Wednesday 27 April 2016

Exhibition in progress


 The grade 6s are hard at work putting together their knowledge in a way that can bring out the issues they are trying to highlight.
It's been a hard day but worth looking at how they are developing as learners and inquirers. 


Women in chain


Effect of pollution on the environment 
The Bullying board coming up with some guidance from Ms. Sandra.



Migration and its horrors reflected in this powerful art piece.



Technology and its impact on human lives. Work in progress.



Posters on poverty


Young ladies hard at work, highlighting the plight of women around the world.

Creativity at its best with the Medical Advance's group


Hope you enjoyed our experiences!



Tuesday 12 April 2016

Grade 6 Exhibition

Save the date! 

On Friday April 29th at 5.30pm Grade Six will be hosting the PYP Exhibition.  This year we will be using the new Grade Six building to host the event, rather than the cafeteria.  Please come along and see how the girls' independent inquiries have progressed over the past six weeks.  The event is open to the entire Seisen community (not just parents of Grade Six students) and is a chance to celebrate the students' engagement with the PYP.

This year we didn't choose one transdisciplinary theme for the students to inquire into.  Instead, students have chosen issues they were interested in and will make connections to a number of the transdisciplinary themes (Who we are; Where we are in place and time; How we express ourselves; How the world works; How we organise ourselves; Sharing the planet).  We selected a generic central idea for the Exhibition, inspired a famous Ghandi quote: The action people take can reflect the change they want to see in the world.  Students will work to reword this central idea so that it better reflect their chosen issue.

All the groups are keeping an online digital portfolio.  At regular intervals they reflect on their progress and upload work samples that demonstrate success or growth, using their rubrics to focus on the success criteria. You can access the girls' portfolios by clicking on the group names on this page.  Please feel free to leave comments on the groups' pages - the girls will appreciate people taking time to view their work and offer some feedback.

You can view the Grade Six Exhibition website by clicking here. The site contains information on assessments, the inquiry process and has resources for parents and mentors.

Well done to Kaarina Sirkka from 6A who won the annual Exhibition poster design contest!

Saturday 9 April 2016

Student Led Conferences


























Grade Six Students enjoyed sharing their learning today. Parents were both supportive and challenging as they listened to their daughters' explanations of math goals, reading goals, portfolios and board game learning. We look forward to seeing you all again at the Exhibition on April 29th.





Monday 4 April 2016

Data Handling in Grade 6


“So few people are really aware of their thoughts. Their minds run all over the place without their permission, and they go along for the ride unknowingly and without making a choice.” 



The grade 6s have been inquiring into Mean Median Mode and Range.


This lesson required the students to collaborate and discuss various strategies as they used their knowledge of the topic to solve a problem. We used Jo Morgan's website Resourceaholic to access this activity. This website is a highly recommended one!




The students had to match the graph with the data. One of the data had been erased, making the activity a little more challenging than the day before.


They had to organize and showcase their group effort.




After the activity, we had a plenary session where the students discussed different strategies they used. These were the guiding questions:


Use your knowledge of today's lesson and answer the following: (( Already discussed in our plenary (concluding) session today.))

1. Which cards were the easiest to match? Why was this?

2. Which cards were difficult to match? Why was this?

3. When matching the cards, did you always start with the bar chart/statistics table? Why was this?

4. Did anyone use a different strategy?
5. Did you enjoy the lesson? Why or why not? Please be very honest with yourself.

Maths Literacy :
Try and incorporate the following words in your reflection (maths exercise book). Please focus on quality presentation. (Date, title, good handwriting). Draw and illustrate your work to make it exciting for your poor teacher.

1. metacognition
2. time-consuming (when referring to 'Mean.')
3. strategy
4. misconception ( for example: when trying to figure out mode)


Enjoy your work and do your best!

This is what the students reflections look like after our plenary session. It helped them use maths vocabulary effectively. It also helped them with their metacognition skills.












We leave you with a funny one!


I leave you with a powerful video about Maths reasoning by Dan Meyer...




Thank you for reading.