Sharing the planet

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 Hello and apologies for the missing blogs recently. I hope you enjoyed the photos on Seesaw at least.

This week grade 2 started a new unit of inquiry (UOI) related to the transdisciplinary theme: Sharing the planet. 

Our central idea is: People's response to conflict impacts the quality of human life.

We spent this week breaking down the words. We started by talking about how people share the planet and how this can be difficult in terms of sharing the resources of the planet. 

For e.g. What is conflict? How do we see it in daily life and in the world?

What is quality of life? We did an activity about needs and wants and discussed what is absolutely essential for a child to have a good life. 

We also talked about peace. Is peace just the absence of war? If I am a child and I don't get 3 meals a day and don't have enough clothes but I live in a rich country like Australia, am I really living a peaceful life?

On Thursday we watched a short animation about Sadako Sasaki, the girl who got leukemia from the bombing of Hiroshima. We also watched a short informational video where her brother spoke about her as a symbol of peace and it showed images of Hiroshima before and after the atomic bomb was dropped. We made some paper cranes as October 25th is the anniversary of Sadako's death. 






Today everyone wrote down small examples of conflict they have at home with their parents or siblings and we did a role play and acted it out. It was full of drama that I'm not quite sure is totally accurate but I got to be the parent in a few of the role plays. It was fun for all of us.  

In math, we continued on with measurement, looking at how to measure volume in litres and millilitres. We did an activity where they had to estimate the capacity of certain cups, bowls and buckets, and then we measured them and found out the real capacity.

Yesterday we did measurement of length again but this time using things like bamboo sticks and connecting blocks to estimate and measure things in the classroom. Aaradhya and Aiko decided to measure the length of our little classroom. I believe it was just over 300 blocks in length!



Finally, in literacy, the focus was synonyms and antonyms for adjectives and verbs, in particular. Then we looked at subject-verb agreement and today, we looked at types of adverbs. Yesterday I gave them a scenario in which they were told, starting from today, you are not allowed to go outside because it's dangerous. You have to do all your schooling at home and your parents will be at work. How will you feel about this? Most of the children thought it would be great because they can watch TV and play computer games all day. I reminded them they still have to do school work and they can't exercise outside. Finally they agreed (most of them) that this would be boring and wrote down more serious feelings baout it. Then I reminded them that this is what the lockdown for Covid 19 has been like for many children around the world. 

Also, I finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to them this week and they want to read the sequel next. 

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