Weekly Report 6 & 7

As you all are aware, we had these short and frenzied weeks last fortnight which were equally exciting as there were lot of activities which happened during these two weeks. We started with our new unit called ‘Plants’ after the summative assessment of the previous unit on ‘Transport’.

 

During the weeks, students were busy as usual with varied things like preparing and presenting their summative assessment. Post which, we started our new unit with a provocation of observing nature and collecting different parts of the plants which we could find while we went on a short nature walk around the junior school. Students collected some leaves, seeds, stems and flowers. They also clicked some pictures of the parts that they couldn’t collect like roots and fruits (that were not to be plucked from the plant). They came back to class and sorted these parts into categories of the different parts of the plants. This was done to gauge their prior knowledge about the parts of a plant. Further they did an activity on see, think and wonder, where they could express about what they observed during the nature walk, what they think about it and what queries do they have, which gave a room for student questions that will be inquired into during the unit.

 

Students also visited Ms.Roshni’s house and a nursery in the school in order to observe the different plants which acts as a resource for us by providing us with fruits, flowers, herbs, vegetables and leaves. Students had fun while they inquired about these plants and had an opportunity to use their sense organs to identify its taste, fragrance and could have a feel of various plants around. They observed plants, shrubs and trees of pomegranate, mango, Italian basil, sweet lime, custard apple, parrot’s beak, Indian basil, chilies, coriander, curry leaves, corn/maize, tomato, okra/lady’s finger and so on. We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to Ms.Roshni who initiated and arranged this short field trip for us which made our inquiry even more exciting.

 

In Maths, the students practiced some of the strategies of subtraction using manipulative and other resources. They worked in centers using beads and abacus, dice, iPads/laptops, beads and string and resource books. They also sorted the parts of plants in different charts and used tally marks to know the number of parts pasted in each category (data handling). Students also worked on counting and sequencing numbers simultaneously. They practiced mental maths in one digit subtraction through ten quick questions.

 

Students were guided further to inquire into the needs of the plants by making them observe three different types of plants- a dead plant, an artificial plant and a real live plant with fresh leaves grown on it. They came out with good answers and analyses of what is needed by plants and that it is a living being. With discussions ahead and guided inquiry, it was identified as to what we receive from plants and how are we inter dependent on each other as living organisms/beings.

 

We continued our research about Julia Donaldson and her life and conducted a hot-seat session wherein the students were divided into two groups. One group surfed about the life of Julia Donaldson and the other group prepared questions related to her life. The groups were given opportunity to interview each other in order to know more about the life of the author and her work. Also the guided reading and writing sessions continue for the students to improve their language skills in various ways.

 

It was a good opportunity to interact with all the parents on Thursday last week. We were delighted to know that most of the parents were satisfied with their child’s growth and progress. We have taken your suggestions into consideration and the student’s goals will be revisited time and again for them to work on it. We would like to thank all the parents for their effort to make it for the meeting and your precious time spent with us. J

 

We had a class assembly on Friday where the students presented their summative assessment task, which was very much aligned with our central idea of our unit on ‘Transport’. The students enacted as different stakeholders like government officials, engineers, field employees and commuters. It was much appreciated by all.