Each of these livebinders has been created to support the Units of Inquiry. They are meant to be a frontloading resource for students to begin to grasp the central idea.
Category Archives: PYP
Love Your Library month & Book Giving Day
For a few years we have been celebrating Love Your Library month. It is an excellent way to introduce students to the library as well as getting teachers involved and enthusiastic about visiting the library.
This year we have had teachers select their own gift of a Picture Book, Fiction or Non-Fiction book and a bookmark that “Gives the Gift of Reading” through a list of recommended authors on a specific genre.
As a part of the Loving your Library concept we also have “Getting to Know You” and Library Orientation activities. These activities have been arranged around the PYP Concepts from the perspective of the library.
Classroom Teachers select how they would like to orientate their students and set up the Essential Agreements for the use of the library space.
Library Report 2014
Exhibition 2014 and technology
The students have been engaging with a variety of ICT in order to present and share their learning journey. Below are the websites, apps and auras that were designed for the Exhibition 2014.
Additionally students have also created eBooks, iMovies, Keynotes and presentations in other formats using their iPads.
ART PIECE
The student art piece has been documented using the apps below and have been shared as auras (using Aurasma).
Art – Self Portrait Explained
WEBSITES AND APPS
Please note: the apps created with Blippit are no longer active.
As of March 2014 Blippit has changed to Blippit IO App Maker.
To retain the work of the students this presentation was created.
STOLEN GENERATION 6A WEBSITE
ARRANGED MARRIAGES 6A WEBSITE
TECHNOLOGY 6A WEBSITE
OBESITY 6A WEBSITE
STOLEN GENERATION 6B APP
STOP RACISM 6B WEBSITE
OBESITY 6B WEBSITE
RACISM 6B APP
PETS & WELBEING 6A WEBSITE
GAMES – CREATED USING SCRATCH
Sleepy bird Scratch game (created using Scratch)
SCREENSAVER
Designed using Pages and finalized using Comic Head app.
This has been added to the JS Library iPads.
Design thinking @Edutech2014
I was fortunate enough to attend a Masterclass at Edutech this year.
“Design thinking in the Australian Curricululm” with Ewan McIntosh @notosh (and Hamish Curry and Tom Barrett).
The sessions were fast and furious (I went through four pencils in the Immersion and Synthesis stage of the process).
Simple, yet effective ideas like the six word stories are wonderful ‘I can implement tomorrow’ ideas.
I think that a tool like Haiku Deck would be excellent to visualise these as well.
I am currently in the synthesising phase of how to actually implement this process at SALC. The concepts have great potential not only for use with the Australian Curriculum but perfect for the inquiry method in the PYP. I LOVED the idea of using TED talks to generate a “generative topic” and the challenging nature of them.
@art_cathyhunt visual notes – nice!
What’s in a word? Meaning and intention? Does it make a difference? Emotive words and hidden intent?
The focus on a key word in statements was frustrating (as often words used could be interchangeable) yet I understood the purpose and importance of the selection of language.
See some tweets – #Edutech
Lots of food for thought. Stay tuned for where we go next.
RESOURCING THE CURRICULUM
This resources curated below are to support teachers to locate resources to teach students about THE RESEARCHING PROCESS and some of the resources that we have at St Andrews in the Junior School.
The resources provided for teachers and students include:
- the research process
- researching tools
- referencing and academic honesty
- and links to the units of inquiry
- curated materials specific to the units of inquiry
- use of the library management system (Oliver) to support reading through the creation of reading lists and materials
Other pages that may be useful are:
INFORMATION LITERACY – WIKISPACES
SEARCHING THE INTERNET – WIKISPACES
RESEARCHING (VIRTUAL LIBRARY)
National Simultaneous Storytime
Tomorrow is National Simultaneous Storytime where students around Australia read/listen to the same book.
The book is Too Many Elephants (shortlisted last year). We have three hard copies if you would like to borrow one to read to your students tomorrow. Alternatively watch the video below or the view book trailer. ALSO, the book is also translated into other languages – including Japanese (perfect!).
Book Trailer
Too Many Elephants being read Jane Kennedy (scroll down to the video)
Audio books will be available in the following languages courtesy of SBS Radio.
• Arabic
• Cantonese
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hindi
• Italian
• Japanese
• Mandarin
• Punjabi
• Swahili
• Somali
• Vietnamese
Have fun!
Making connections – Luther and the Cloud-Makers
Who is the cloud-maker?
Photo Credit: Evan Leeson via Compfight
“Luther and the Cloud Makers”by Kylie Newburn and illustrated by Sarah Nelisiwe Anderson is a beautifully written and illustrated picture book that is not only a great book to share with younger children but is a perfect example of a resource to support student inquiry into Sharing the Planet.
Read an in-depth review by the Picture Book Nook.
This book will be one I recommending for the Year 2 Sharing the Planet unit.
View the book trailer below.
#takingaction #courage #integrity #PYP_Literature #postmodern
THE YEAR SO FAR…
Want to have a play?
Bee Bots supporting inquiry
We have spent some of our reward points from Scholastic Book Fairs and we have purchased some Bee Bots. Bee Bots are some programmable robots that are excellent to use across the curriculum (lower primary). These are hassle free ICT tools for supporting the Technologies curriculum as well.
In the JS Staffroom we have the Bee Bots on a world map ready for your explorations. We have ordered more maps – just waiting on delivery!
Bee Bots in action
See this blog post Beebots Downunder for some ideas about how these are being used in classes.
Great for literacy, maths, problem solving and geography! (Perfect for mapping UOI Year 2/3).
Name our beebots
We have six Bee Bots and they need names!
Please come and have a play with your class and suggest a name (and reason why).
Post your responses below.