National Dress Day

National Dress day

National Dress day was a wonderful opportunity for the Grade 3 community to acknowledge and celebrate its diversity, making explicit one of the key features of the PYP - International Mindedness. Grade 3 sparkled today with colour through costumes, languages, food, and traditions, etc. Students and teachers were reminded of the great number of commonalities and differences we have within our school and were given an opportunity to be open-minded with others. India being diverse in itself, represented cultures of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Bihar, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal etc. Whereas the international stage was set by students from Belgium, Finland, Spain, Korea and Japan. Students not only enjoyed sharing their food with the other cultures but were proud of who they were. In a class ceremony students proudly shared their family values by displaying the beautiful ‘family crests’ they made. This event was in conjunction with the present unit of inquiry based on ’similarities and differences’ under the trans-disciplinary theme; ‘Who we are’.

Provocation- Second LOI

PROVOCATION to the second line of inquiry;

Similarities and differences between people

The blanket Joseph's grandfather made him is transformed into many things as the years go by: a jacket, a vest, a tie, a handkerchief--and finally a button. Gilman's modern adaptation and lively illustrations turn this favourite Jewish tale into a contemporary classic.

Students watched this beautiful story, ‘something from nothing’ by Phoebe Gilman as a provocation to the second line of inquiry; ‘similarities and differences’.

After the video we had a class discussion on how families have similarities and differences. Through the story with the students discussed similarities and differences between their family and Joseph's. Students talked about food, clothing, shelter, grandparents living in the same house as Joseph, grandfather sewing something for Joseph, etc… They also discussed things they do with their grandparents. At the end of the day students turned to their neighbour and shared with them one similarity and one difference between their family and the one in the story. 

Formative Assessment

Formative Assessment

of the first line of inquiry

Physical, Social and Emotional Characteristics

Student have begun performing their research skills in Grade 3 as they had to find out about a ‘kid’s life’ living in different parts of the world. Students chose countries of their choice for their first formative assessment– Egypt, New Zealand, Poland, Canada, USA, Armenia, Mexico, Japan, China, Russia, Korea, France, Ireland, Madagascar, England, Brazil and Germany. They read about them and then on A3 sheets organized their findings of ‘similarities and differences’ into columns of Physical, Social and Emotional characteristics. After asking a lot of questions, students are clear about their understanding on the first line of inquiry…keep it up kids J.

Session with the Councelor

‘How we are different’

Ms Tareeta Arora; the school counsellor held a discussion with the class on ‘how we are different’. She also did an activity with them where they were asked to write about things in their own lives that they don’t like and are different.

Then they were asked to make the positive statement–

“Yes I accept you and I welcome you”.

Skype Session

SKYPE session with another school

Today our Grade three students had another fun learning engagement during the Skype session with other set of Grade 3 students studying in ‘AGHA KHAN International School’ which is an IB school in Hyderabad. There was a transaction of questions and answers based on the first line of inquiry; Physical, Social and Emotional characteristics. Our students asked the questions and their students provided us the information about themselves. Due to some internet connection hiccups we were not able to view them through the camera but had a wonderful privilege to be able to hear them. We look forward to another Skype session and of course a better internet connection next time.

Presentation by the Guest Speakers

GUEST SPEAKERS

We at Grade 3 had a great pleasure in inviting the ‘Guest Speakers’ to share their life experiences which entails their family & culture.

Since our unit of inquiry is based on SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES, which is in conjunction with our current TD theme –‘Who We Are’. The central idea of the unit is ‘People are more alike than different’.

Their presentation was connected with the first line of inquiry; ‘Physical, social and emotional characteristics’.  Their presentation not only emphasised critical thinking skills but was also an eye opener for students coming from diverse backgrounds.

Students benefitted a lot from today’s presentation from all the guest speakers as they all had a rich repertoire of cultural background and heritage. The guest speakers were not only from diverse Indian backgrounds; Bengali and Malayali but also from the overseas right from the ends of the world from New Zealand and then Korea and also Russia. Mr Abhimanyu Das Gupta brought in his Bengali culture and Ms Sabeena brought in her loud and proud presentation from Kerala. Whereas the overseas presenters were- Mr Patrick Brown enlightened us with the Maori & European culture that makes them Kiwis and also presented his world infamous the ‘Maori Haka’. and Ms Yulia Kantorova mesmerised students with her adaptation to the Indian culture by displaying her classical dance.

Each presentation was for 10-15 minutes max and we also had 10 minutes each for Q & A session. The presentation was visual (photos and videos), through ppts, role plays, performances, etc. The students and teachers of Grade 3 had a meaningful interaction with these Guest Speakers.

A Big THANK YOU to all of them for encouraging our students that even though we are different but we are more alike in many ways. It was great to see students engaged and were participating in this interactive session. 

Provocation- First LOI

Provocation to the first line of inquiry;

Physical, Social and Emotional characteristics

This week started with students talking about ‘Feelings and Emotions’. Students were given a feeling card and an action card, and were asked to act it out while others were supposed to guess.

It was fun and most of them guessed with the right feeling/emotion.

Students also watched a video of a famous fairy tale; the Ugly Duckling. This led to a class discussion and after that they wrote a ‘different ending’ to the story including them as one of the characters.

The Ugly Duckling story prepared the students to talk about ‘bullying’ as well, so after watching a power point presentation on it they reflected by sharing their thoughts and discussed how to deal with it when they go 
through a similar situation.