PYP 3 are proud to present their learning!
The enthusiastic and nature loving students of PYP 3 enjoyed celebrating their learning journey with their parents and peers at our Celebration of Learning last week on our unit “Sharing the Planet”. Throughout the course of this unit, the students approached their learning with curiosity and commitment to explore the central idea “Biodiversity relies on maintaining a balance within systems” and the Celebration of Learning was an excellent opportunity for students to showcase this.
There were a many stages that led up to this learning. They first worked as a team to construct critical conceptual questions and used these to inquire deeply into their chosen ecosystems, so as to build on their existing knowledge. Interacting with nature on our field trip and class discussions enhanced their understanding and students were able to conclude that interdependence is part of nature and it is our responsibility to maintain a harmonious balance.
After an enlightening presentation and couple of reading sessions, the children were ready to apply their existing knowledge (about the elements of a narrative and their chosen ecosystem) to draft their own narratives which was the summative assessment for the unit.
They thoughtfully interwove the natural environment, interdependence, the problem of human interaction and positive action within the relevant parts of their story.
Synthesizing information and crafting it into an interesting story facilitated the development of their language skills. Including effective vocabulary, a ‘hook’, descriptive ideas, imagery, and the element of suspense helped the children to weave an interesting story.
The students gained the complete experience of creating a “book” by illustrating pictures for their in the form of a drawings. Their creativity was clearly seen in the drawings that illustrated the setting, problem, and resolution of their story.
After the final proofreading of their story, they were ready to “publish” their stories. They even conducted a self assessment and peer/parent assessment which gave them a chance to take into account where they fared well, and where there was scope of improvement.
Once their books were ready, it was time to share and showcase their learning and the Celebration of Learning was an ideal platform for this. Students got a chance to proudly present all that they had accomplished through the unit. Each and every child was eager to share her/his personal experience, and the enthusiasm of parents was an excellent motivation for them.
Here are some student reflections –
“It was more than awesome because I go to read my story to my mom. I really like my story and I was sure my mom would like it too. I got to also share all my work and I was super happy about it!”
“It was amazing because I got to tell my story to my parent and another parent too. They gave me such a good comment on my story. It made me feel like all the hard work I did to make the story was worth it.”
“I enjoyed reading my story to my mom and my mom gave me some comments on how I did which made me feel very happy”.
Parent Reflections –
“I am very impressed with the language used and the words chosen for description. The story was very vividly depicted and the message was strong”.
“My child was very involved in this unit and was deeply interested in carrying out her research and writing her story, supporting it with very creative, well thought and beautiful drawings. I was truly impressed with her overall learning and enthusiasm.”
After the celebration of learning, there were some students wanted to make a difference. They said they need to take action about the changes they saw in the biodiversity in MBIS now. They came up with the idea to write a formal email to the director stating a proposal to plant more trees along with its benefits, and also made posters to advertising other solutions to help the environment.
PYP3 Team