Learning Never Stops

November. I had the privilege of conducting a workshop at  PIPS, Hong kong . Here are a few photographs to remind me of the wonderful learning that took place. Caveat :  be prepared for an explosion of colours  which may play havoc with your senses.  Hopes, Fears and Wonders Chalk Talk  The participants felt good about sharing their work.  Some great texture and ideas in the ART room. Fishing nets in the classroom. Great idea for displays. A focus area in the classroom. The use of color  to inspire students ... the green calmed the kids a lot. Plenty of children's work on display throughout the school. The Principle, Mary.  Katie, the PYP Coordinator I love the child-friendly atmosphere. Teachers creating a before and after the presentation. They analyzed each and every slide so thoroughly. It was fun listening to their conversation. They referred to the 7 principles of design so fluidly in their conversations.

Students will be creating captions and making labels for each exhibit in order to transform their class into a veritable museum. Some of the old coins you see below actually belong to a student. They found it when the workers were digging up the foundation for their house in Gujerat . They look really old. According to this website , they can range from 150 to 700 years old. Another website with similar coins says they might belong to 80 AD -105 AD! With intention, I have selected artifacts from the ancient Chinese civilization. Students will analyze the artifacts and slowly start building their own interpretation of ancient China. They will subsequently start referring to secondary resources in order to verify their findings. I hope that they come to the conclusion that history is but someone's interpretation of the past.

http://www.teacherstakecharge.com/ We have just started our unit on Ancient Civilisations. My students had been complaining about their summative task for the last unit. They were experts on the human body systems and we had a "Hot Seat" session where they were asked a few questions. They found it boring after a while. Frankly, so did I. And so I decided to relinquish control of the IB planner to them...at least stages 3 and 4. I have never tried this before. I will be working on the " reflection stage" with them later on. What can I say! The past two days have been exciting, eventful, noisy and very, very fruitful. As they looked at the central idea and the lines of inquiry, the whole class brainstormed tuning-in activities in groups. As they spoke, I updated my planner (stage 4 - learning engagements) This is what they came up with: Play "Chinese Whispers" to see how messages from the past can change as they filter down to us. Watch”