We are Grade 4, 5 & 6 at QAIS
“The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment. These programmes encourage students across the […]
MYP Language Acquisition – Creativity and Innovation
The MYP Language Acquisition Phase 2 students are studying a unit on “Technology” with a focus on innovation and creativity. These contexts and concepts provide the basis for students to develop research and creative thinking approaches to learning. Their aim is to inquire about the benefits and problems of different technologies. Students address the inquiry […]
“Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.”
Margaret Fuller was the author of this quote; an American journalist, critic and active participant in the women’s right movement in her day. Whether or not we have a class full of future leaders, the value and enjoyment of accessing literature is key to so much of what we do in Grade 4,5 & 6. […]
The Wonder Wall: What I want to know is…
While inquiry is often guided and “success criteria” are shared in advance of pursuing given tasks, it is also important to provide time and space for individual inquiry. This might happen at various junctures and is integral to a curriculum that wishes to avoid imposing artificial and abstract concepts on students, to which they have […]
Making Sense of Our Senses
Our senses are vital for our survival. They are our “windows on the world”. As part of our MYP unit of work on the senses, grades 7 and 8 have been exploring our senses. We started with the idea of 5 classical senses and slowly expanded our understanding to see how we actually have over 20 […]
Sharing Poetry
In the Grade Two classroom we have been talking about poetry as a unique and powerful form of expression. The students have been learning about poetry devices, including, but not limited to, rhyme, personification, alliteration and simile. They have been challenging themselves to use these in their own writing. For the lesson in the photographs, the […]
Big Ideas in Small Packages
On Thursday, December 11, MYP 4 students were afforded the opportunity to step out of Humanities and enter the world of similes and syllables, rhythm and rhyme… grade two style! During this unit’s program of inquiry, Mr. Bradley’s second grade students have been exploring poetry, focussing on expressing themselves, and their perspective of the world, […]
Sensorial Activities in the Lotus Cottage
Montessori education follows children’s natural interests and sensitivities for each age group. Young children naturally love exploring the world around them with all of their senses. The Sensorial Area of the Montessori classroom is full of materials that isolate a particular quality to explore: dimension, size, shape, color, sound, texture, smell, etc. Young children engage […]
How Do We Really Know Where “Here” Is?
As I’m sure Douglas Adams would agree, the notion of whether time, place, and space are absolute, relative, ephemeral, or enduring, is essential to one’s understanding of life, the universe, and everything. Ultimately, time, place, and space are all human constructs, developed by societies to help them in their quest to determine where and how […]
From tiny acorns: Grades 4, 5 & 6 through Term 1.
As students paused to share their learning with their parents in Student Led Conferences, it seemed an appropriate juncture to harvest some of the images of the year so far in Grades 4, 5 & 6. As we enter December, the students have grown tremendously as inquirers and continue to blossom as critical thinkers within […]
