This week Milky Way class has continued enquiries in the transdisciplinary theme how we organise ourselves, with the central idea being that people share responsibility in order to achieve a common purpose. The current line of enquiry is: we all have responsibilities.
The students have been sequentially, more deeply investigating the duties involved in class nominated occupational fields. Hitherto, Milky Way has looked in some detail at police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses and defence force personnel. These details once learned can be employed in some role-playing activities with specific lists of common terms, phrases, questions and answers that would likely be used daily in their preferred professions. This will be done with a concomitant goal of providing the basic scaffold of specific/ specialised English language with which they can improvise, work around, and extrapolate in free conversation within said activity.
In other English, the class has begun their new list of Dolch sight-words (52 words), additional to recognition of a substantial list of occupational titles with each being associated with a simple definition that explains that position while simultaneously recognising and pronouncing the phonograms contained therein. For example
- (Read from a flashcard) Veterinarian
- (Spoken) E.R. says er; A.R. says ar; veterinarian. A vet is an animal doctor.
They have also been writing relevant and different short paragraphs each day with the objective (additional to handwriting practice) being exposure to various phonograms in context and new grammar points including experience with punctuation. Consequently, the class ‘coincidental vocabulary’ list is being slowly expanded.
This week, as last, significant increases in the frequency of English used by, and between students during their free time communications as well as lunch breaks has been observed.
Targeting the class’s new levelled reading program (Reading A – Z), students have been taking home individual-level (teacher assigned) readers additional to the student-selected library books. Assessment by ‘running record’ will be conducted in the coming week to determine preparedness for advancement.
In mathematics the class is continuing to use number lines to solve sums and differences with the inclusion of negative numbers. Rulers have been frequently used as number lines. With this, measurement and units of length will be introduced alongside marking a straight line of x cm.
Milky Way has begun their new exercise program albeit so far it has been a slow start due to rain and the resultant condition of the school grounds. This has comprised a five to six minute warm up with skipping ropes, a twenty minute game of ‘tag’ and an approximate five minute warm down by stretching.
Today the two classes went on an excursion to the Matsumoto library for a guided tour along with a finishing ‘story-time’ which was thoroughly enjoyed.
