UDIS Year 5/6

Research Skills This week we have been working well on developing research skills. These skills will support us in all of our lifelong learning. We are now familiar with the following ways to research: 1. speak to someone who knows about the topic   2. read a book (Epic online books) 3. Look at Kiddle.com   4. Look at Google images of the thing you want to know about   5. Search for a short documentary   When we have the information in front of us, the next step is to use it wisely. Previously, we tended to copy, but we have been talking about why that is unacceptable. Everything we write now is expressed in our own words.  The information we researched was then presented in an information report.  Presenting the work as a Google document was interesting because we had a chance to use 'voice typing'. It is thrilling to speak to the screen and see spoken words appearing as text! It has been particularly i...

Rites of passage Continuing with our unit of inquiry on culture, we have been looking into the rites of passage of various cultures. Here is the video we began with. Whatever culture we belong to there will be rites of passage that we all experience. As you probably seen, the classroom has many colourful images relating to culture. This week, we all chose one and researched the rites of passage of that culture. We have been learning that Kiddle is a good place to research from because the results are child friendly. Epic books also has good resources to read.  A key point of our learning this week has been looking into the features of an information report. Indeed there are several kinds of writing, all with different purposes, and so during the course of the year we are spending time with each of them. An, Epic books was helpful because it provided a beautiful explanation of how to write an information report. As an example of what ours might look like, the teac...

Rosh Hashanah - what is that? Well, at the beginning of the week we didn't know either! It all came about when we began looking at people whose values and beliefs led them to take action. Each of us chose a from a list of: Princess Diana, Maalala Yousef, Nelson Mandela, Mother Tresesa, Anne Frank Some other names came up to. We looked briefly at what cultural backgrounds they came from and the significant contributions they had made in the world. Anne Frank particularly interested us because the word 'Jewish'  kept coming up in the readings. As we had little idea of what the word meant, we decided to research together. To our surprise we found that this week is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year! All of this was good exercise in reading for information and keeping notes, and so we talked about how best to do that. This is something we have to keep working on. We also enjoyed a video interview with a friend from Ghana. He talked about the traditional culture of th...

This week we've been learning about the fact that South East Asia has many minority ethnic groups. Each of these has its own language, traditions and clothes. We especially learned a lot about the fact that some of these minority groups are forgetting their language and traditions. This became an opportunity for us to think about our own culture and for each of us to feel proud of who we are. This was tied into our English lessons too. As we looked at fascinating photographs of people from South East Asian ethnic groups we naturally had many questions to ask. The focus of the lessons was how to form effective questions. This was a valuable exercise because students really did have good questions, and so they learned how to phrase them correctly and use key words to make them more effective. There has also been a focus on vocabulary extension too. Children naturally enjoy talking, but there is an ongoing need to broaden the scope of the language they are able to use correctly...

Today we presented an assembly on cooperation. We acted out a story about two donkeys who fell down exhausted and hungry because they could not cooperate. We are proud of ourselves for demonstrating cooperation so well. Here is a picture of us cooperating, creating a poster about cooperation. Another highlight of our week has been interviewing teachers about their cultural backgrounds. In our literacy lessons, we spent time writing carefully worded questions for these interviews. The experience of interviewing a teacher helped us develop in confidence and most importantly we were fascinated to hear about the traditions, values and beliefs of Scotland, South Africa, England and China. Here is Natasha interviewing Ms. Maria about the culture of South Africa. Natasha was able to come back and report her findings to the class.  After these interviews, we wrote letters to thank the teachers involved.  We've done a good amount of shared reading this week...

In the picture two friends are greeting one another with the Middle Eastern/ Islamic hug.  Actually, they are doing a double hug because this week is the Islamic celebration of Eid-al Adha.  Ms Phibs came to our classroom and shared her personal experiences of Eid. It is a major celebration in the Islamic cultures. We found out that this week lots of feasting and celebrations are happening all over the Islamic world. At the beginning of the week the students knew very little about culture in general, but after asking various teachers, reading books and discussing photographs, they have developed a fairly good understanding of what culture is. We've been writing journal entries on how our understanding of culture is developing. Through the journal writing, we've been able to consider what makes a journal interesting to read. This became a central part of our literacy work this week. A highlight of the week was trying out the greetings of various c...

We Are Year Six Welcome to Year 6. Here is our first photograph together. Why were we all smiling so much that day? Well, there are so many reasons. Firstly, we were glad to welcome Moriah, our new classmate from Idaho. We're looking forward to getting to know her more and finding out about where she has come from.  Secondly, we realise that we are fortunate enough to have a large classroom with a beautiful view over green fields. Another reason for the smiles is that we also had the opportunity to arrange the room as we wanted it. A third reason is this: - Yes, we've enjoyed our first week together. Please continue following our blog. It will be updated weekly and contain things to make you smile too!