The Rights of Children

 The majority of this week was spent inquiring into the Children's Rights as laid out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Students were assigned one of the first 18 points (out of the first 42) to research and explain to the rest of the class. The first activity was to look at the icon for a given number and to predict what it might be about. After thinking and writing down their own ideas, the students got together in small groups of 2 - 3 to share their ideas with others. The titles for the rights were then passed out to the groups and the members had to sort out which title went with which image.

The second main activity was to then gather more information about each right by reading a child-friendly version. While reading the descriptions students identified and looked up the meaning of any unknown words to help them clarify the meaning for themselves and others. They recorded their notes on a 3rd post-it note and then wrote down why they thought the right was important on a 4th post-it note. 

Finally, each student was responsible for explaining the right to the rest of the class and also explained why they thought that was an important right.

Real-life Data Handling: Student Council Election Results

In math this week we continued working with data and tallied the votes from our student council class representative election that was held last Friday.

We used a line plot to plot our results. We used a weighted points system in which the voters assigned 3 points to the person that they thought should win the most, 2 points for their second candidate and one point for their third choice. When all was said and done, Lucas and Ellie were elected as our class reps for the year. To demonstrate that the set up for an election is quite important and that the results could have been different, we also plotted votes on an unweighted line plot. The results of plotting it this way showed that had we done it this way, then there would have been a tie between the 2nd and 3rd place vote-getters, the top vote-getter would also have been different.

Later on in the week, students engaged in a number talk to demonstrate different ways of calculating the total number of letters in the Grade 3 students' names. Some used addition strategies, while others used a combination of multiplication and addition strategies. We will be focussing on multiplication and division skills later on in the year.

One new math term that the students learned this week was how to find the mode of a data set.

Writing Strong Thesis Statements

In language time, we continued working on persuasive writing. Our focus this week was on the importance of writing strong, bold thesis statements. We wrote about people who were important or noteworthy to us and learnt the importance of adding a strong opinion that we would then need to prove to our topic sentence.

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Scholastic Book Order Deadline

If you are planning to order any English books from the Scholastic Book Order that was sent home last week please be aware that the deadline is next Friday, October 2nd.

Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens

This week our focus was on the rights and responsibilities (also known as duties or obligations) of citizens. After watching a couple of short videos on BrainPOP Jr. about Human Rights and Responsibilities students chose different countries to research. Their goal was to compare the rights and responsibilities of citizens in one country with those of a citizen in another country. They took their findings and put them in  Venn Diagrams to clearly show the similarities and differences.

We also spent some time discussing the different rights and responsibilities in class and watched another short BrainPOP Jr. video on Government and the democratic process. Although the video focussed on the American system of government, it was still quite relevant especially as the successor to the Japanese Prime Minister Abe was just announced as Yoshihide Suga. We also used the momentum from the unit to focus on our own election here in class for our Student Council Representatives.

 

Six students figuratively threw their hats in the ring to become candidates. Non-candidates chose a candidate to work with as a campaign manager or aide. Working side-by-side (at a meter's distance!) candidates and their teams put together persuasive speeches and attractive campaign posters for the candidates.

After hearing each of the candidate's speeches, the students were given the responsibility to participate in the class election by casting ballots. On Monday, we will tally the votes during our math time to see who our two class representatives for the student council will be!

More Persuasive Speech and Opinion Writing

Earlier in the week, the students were able to present the speeches that they had written last week to Mr. Waite. Several students voiced their opinions that the outdoor area needed more equipment and options for the students to play with. Some of their arguments were quite convincing so we hope that Mr. Waite will take them into consideration when ordering new equipment.

Opinions... Everyone's Got One!

A transdisciplinary theme that currently runs through all of our subjects is that we all have our own opinions about things. 

In math, the students created survey questions to ask their classmates. We discussed some of the problems with voting by a show of hands such as how we may change our opinions based on what our friends or others say, or complications such as trying to keep track of who has voted and who hasn't, or those who have voted more than once. With this in mind, we came to the conclusion that the best way to get an honest answer was by asking each classmate individually. To do this, students went one-by-one around the room to ask their classmates (all while staying at least 1 meter away) they even asked and answered Yeonjae questions via Google Meet.

Our writing this week also focussed on giving arguments to support our opinions as the students worked on writing speeches to convince Mr. Waite that they need more equipment to play with during outside playtime. Next Monday morning, they will have the chance to give their speech to Mr. Waite! Let's see if they are able to convince him!

In music, the students gave their opinions to collaboratively answered the question, "What is Music?" by using Google's online whiteboard called Jamboard and then wrote their own definition of what music is.

In unit time with the Grade 4 students, we established the classroom Roles and Responsibilities and started to examine what responsibilities and rights we have as citizens. We watched a short video on human rights in class today, and during lunchtime, we have been watching a documentary called He Named Me Malala about Malala Yousafzai who is a Pakistani child activist who spoke out against the Taliban for the right for girls to be educated.

As our unit content was a bit heavy, we enjoyed a lighter topic during art as the students created their own bookmarks by following instructional videos on YouTube.

Homework Grid

From today, the Grade 3 students will be receiving a Homework Grid to be completed every 2 weeks. This year they are asked to complete at least 3 lines of activities from the grid over the course of two weeks. Activities with a star must be completed. 

PTA Representatives for Grade 3

I am thrilled to announce that after much deliberation and threats of just picking someone randomly that Simran's mother, Roshi Mohinani and Yua's mom, Saori Tamura will be the PTA representatives for our class this year! Thank you both, for volunteering your time this year, and thank you to Aita's mom, Nao and Roshi for all of their hard work on the PTA last year.

Library on Monday

Please remind your children to pack their library books on Mondays so that they can get a new selection of books that interest them each week. During arrival time each morning, the students spend about 20 minutes reading quietly to themselves in order to practice the skills and develop their understanding and language ability so it is extremely important that they have a selection of books to read from. We often use the book that they are reading to focus on literary skills during the week. For example, this week we looked at the setting in their books and focused on finding both literal and inferred details that tell about the setting.

Unit 1: Citizens Impact on Society

 Our first unit of inquiry, under the transdisciplinary theme of How We Organize Ourselves is well underway. Here are the details about it:

Central Idea:

 Citizens impact societies of which they are a part

Lines of Inquiry:

- meaning of citizenship - rights and responsibilities of citizens

- the obligation of citizens towards society

Key Concepts:

Form, responsibility, causation

Related Concepts:

Organization, Government, Community

Approaches to Learning:

Self-management, Social Skills

Learner Profiles:

Principled, Caring

Learning Goals and Success Criteria:

- Identify some of the ways people can impact society 

- Explain how decisions are made within a society

- Demonstrate responsibility with chosen or assigned roles

Action:

Decide on a set of classroom agreements

Propose, vote upon and modify classroom roles and responsibilities (Job Titles and Responsibilities)

How to Support Your Child at Home:

- Discuss any roles you may have in your community/ society.

- Discuss any news about people who are making a difference in their society

- Discuss how cities or countries make decisions for the citizens and how citizens can have a say

This week we discussed our own roles and responsibilities as teachers and students before going into more detail as we worked together to establish classroom helper roles and responsibilities.

To give the students more agency and say in the direction that the unit takes, I opened up a discussion on the Central Idea, by asking them the questions, "So what!?!" What does it mean to you if we learn about How citizens impact societies of which they are a part. Why are we learning about this topic? What does it mean to you? How is this unit relevant to your life?

The ensuing discussion, in particular, the questions from Aruto and Yoshika about how we can help or improve society and questions about what government is helped us expand our understanding of the unit. As did a separate discussion on how our parents or other adults can take an active role in society. 

We will continue to inquire into these themes in more detail in the coming weeks.