AIS - Grade 2

 Theme: Sharing the Planet  Central Idea: People's response to conflict impact the quality of human life.  This was such a busy unit! We learned a lot about peace and what peace looks like. We thought about how to bring peace to ourselves, to our class, and to our world. This idea was more tangible for students this year with many already knowing about wars that are happening and being able to connect this topic to things they are hearing in their every day lives.  We learned about symbols of peace and made our own. We practiced different breathing, meditation, and yoga techniques to bring inner peace. We learned about protests and made our own protest posters about things we would change at our school. We even took action on some of these by sharing them with Mr. Ulu and the student council! We were able to go on our first field trip during this unit as well! We went to the Osaka Science Museum! Although this field trip was meant to connect with out last unit, we were able to enjo

   Unit 3: Where we are in Place and Time Central Idea: Human exploration has a lasting impact on people and the planet.  Lines of inquiry:  -How exploration led to different outcomes -Explorers and native people's views of exploration. -Famous explorers from the past.   We started off this unit by thinking about the places that we explored during our summer holiday. We practiced writing using descriptive detail.  We learned about the things that explorers need and the tools that they use to explore and survive in unfamiliar places. Using the knowledge that we gained, we made our own tools and even designed a mode of transportation that we could use in our own explorations.  We took the time to learn about different famous explorers from different points in time. Some of the favorites were Ibn Battuta, and of course, Neil Armstrong. We were very curious about people who were the first to do something! We went on an information scavenger hunt and took notes in our research journals.

  Unit 2: How the World Works Central Idea: People use their understanding of natural laws to manipulate objects.  We have had quite a busy first term! During this unit we learned about forces and simple machines! We talked about push and pull, and how machines help up use less force to move an object. In the pictures below we were miming push and pull and our friends had to guess which one we were showing! Can you tell if we are showing push or pull? When learning about simple machines we learned about wedges! we made different kinds of paper airplanes to see which were most effective at reducing air resistance! We made our own recycles cars when learning about wheels and axels! Students worked in teams to create their own Rube Goldberg machines to complete a task. A Rube Goldberg Machine is a complicated machine used to complete a simple task.  We were also able to have swim lessons this unit! It was great seeing students become more and more confident in the pool. Thank you Ms. Saya