Planning the inquiry

1. What is our purpose? To inquire into the following:

Class/grade: Kindergarten School: Oak Forest Elementary

Age group: 5-6 School code: 006610

transdisciplinary theme

How we express ourselves: An inquiry into the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; our appreciation of the aesthetic.

Teacher(s): Batts, Craig, Gutierrez, Hampton, Sutton, Troxel Date: 10/17/11 Proposed duration: number of hours PYP planner over number of weeks: 6 weeks

Central idea: Cultures celebrate beliefs.

Summative assessment task(s): Students will create a classroom celebration. What are the possible ways of assessing students understanding of the central idea? Students demonstrate their understanding of celebrations by defending the reason for their classroom celebration. Students will justify how and why they are celebrating. Students will design a celebration that reflects the beliefs and values of their classroom.

2. What do we want to learn?

What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective, responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry? Key concepts: Connection, Responsibility, Perspective Related Concepts: Diversity, Beliefs, Culture

What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?

What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea? Describe celebrations. How do people celebrate. Similarities and differences between cultural celebrations.

Teachers and students will create a rubric that outlines the essential elements of a celebration. Using the rubric students will design their classroom celebration.

What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries? What is a celebration? How and why do people celebrate? What are similarities and differences between cultures? Provocation Create an Artifact table using pictures or photos of other countries celebrations. Listen to clips of music used during cultural celebrations. Receive a box of artifacts from s specific cultural and or country.

International Baccalaureate Organization 2007

Taught October 2011

Planning the inquiry

3. How might we know what we have learned?

This column should be used in conjunction with How best might we learn? What are the possible ways of assessing students prior knowledge and skills? What evidence will we look for?

4. How best might we learn?

What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions? Students will draw a picture explaining what they know and understand about celebrations. Students will research, brainstorm and discuss various celebrations held throughout the world during the months of November and December. Students will create thinking maps, artifacts, and journal reflections for celebrations.

Students will draw a picture of a celebration. Can they identify a celebration? Do they understand the elements that make up a celebration?

What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for? Create a Thinking Map to compare and contrast two or more celebrations. Create Passport Journal to record what new knowledge is learned from each celebration. Students will create a suitcase and use them to store artifacts that represent the celebrations. Can the students use their knowledge of celebrations to complete a thinking map, artifact and journal? Teachers will create a rubric and checklist to assess the students understanding.

The teacher provides the context for inquiry through books, United Streaming Movies, artifacts, photos, Music CDs, and PowerPoint presentations. Leading and facilitating student inquiry through questioning and research.

What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the development of the attributes of the learner profile? Transdisciplinary skills

Thinking, Communication, Research and Social Skills

5. What resources need to be gathered?

What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available? 059048679-9 The Legend of the Poinsettia Tomie dePaola 0-671-87238-7 Harvest Festivals Around the World Judith Hoffman Corwin Nine Days of Christmas-A Story of Mexico --Marie Hall Etsand Aurora Labastida 0-7894-2027-9 Celebrations! Barnabas and Anabel Kindersley 0-590-18955-6 K is for Kwanzaa- Sharon Shavers gayle How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?

Teachers will use their classroom resources to spark natural curiosity about the unit.
International Baccalaureate Organization 2007

Reflecting on the inquiry

6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?

Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students understanding of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included. Students understood that children all over the world celebrate different holidays. Students gained an understanding of the similarities between the celebrations around the world. They also understood that groups of people use different traditions when celebrating a particular holiday.

7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?

What were the learning experiences that enabled students to: develop an understanding of the concepts identified in What do we want to learn? demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills? develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?

In each case, explain your selection. Key concepts Connections and Perspective Students demonstrated their connections and each cultures perspective by creating a suitcase full of artifacts. The artifacts were symbols of each cultures celebrations.

How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more accurate picture of each students understanding of the central idea. If time allowed, students could have reflected daily on their new knowledge. We spent the majority of the time introducing, discussing and researching each celebration. Students created symbols throughout the unit that reflected each specific celebration. We will keep reflection journals in the form of a passport.

Students were able to become more knowledgeable as they made connections between the cultural celebrations. They became more open minded about how people celebrate around the world. Transdisciplinary skills

Thinking, Communication, Research and Social Skills

Students were good thinkers and communicators while researching each celebration. They reflected periodically and compared traditions. They developed their ability to think and communicate their understandings of each celebration.

What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the transdisciplinary theme? Cultures express themselves when they celebrate beliefs. Students understood that we became more open minded as we discovered how cultures around the world celebrated. They also made the connection that a group of people celebrate based on their beliefs.

Students strengthened their creativity buy creating artifacts that represented each cultural celebration.

International Baccalaureate Organization 2007

Reflecting on the inquiry

8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?

Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that were incorporated into the teaching and learning.

9. Teacher notes The celebrations unit was not only informational but fun for students and this teacher. Although the research was time consuming it was interesting to learn about the diverse customs and cultures of others. Troxel

Do people wear different clothing when they celebrate? Why do people use piatas to celebrate? How do people celebrate birthdays? Can we celebrate Christmas in October?

At this point teachers should go back to box 2 What do we want to learn? and highlight the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries

I really enjoyed working on the Unit about Celebrations Around the World. The students were excited about visiting various countries and learning about their culture and how they celebrate. The unit clearly depicted the purpose of IB. The unit sparked the students curiosity as well as taught them to be open minded. Gutierrez

What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?

Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to reflect, to choose, and to act.

My students enjoyed this IB unit. They were very eager to learn about each country and the celebrations associated with it. The students were excited about the activites each day and couldnt wait for each new country.Winstead

Students reflected on the traditions associated with Boxing Day a tradition of England. Students collected and donated pennies to two homeless families in our community.

The students were immersed with so many learning opportunities. They really enjoyed listening to stories, watching video clip, observing photos and artifacts and creating their own crafts/ artifacts. If I could change on thing about this planner it would be to create a thinking map for each country. The students would sometimes confuse the knowledge obtained from one country with the costumes of another country. - Batts

The students really enjoyed the unit. They were very surprised as well as interested in how other cultures celebrate holidays that they believed were only known to them. The students remained open-minded, curious, and excited throughout the entire unit. My students concluded that everyone id different and thats okay. The next time I teach this unit, I plan to make a Celebrations Chart. As a result the students will have a visual as we compare/contrast them.- Hampton I used the Gingerbread Man to spark natural curiosity. The gingerbread sent us boxes filled with artifacts from countries around the world. He also sent us an email ( SmartBookNotebook) with pictures of each celebration. After researching each celebration, we placed a map of the gingerbread mans location in our passport and created an artifact of that celebration. We placed the artifacts and passport into a paper suitcase. This unit truly sparked their curiosity and kept them involded in the unit.-Sutton
International Baccalaureate Organization 2007