Our second week in our brand new ISN Elementary Campus has definitely been amazing! Local parks, science experiments, and enjoying our awesome new facilities have all been most inspiring.
We also had the pleasure of hosting a high school graduate from Sydney, Australia. Yasmin is travelling through parts of Japan before she begins her studies on the human brain at the University of Sydney. ISN Elementary students enjoyed her participation in all their investigations this week. We were sad to say goodbye but we hope to see her again.
Walking to two of the local parks, students have chosen Joyama as the best. On the way they enjoyed asking, discussing and trying to answer questions about our current topic of investigation: “Force”. Our transdisciplinary theme is “How the world works” and our central idea is “Natural forces and human activities change the earth.”
Walking up some steep hills and along flat ground, students asked one question that stimulated much discussion was “Is the gravity the same when you are walking up steep hills which is hard work, and when you’re walking along flat ground which is easy?” This question is still under investigation.
Our new facilities have encouraged lots of new activities: library duty, cleaning duty, and the discussion of ways to make the best use of our new classroom space. Each week all students spend some time enacting their IB Learner Profile attributes of being “Carers” and being “Principled”. They are tidying and sorting books on our library; they are cleaning different parts of our school; and they are enacting their ideas to better organize our classroom environment.
Next week students are looking forward to setting up our classroom quiet area as a “Jungle”. They have lots of craft ideas to this space not only relaxing but also a great place to be.
