Reflecting on Our Mekdela School Journey

After last week's visit to Mekdela School, we spent some time reflecting on our experience. We examined the differences and similarities between the schools and then thought about changes we that may have occurred in our thinking. Take a moment to view some of our teammates as they proudly share their reflections:

Danique Reflects

 Matthew Reflects

We then spent some time today reflecting on this journey once more through Harvard Project Zero's Visible Thinking Routine "See, Think, Wonder". We first thought about what we saw at Mekdela School. Some of the things we noticed were tables, chairs, and lots of students:

 

We then shifted our focus and noted what we thought as we were engaged in the daily happenings and leanings in the kindergarten. A few examples of things we charted include, "I thought there would be lots of books but I didn't see many books" and "I thought the kids looked nice.":

 

Finally, we posted our wonderings. These questions will help spark thought about our lines of inquiry and about how journeys might cause change. Our wonderings included such things as, "I wonder if they have a writing workshop", "I wonder why they don't have markers" and "I wonder why they don't have many toys". By engaging in conversation about differences and similarities between our school and the one just across our street, we can encourage open-mindedness and empathy. We can also promote understanding of others and recognition of the commonalities we have as humans.

Journey to Mekdela School

As a provocation to our new unit of inquiry Where We Are in Place and Time: Journeys Create Opportunities to Change, we took a journey to Mekdela kindergarten. We spent roughly an hour experiencing what it is like to attend this local Ethiopian school.

Our visit began with a whole-school welcome and equivalent to 'morning meeting' outside. We joined the students in singing and responding to questions.

Morning Meeting at Mekdela School from Kacey Molloy on Vimeo.

We then accompanied one of the younger classes inside and participated in their classroom learning.

This was followed by an introduction of all our ICS students:

The purpose of this visit was to provoke thinking about our new unit on journeys. The lines of inquiry for this unit are:

• Types of journeys
• Reasons why we journey
• Change experienced because of the journey

 Prior to our journey we all took time to draw photos of things we thought we would see on our visit. Upon our return we drew what we actually saw. We noted differences and similarities.

Ask your child to share some of his/her experiences with you, and ask about his/her thinking. Did it change? What did s/he notice?

Please visit this link to see all our photos and videos from our journey to Mekdela School.

Exploration Fair

On Friday we welcomed EC4-B to our classroom so that we could teach them how we explore the world with our bodies. For this "exploration fair" we came up with our own ideas as to how we might explain/demonstrate this concept to the EC4 students. After brainstorming a variety of activities in which the students could engage, we chose the ones we were most interested in leading. We then made signs, gathered materials, and practiced how we could teach others the information we have learned through our unit of inquiry on the senses.

Many of the centers we led focused on the line of inquiry, "How losing a sense/body part affects our learning and our lives", but some of the centers incorporated our other two lines of inquiry, "How our senses work" and "How our senses work together."

Tesanda and Nathan wanted to teach others the importance of exercising to take care of our bodies, so they led the group in a Zumba Kids dance from GoNoodle. This really got our hearts racing!

Ask your child to describe his/her teaching activity, and take a moment to check out all our pictures from this experience here.

What Happens When We Lose a Sense?

We quickly got back into the swing of things after our October break. If you are reading this then you are able to access internet, which I am happy to hear as you can continue to stay informed about our learning.

Last week we had two wonderful experiences that helped us more fully understand our line of inquiry, "How losing a sense/body part affects our learning and our lives". First, we visited the Misrach Center. The Miscrach Center is a "school of apprenticeship and rehabilitation for the blind, deaf-mute and disabled". While visiting this center we were able to interact with individuals who had lost a sense. We saw how they used their other senses to do every day tasks. We were amazed to see how blind people can use their sense of touch to read braille and how they can type through a program that lets them hear. We also saw a workshop in which deaf-mute men and women were making eye glasses. I hope that you were able to discuss this experience with your child. If not, please take the time to look through these pictures with him/her so that s/he can share his/her learning.

Click here to see all our photos from the Misrach Center. 

Also, please click here to find out more about the Misrach Center and its work.

Another great experience we had last week was when Mr. Mesfin came to visit. Mesfin works in our school in the cafeteria. Mesfin is deaf. We learned that he became deaf at age of four when he slid off his mother's back and the fall left him unable to hear.

Mr. Mesfin taught us how he communicates through his hands by signing. Ask your child to show you some of the signs s/he learned.

Unit of Inquiry Newsletter

As you know, we are into our new unit of inquiry. Please take a moment to read through the attached PDF for more information about the unit and how you can support your child at home.

Who We Are 

Unit of Inquiry Newsletter

Lyla Reflects and Takes Action

We want to recognize our teammate Lyla today. In our classroom we have clothespins that we regularly interact with to recognize those who are exhibiting the learner profile traits. This morning during morning meeting Lyla said that she would like to share something. She proceeded to tell us that Ms. Winta is a very caring person and that she felt Ms. Winta deserved to have a clothespin on the 'caring' sign. Lyla then took out a clothespin that she made at home and clipped it onto the appropriate sign, telling us that Ms. Winta was caring yesterday when she noticed Lyla at the nurses' office and inquired into what had happened. Lyla took action and showed us what it truly means to reflect. What a great example of how we can all take the learner profile to heart.

Sensory Walk

We went on a sensory walk this week throughout the school. The purpose of this walk was to tune into the body parts we use to explore the world. We documented the things we were hearing, seeing, tasting, touching and smelling, and we challenged ourselves to be aware of all of our senses during this walk.

 Upon our return to the classroom, we discussed which body parts we used to explore, and we matched pictures of those body parts to the groups we had created on our board. 

The final sense we discussed was that of touch, and when we talked with each other about which body part we used to touch, hands dominated the conversation until Lyla jumped in with, "Wait! We touch with our feet too!" This spurred on ideas about other body parts we use to touch.

Finally, Chloe yelled out, "We touch things with our WHOLE bodies!"

The final step in our sensory walk lesson was to examine what we documented on our walk. The next day we did this by sorting and organizing our ideas on a graph. We took the paper on which we documented:

And cut it apart. Next we glued the pieces in columns that matched the senses:

 Lastly, we looked closely at our graphs to see what information they gave. Many of us realized that we used our sense of sight and touch a lot. Why was this? Why did we not use our sense of tasting much on our walk? All of these questions made us think deeply. We will continue examining these ideas as we continue our inquiry into "We explore the world with our bodies".

Be sure to click here for more pictures of our sensory walk!