Explorers Unleashed: G3 Blog

Our third unit for this year is on  Where We are in Place and Time . Grade 3 and 4 are exploring the Central Idea that  maps enable us to orientate ourselves locally and globally . Grade 3 has continued their inquiry into  Interpreting maps .  We used Scot Ritchie's popular introductory text  Follow That Map!  as we inquired into the  form  and  function  of maps. To develop our research  skills, we took notes on map terminology. - from Aira We were also inspired by Captain Firebeard's School for Pirates (which we read as a class read-aloud). So... to show and apply our developing understanding of maps and how they are interpreted, learners created TREASURE MAPS! - from Miller And... we invited artist and educator Lubin Nepomuceno to share his papier mache` expertise with us. Combined groups of Gr.3s & 4s applied these skills to creating topographical landscape maps. ...

Our third unit for this year is on Where We Are In Place and Time . Our Approach to Learning this unit is through Research. Grade 3 learners have been exploring news sources  and learning about what goes into creating a great news report. We discussed a few ideas for stories we wanted to report on and then teams of reporters set to work conducting research. Learners wrote scripts for their reports and we put together this episode of DSKI News!

Our third unit for this year is on  Where We are in Place and Time . Grade 3 and 4 are exploring the Central Idea that  maps enable us to orientate ourselves locally and globally . Our first line of inquiry with this Transdisciplinary Theme is into Interpreting maps . For this LoI we are concerned with the concepts of Form and Function . For this unit we are going to be cartographers . We begun by 'thinking about what we already know about maps'. We had a class discussion sharing what we already know, what we think we know and some of our initial questions... In order to become cartographers , we need to understand what a cartographer does. We did a quick study and here are some ideas the learner pairs came up with: "A cartographers explores different places/countries and collects information" - Miller & Aira "A cartographer uses satellite images to create maps of the Earth" - Brandon & Hirohito ...

A big thank you to all those who attended the Grade 3 & 4 Museum of the Ancients. We take pride in being able to share our learning with other grades, our families and the wider community.  Grade 3 learners were able to reflect on the museum day and felt really positive about the experience. 

Our current Unit of Inquiry has explored the influence of past civilizations reflected in modern-day societies. Our lines of inquiry are: - An inquiry into past civilizations. - An inquiry into how tools influence developments in societies. - An inquiry into connections between past and present. We begun our inquiry with a provocation task: Can you peel a 'mikan' using the provided tool and no hands? An interesting discussion ensued on our first concept - FORM. We discussed why some of the tools worked better than others (the team with 4 rubber bands had a tough time opening their mikan!). We also discussed what features would be desirable in a tool which peels/cuts. Later, learners brought in modern tools from home and shared on their form. Our second concept for this UoI is CONNECTION. We took a trip to the Takenaka Carpentry Tools museum to discover the history of woodworking tools and see how they have evolved over ...

In Grade 3, we have been considering how to work with data. We explored different ways in which data is represented visually. To hone our skills, we shared some data in a visual format with a few hidden mistakes! Learners were tasked with spotting the mistakes in other visualizations. Can you find them? We also needed to collect some of our own data for our Inquiry into "How do organizations work?" Learners from both Grade 3 and 4 got together to develop a questionnaire which would provide insight into this Line of Inquiry.  A small team worked together to translate the questionnaire into Japanese while other groups mapped out the locations and routes they would follow. This week we will set out to learn how some of the organizations we had identified on Rokko Island function.