Fourth Grade Scholars eagerly entered the room this morning for their first day of the 2019-2020 school year, ready to learn. Immediately, they were presented with their first of several secret agent missions, which they embraced enthusiastically. This helped us, as scholars, to exercise our brains and become familiar with some of the classroom environment, expectations, and elements (like the new-this-year “Pencil Parking”). With the learner profile in mind, THINKERS read Snapple Real Facts and responded to prompts on a small piece of paper.
Challenge: A Scholar is Curious If interested in learning more… consult the multiple source you mentioned on your paper.
Curiosity Corner: If you want to read more Real Facts, check out the links embedded in the Padlet and capture your learning on your personal post-it.
We then went on tour of campus to locate important places, especially the bathrooms. Along the way, we met Papa Paul, Papa Landu, Ms. Paula, Ms. Hall, and Mr. Mullen… each a important member of our TASOK community and powerful problem solvers (about which we will be learning more in our first unit).
Upon returning from our tour, we launched into an activity related to the learner profile. Each scholar sorted a set of traits in order of importance. We then compared our lists with others and discussed our reasons for ordering the traits. We are grateful to Ms. Paula, who popped in to ponder the traits with us.
Students then took time to think about which trait most describes them. People with similar traits gathered together to discuss their perspective on their traits. Each group collaborated to describe or draw, what a scholar in our classroom at TASOK would look like, act like, think like, behave like…
After recess, we took time to get to know one another as multiple sources. Based one projected prompts, we organized ourselves in various lines and blobs, ordering and gathering respectively. One such line had us organized from smallest to tallest. We’ll see how this order changes throughout the year.
Of course, in order to be scholars, we needed to know what scholars are. With the blog header as our background and a poster as our multiple source, we highlighted some key qualities and discussed how they shape our words, actions, and attitudes in class. It was exciting to see connections being made to the learner profile.
With a goal of becoming increasingly internationally minded, we took time to reflect on our personal background. Each student independently identified where he or she was born, his or passport country, and a country of interest. Using more multiple sources, atlases located in our resource library, students drew and colored flag and wrote about the importance and impact of each. These will soon be on display in our classroom.
Finally, to end the day, but to get our year off to a good start, we read Carol McCloud’s Have You Filled a Bucket Today? which talks and teachers about being “bucket fillers.” Throughout the year, we are committed to finding ways to care for, encourage, notice, affirm, and acknowledge one another in simple, yet significant, ways. This is a mutually beneficial process, as giving and encouraging not only brings joy to the recipient, but it also brings joy to the giver.
In the classroom, we have made mini “buckets” (really, origami envelopes) for our desks into which notes of encouragement can be delivered. We wrote our first bucket fillers yesterday, which will be delivered soon.
Please take a moment to enjoy a reading of Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by the author, Carol McCloud.
To learn more about being a bucket filler, visit: