Artistic Expression to End the Year

 This week we began our sixth and final unit of the year under the transdisciplinary theme of How We Express Ourselves. Over the remaining weeks we will inquire into the central idea of Artists use different styles and techniques to create visual art. Our lines of inquiry will focus on genres of art, different art techniques and media, and on creating original artwork.

We began by looking at various artworks and did a see, think, wonder activity and also came up with some questions for our wonderwall. 

We also began our first research project of the unit to learn about different types of artwork.

In PE, we started learning how to play rugby with some help from Kai and Hunter.

Finally, in language we began to express ourselves in writing with a bit of poetry as the students wrote acrostic poems about someone important to them.

End to Extinction

 This week we worked on finishing our unit on extinction by looking at the ways in which we humans are causing extinction. With a partner the students read about some of the ways we impact the world such as farming, mining, water usage and more and then the students summarized the information and tried to simplify it for others to understand. We also watched a video on how humans could be causing the sixth mass extinction and the students summarized key information about the 4 main ways humans are endangering animals and causing extinctions: climate change, habitat destruction, hunting/ poaching and by introducing species to new locations which results in some becoming invasive species. Students also began taking action to prevent the loss of animals that they value by creating posters to inform others about these endangered animals.

In PE we continued practicing our basketball skills and played some mini-games. Next week we’ll try a new sport!

We also had a new classmate join this week, her name is Yu! If you see her and her family around please say hello.