How We Organize Ourselves

We've begun yet another unit of inquiry for our IB studies.  This is another social studies based unit- we are exploring through investigating government systems.  We launched the unit by having the kids think about what it means to be a global citizen verses a citizen of the United States. Our ultimate goal is for the kids to realize that we are not the only type of government that is in the world- many countries  are ran in different ways good or bad.  Despite our differences in government, our country also has to work others on global matters.
Now how do we make this accessible and relevant to children who are 9 & 10 years old?

Now, as you can see they don't have a lot of background knowledge- especially when it comes to a global citizen.  So we have a lot of work to do!! 

December Currently

November Currently

So let's break it down.

Listening: We are doing our Tune Up Tuesday today. This is where I find a song that generally fits with the year's theme of being proud of who you are. So today it is Katy Perry's Roar. They are going to be excited!

Loving: Chris Van Allsburg- who doesn't? He is an amazing author that has helped my guide my class in questioning and thinking through the text.  Such a great mentor author.

Thinking: I can... I can not really think too much more about them or my head my actually spin around. Have you seen the Exorcist? That's pretty much my take on it right now.  Ugh!

Wanting: I really need to rearrange my room. I currently have about 10 bookshelves housing well over 2000 books, which is great and all...but with 32 children there is little room left for us. And, we need to spread out!!

Needing: I need a day to actually work in my room and prep and plan and do all the stuff that is expected of teachers.  The last thing I want to do is it to take it all home- I'd like to see my family a little bit.

A Yummy Pin:  This soup is amazing. It was 1 degree when I woke up today!! 1 degree!!!!

Leaders in Time of Conflict

So keeping with our Unit of Inquiry we really needed to begin looking at leaders so we can examine how they responded in time of conflict and ways they expressed themselves.  I wanted the students to examine both sides of the Civil Rights Movement and make comparisons on what each contributed to the movement, good or bad.  So I composed a list of supporters and opponents and had the children choose one from each side. They were then to research a bit about each person, telling me what they did and how the two were connected . The students organized their thinking in a Venn Diagram.

This was a big eye-opener for some of my children because they just could not fathom how someone would think in such a "backward" way. 

Studying Conflict Through Biographies

      In our district we use the Linda Dorn model for literacy instruction. One component of that is to apply our CCSS for literacy into a study of genre.  Our current genre study is Biographies. So within this we not only tie in our IB Unit of Inquiry, but we also tie in our standards of focus for the unit.  With this unit our Power GLE or CCSS is RI.3, "Explain events, procedures, concepts, or ideas in a historical text, scientific or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text."  The students are also expected to conduct a short research project.  Whew! What a lot to put into a 6 week study!!

    We launched with our study of conflict.  This was used a gateway to open discussion up to how we express ourselves in times of conflict. Sounds easy enough, but to tie in our genre and GLEs is challenging. So our first goal was to build some background knowledge of our content tie in, for the first part it was Civil Rights Movement.  We read several biographies from Martin Luther King Jr, to Rosa Parks, and Ruby Bridges.  Within these we studied specific features of the genre biographies.

After modeling, I sent the students out to find examples of these characteristics within biographies around the room, they flagged the examples they found.  I feel it is not only important for them to be able to identify these characteristics, but to also explain how these help us gain understanding of the text.  This part was done as a response in their reading journal.  

An Inquiry Into Conflict

     Our next unit of inquiry is into the central theme of How We Express Ourselves. We are really trying to get the children to see how conflict brings out different forms of expression from peaceful protests, songs, poems, riots etc.  So the first day  I chose some kids at random and gave lots of special privileges and candy, or whatever I could find to start to create some conflict within our room.  Honestly, at the beginning no one was getting upset!! I was glad my children got along so well, but it was throwing off our social experiment. I had to up the ante and start handing on the big guns, like pencils, stars- I even had some teachers come in and give out prizes.  Then we had some conflict (directed toward me)!
     I never really shared what was happening- I just asked the kids to go home and reflect upon their feelings today and how they were expressing themselves in time of conflict.  They came in on Tuesday with some great ideas!!  ** I did let parents know on Facebook what had gone down so there were no concerns about why someone was intentionally left out**
Here is a picture of our chart the kids made- we first discussed their feelings- then they added what they new about conflicts within our world, school, or community.

It was a great discussion, and I found a lot of gaps in their understanding of war, and different types of conflict occuring now.  

First Day Plans

I've spent the past few days coming up with my plans for the first day, as well as the remaining week.  This year our district approved for the first day, Monday, to be a full day.  Normally on Mondays we are out at 1:55 for staff development.  So I had to do some revising of my plans to take in the extra time we had.  Here is my jing captured plans!