real friend is someone who..." We each gave feedback on what constitutes a 'real friend'. Our thoughts included:
is willing to resolve conflict when we have one
appreciates our differences
doesn't care how you look but about who you are
will protect you
cares
is helpful
protects the real you
tries to cheer you up when you're sad
respects your ideas
is always on your side
is there when you need them
keeps your secrets
includes you
doesn't judge if you're right or wrong
doesn't leave you lonely
doesn't put limits on your friendship
notices when you're upset and does something about it
We then read the book Each Kindness by Jacqueline Wilson.
We felt the most important lessons we could learn from this book were:
each kindness counts
don't wait until it's too late to reach out to someone who might need you
We enjoyed that we could tie this book into friendship and our unit of inquiry. This book is based on the teachings and stories of Zen Buddhism. We reflected that in friendship:
it is important to let the small things go
all things that happen, happen for a reason
even when you have very little, it is important to give to others
Finally, we spent a bit of time talking about different lunchroom scenarios and practiced identifying whether the behaviours were mean, rude or bullying behaviours. Many of us were surprised to learn that using our friendship-or taking it away- as a way to hurt others is called relational aggression and is, in fact, a bullying behaviour.
In Unit this week, we completed a bit more research and then began to synthesise our learning. As part of our research, we learned about Hinduism from Ms.Pooja. We learned that eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism are related, just like Christianity, Islam and Judaism. We were curious about the Hinduism creation story, so we found a video that helped us understand a bit more. We shared our big learning, added to our notes to make connections and note how our thinking might have changed and then discussed our thinking as a group.
Ms.Pooja shares about Hinduism
Antanas looks through his written notes, while Aleksandras refers to notes he's taken on his phone during their conversation with Ms.Pooja to add to their independent inquiry findings
4L watches the Hindu creation story about Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu
Whole group share- what was our biggest takeaway from learning about Hinduism
We then took what we had learned throughout our research during the unit, and began to synthesise our learning. We began by reflecting on Line of Inquiry 1: Similarities and differences between major world religions. We used Venn diagrams and chose two religions to compare and contrast.
Rojus and Aleksandras complete Venn diagrams
Migle looks through her research notes to add thinking to her Venn diagram
Next, we summarised what we had learned about Line of Inquiry 2: The relationship between religion and people's expression. We began by brainstorming what we had noticed during visits to different religious places of worship and what we had discovered through research. Together we made a list of all the forms of religious expression we observed.
4L brainspill about different forms of religious expression
We each created a tic-tac-toe. In the middle, we wrote "religious expression" and in each box around the centre, we chose any forms of expression we felt we knew about based on our research. We drew a line to connect 3 in a row (just like tic-tac-toe) and wrote statements about those chosen forms of expression to answer the questions:
Why do people do this?
How is this expression connected to their religion?
Tic-tac-toe
Finally, we reflected on Line of Inquiry 3: How religion impacts society. We did a quick 'rocket write' where we independently wrote all of our ideas/thinking in a list for 2 minutes. We then chose one item from our list to elaborate upon. We then shared our thoughts in a whole group discussion.
Rocket writing as a mind map
Rocket writing turns into a paragraph
In writing this week, we continued to look at good habits of poets. We spent a bit more time working on 'embracing' interesting words and unique phrases in poetry we read.
Benas and Liza explore poetry books to collect noticings
Steven and Domantas look through different poetry books for pieces of inspiration
We also looked at habit 3 which was 'Don't Lose Your Ideas'. Luckily, we already had a method for that, so we decided to create a new writing territory list in our writing notebooks just for poetry. We've begun collecting thoughts, inspiration, phrases, etc. in this territory.
We did some shared reading of poems this week. We began to highlight and annotate thinking, noticings and favourite phrases/words to keep as inspiration.
Our shared poems this week were:
"Poems" by Kate Coombs
from "American Address" by Thanhha Lai
"Library" by Valerie Worth
Class thoughts on T. Lai's poem
Class annotation and thoughts on V. Worth's poem "Library"
We then spent time sharing our poems with peers and creating new poems.
Modelled annotations on student's inspiring poem
Finding inspiration in another student's poem
In math, we began our study of division. We had our first division number talk where we shared many of the strategies we already use or know. This sparked a discussion about how some strategies would be fine with small digits but we questioned how they would work once we got into problems with 3-digit dividends.
Our first division number talk strategies- Yigit's strategy of repeated subtraction has got us curious so we try to prove it by completing two more problems using the strategy...it works!
We began our work with division by solving number stories. This has been helpful for us because we are able to visualise what the process of division is really about. We also learned to use the multiplication/division number story table as a tool to organise our thinking.
Yigit works to fill in our story problem table
We also learned a new division strategy called Number Towers. We found it very handy for those of us who are more comfortable with multiplication than division.
We worked to solve division and multiplication number stories, as well as practiced our division skills playing the game "Division Dash" with partners.
Domantas and Aleksandras play 'Division Dash'
Sofia shares a division strategy with Gerda, while Yelyzaveta walks through a story problem with Sofija
Once again, we evaluated our own abilities to decide whether to work independently, with check-ins or with guidance. We found it helpful to work with peer teachers as they were able to explain the process from new perspectives and help some of us see problems in a more friendly way. We enjoyed a wet day together with 4A in the park. From discovering the wonders of life that spring is bringing, to playing with the cutest collie we know, to finding treasures that the snow had hidden all winter, to creating a grade 4 concert...it was a wonderful time!
Upon returning from the park, we each reflected on what our time at the park has taught us about friendship. We have learned:
-how to resolve conflicts with friends
-it's important to be friends with everyone, not just a select few
-how to create our own exciting games
-how to recognise when someone is being a good friend, and when they're not
-how to be a better friend to others
-to leave certain people alone when we see they are not interested in playing with us
-how to make rules so everyone has fun in the game
-the importance of keeping a secret
Genius Hour remains one of our favourite times of the week! We enjoyed celebrating more finished Passion Projects this week.
Eva shares her gymnastics routine to music that she created
Yigit shares his Lego stop-motion movie about helping a homeless person
The rest of us continued to make progress on our current projects.
Yelyzaveta works on the creation of her fashion website
Migle and Antanas practice and prepare for their magic show performance for the Dolphins class
Aleksandras (aka Ms.Lezlie's assistant for today) helps Basel figure out how to use 'Scratch'
Sofia celebrates the fruits of her labour - all of her cat interviews for her new book!
Rojus researches different game platforms
Shourya begins his solar system model made of recycled materials
Nora researches different software she could use to create a video of her learning process this cycle
We also enjoyed 'PJ Day' on Tuesday! We were snuggled in our pyjamas all day long, but we found them especially cozy during reading time when we got to share some animal cracker snacks provided by our friends from Student Council!
Finally, it was our pleasure to celebrate our friend, Aleksandras' birthday on Monday with PIZZA! We wish him a wonderful 10th year ahead.
