The Central Idea for the current unit is ‘Innovation changes society and the environment’. The lines of inquiry are; what issues lead to innovation, how the innovations lead to changes in society and environment, what makes some innovations better than others, and their consequences.
Lately, there have been quite a few conflicts on the playground. The students decided to inquire into the reason behind them and ultimately how they as Grade 2 students can solve these issues.
Here, I would like to mention that I just love using Kidblog in the classroom. For those of you who have not used this before, Kidblog is a secure classroom blog. It provides teachers with the tools to help students publish writing safely online. Teachers can monitor all activity within their class. It is kid-friendly and provides a meaningful purpose and an authentic audience. Students are motivated to write for their peers and engage with each other. Teachers moderate all content, so nothing goes live until you say so.
Now to the important part of my blog. The students reasoned that there are fights/conflicts because other than soccer, they do not anything else to play with. The next step was to solve this issue! This was part of their ACTION for this unit. They decided to innovate games which they could play themselves as well as teach others around them. We brainstormed the question in the class and I put it on Kidblog. The students commented on my question as well as each others’ comments. They used the internet to research safe playground games and then innovated them into new ones. They have been very excited as they have also been teaching these games to others on the playground.
PYP in Action 