Freebie: Symmetry Choice Board for Distance Learning (Editable)

In our school here in Italy, we're in week 13 of distance learning! As I've mentioned before, a lot of the resources I have been making are very specific to our POI (programme of inquiry) so I haven't been sharing them. This latest resource I made this morning is very general. It's a symmetry choice board, aimed for upper elementary students. It's on Slides so ideal to share on Google Classroom or you can convert it to a PDF by going to File --> Download. 


This free resource is completely editable. Simply click here to make your own copy and then edit as necessary for your students. 
*NOTE: This opened perfectly when using Google Chrome but the formatting was a bit off when I used the Safari browser.

Happy teaching!

Editable End of Year Memory Book for Remote Learning

Hi all,

The end of the school year is approaching for many of us. I got lost down a rabbit hole of pretty clip art today and felt so inspired. I decided to make this end of year memory book on Slides. The idea is that anyone doing distance learning / remote teaching through Google Classroom could share it with their students. 

The presentation is editable so it can be modified to suit your class' needs. There's an editable template side that can be copied and pasted. Of course you could also delete any slides that you don't want. Make it your own before you share it with your students!

Have a look at this video preview:

If you're interested in it, you can download it from my TPT store by clicking here.

Freebie: Editable Choice Board for Remote Learning Project

Hi all,

Our school has been doing remote learning for the past 7 weeks here in Italy. I'd love to share more here but, being a PYP school, a lot of resources we have made are very specific to our school's Programme of Inquiry and wouldn't be useful to others. 

However, I think this choice board could be a valuable resource for remote learning during the current school closures. Simply click here to download. This will prompt you to make a copy in Google Slides. You will then be able to edit this copy to suit your class' needs. Don't worry if you do not have a way to share this with your students through an online learning portal. You can simply click "File" then "Download" and save it as a PDF file.

Choice boards are a great way to promote student agency. The students get to decide how they would like to learn. As our students were learning about how the activities of different regions in Italy are connected to the natural environment, they did research projects about their chosen regions in Italy. I've modified the version I'm sharing with you to be about a country. However, you could change it to be about a specific county or state.

You can also modify the activities to suit your students' current skillset. We had already focused on directions, data handling and persuasive language - hence you'll see that some activities are closely linked to that. 

We tried to put in a variety of activities to suit different intelligences, interests and strengths. We asked our students to do one task of each colour. The green tasks have more of a language focus, the purple a maths focus and the yellow were more "creative" activities, trying to incorporate visual arts, music, drama, dance etc. You could also put in something more "sporty" like demonstrating skills from the national sport, designing a logo for that country/county/state's team, etc.

Grade 4 PYP Classroom Reveal

I have survived! Just about! I always forget just how much energy goes into the first week of school. Anyway, I managed to get a few snaps to show you around our grade 4 PYP classroom. Here's the first board. The students wrote their yearly goals on the popcorn pieces and wrote the Learner Profile attribute they related to. Also, how cute are the dog pegs we have in our school corridors?

 
Here's the view from the back of the room. I kept my cacti on the teacher board (They make me happy!). See how I crafted them here. I made the clock labels last year with the free digital papers from Jena Hudson at Sew Much Music.



I've displayed the PYP key concepts on the bottom of the board. I got these fantastic keys for free from Ms. Murdoch. When the students create initial questions at the start of a unit of inquiry, we have a discussion to categorise them according to the key concepts and stick them on post-it notes above the laminated keys. I have also attached my remote controls to the side of the board using adhesive velcro squares. I can guarantee I'd lose them otherwise!

I kept more or less the same calendar / self-assessment / Student of the Week display as last year. I'm still in love with this grey and mint calendar. The way I did "Student of the Week" worked very well last year. I choose a student on Monday to be our Student of the Week. The other students are encouraged to note instances where they demonstrate attributes of the Learner Profile. They can add this to the sheet. The sheet will be given to the student at the end of the week. As you can see, this sheet is put on with little pegs so it's easy to change weekly. Also on this display you'll see some reflection posters based on Marzano's Levels of Understanding. I have similar ones in my TPT store but I edited these so they fit with the colour-scheme on this board.

This is going to be built up to be an international corner. Here is where we record the greeting we use for the register (we choose a new language each Monday). The students are already excited to use this Rugby World Cup wall chart to mark in their team's scores. I look forward to seeing how they get on with this target board (rugby-themed of course! It's part of my Rugby World Cup resource pack).

Here you can see our Class Agreements already up. The students chose to do them on a giant sheet of paper! And the "Magic Maths Words" display is still going strong. The students will add useful words to it as the year goes on to help with problem-solving e.g. multiplication words could be "multiply," "groups of," "by," "double," "times," etc. I got the title banner from Sparklebox, the symbols from Fun for Learning and the adhesive googly eyes from Flying Tiger. Above those are these multiple posters (from Twinkl) which proved to be a very useful aid for some students last year. It's also very handy that I can cover them up with a blind if I need to hide that visual aid! They're free, even if you don't have a paid Twinkl membership.

In line with the enhanced PYP, I've updated the header on my ex-transdisciplinary skills posters so it now reads "Approaches to Learning." As you can see, the Learner Profile header is up on the door. On the second day, the students worked collaboratively on Google Sheets to create their own posters for each of the Learner Profile attributes. I then cut out a small, laminated photograph of each child. They move their own/ somebody else's photograph to the Learner Profile attribute they catch them displaying. We did this last year and it worked really well.

These restorative practice steps posters are a new purchase from @teacher_elaine_ (formerly Diary of an NQT)'s mash.ie store. I placed them on the back of my locker so they are close to use when we have circle time.

Here's the back of our classroom. The Italian board was done by the Italian teacher and the other is a central unit of inquiry board. I've used resources from by Unit of Inquiry Bulletin Board Display Kit to display the important information. For now, I will continue to use this polkadot behaviour management clip chart that I got for free from Under The Alphabet Tree (on the tall bulletin board). It has worked very well for my classes in the past and it is used school-wide. Having read quite a few articles online this weekend about the effect it can have on children, I'm going to reflect on if I want to continue with this tool. I try to keep it as positive as possible and adjust expectations according to individual students' needs. If the clip chart doesn't work for a student, a separate individual behaviour management system can be put in place so they don't feel that their peg is always at a lower point on the chart. I made a cute little "Are we being principled?" sign for above it. That sign has traveled with me through many rooms and grades!

If you look closely in the last big picture, you can see this inquiry cycle poster in the middle of the big board. I got the circle graphic from Mr. PYP and I created the header using Twinkl Create. I've left the rest of the board blank so that we can add to it as we go through the stages of the inquiry cycle together, documenting along the way. Stand by for future posts on that!



And I love this little action board in the reading/reflection corner. I thought it would be nice here as the students can spend some time pondering on their ideas. I got these action posters from Susan Powers. If you are a PYP teacher and you don't know her blog PYP Teaching Tools, GET ON IT!!! She has amazing ideas and resources and you will be full of inspiration. She has also started a series of videos which are great for teachers who are new to the PYP to get their head around inquiry-based learning in PYP schools. I also picked up these action cycle posters from The Classroom Contessa. 



Up high you can see another new purchase, these Developing IB PYP Student-Led Action posters, again from the magnificent Susan Powers. I can't wait to use her planning templates so students can plan their action and reflect on it. I've left two boards blank for the students to create displays as they learn.

And last but not least, our Burning Questions board. Again, I've put the key concepts around it (I used the little ones from my UOI display kit mentioned above). We did this last year and it really helped the students to understand the key concepts. 

Thanks for taking the time to virtually visit our learning space! 

Student-Created Displays in Our PYP Classroom

I admit it. I really have to consciously work on this. I love to create an inviting classroom but I definitely need to be reflective about how much input the students have in the set-up of the classroom and of creating displays. I just wanted to share some ways in which my students designed how they were going to share their learning this year. 

I was very lucky last year to have a very small class of just 13 students. This made group decision-making a little easier and students were often able to work on the same giant sheet of paper at the same time. In our school we have our displays on backed and bordered boards. I prepared big sheets of paper about the size of the display board for the students to design. 

For this one, the students just went at it and drew their cave painting where they liked. They also wrote what it meant on flaps of paper so that other students could check if the message was communicated correctly.

This next one was for personal inquiries (some students chose to work independently, some collaboratively). They spoke together before even starting their research and decided roughly where their section of the display would be. They voted on how the header would look, where it would be positioned and who would write/draw it. Then, as they researched, they wrote directly onto the giant sheet. 

And finally, I had used this blank map as a pre-unit assessment tool to find out what students knew about the economic activities of different regions of Italy. (If you need to make a giant display, check out the wall art generator, Rasterbator and get your mind out of the gutter!) I then gave them free reign to use it how they pleased to document what they had learned. They chose to paint it and then you can see some students have added on information about landforms, "the industrial triangle," capitals of the regions, etc. When focusing on map skills, the students then asked if they could create a key for this map too (it's the white sheet at the top right). I was more than delighted!

P.S. If you want to see what we did for the summative assessment for this unit of inquiry, check out my post about that!

Next year, I'm going to continue to focus on this and give the students a lot more freedom to design their learning space.

Key Concepts Review: PYP Classroom

Oh key concepts! They can be a little tricky for our PYP students to understand. I made a conscious effort this year to focus more on helping my students to understand the key concepts. I could really see a difference. Here are some things that we did.

The key concepts are on our burning questions/wonder wall. As students added their questions, they put them beside the relevant key concept. If they were unsure (which they often were), we would have a class discussion to figure out with which concept it best fit.

To explore them even further, I took inspiration from this amazing blog post by ProDivas. This activity could be done at any point in the year with any unit of inquiry. Here's what we did.

Firstly, we had already done a lot of research into the circulatory system. As a whole-class activity, we brainstormed what we have learned about the circulatory system relating to each key concept. Here's what they came up with! (That student's mother in the reflection box is a doctor who came to school to speak to them about the circulatory and respiratory systems.)

I then split the students into small groups and gave them an A3 sheet and a copy of some their questions from the burning questions wall. They cut out each question and decided as a group which key concept it fit under. We had a group chat to discuss how we categorised each question.

Finally I divided the students into interest groups. Each student had previously chosen another system about which they would like to inquire further. I shared a  template with them on Google Slides. You'll see the three concepts we were focusing on in that unit of inquiry have stars beside them. 

All students used their iPads to collaboratively update their slide with questions relating to each key concept. This was really useful for guiding their inquiry. If you'd like to use these templates (for free), pop on over to Google Drive and make a copy to edit and use in your own classroom.

Sharing Our Summative Assessments with the School Community

Hi all,

In a PYP school, we are encouraged to involve the community in our learning. I wanted to share how we included our school community while doing the summative assessment task for our How We Organise Ourselves unit this past year with grade 4 (8-9 year olds). We were very much inspired by our incredible grade 1 teacher. For their How We Express Ourselves unit, they had an art exhibition in our school gym and invited members of the school community to come and see it. Those grade 1 students were absolute super stars!

Our central idea was "Economic activities and the natural environment are interconnected." The task was to create a tourist information stand about a region in Italy, showing the interconnectedness between the activities of the region and the natural environment. Students collaborated in pairs for this task. 

We had been learning how to do persuasive writing so students made brochures, encouraging people to visit this region. We also integrated mathematics by having the students research the weather in the region and make a double bar graph based on the average temperature or rainfall. For homework, the previous week, students interviewed people from different regions of Italy. They shared their findings with the relevant group. They then created posters and digital presentations to explain how the economic activities affect the environment and vice/versa. 

We invited their parents and other students to come to our "Bella Italia Tourist Expo." Each pair set up their tourist information stand while parents, teachers and students browsed around. Both my teaching partner and I had a very feel-good morning that day. The students were fantastic communicators and really got to show off how knowledgeable they were about their region of Italy. This project took over a week but the students were engaged all the way through. We felt that, knowing they would be sharing their research findings with the school community, they were a lot more engaged than if the summative assessment task was less visible.

Here are some pictures to give you an idea of how it looked!

International Mindedness - Greetings in Different Languages Poster

Greetings all!

We were brainstorming ways to promote international-mindedness in our school. Following my colleagues' suggestions, we started taking our class register in a new language (chosen by the students, naturally) each week. They're really enjoying this and particularly enjoy researching countries where the language is spoken. They're often surprised by what they find!

To document this learning, I created this poster. I've printed it A3 and stuck it to the whiteboard so we can easily refer to it. If you'd like a copy, pop over here to get it for a mere 75c.

Grade 4 PYP Classroom Reveal September 2018

It's finally classroom reveal time again. I was very excited to get cracking on getting my room ready. This year I will teach grade 4. Having been a grade 3 teacher for the last few years and moving to a new classroom, I was very motivated at the thought of creating a fresh space for my students and me. As I will have some of the same students as last year, I wanted to create a learning environment that looked a little different and more mature. As you'll see, I've kept some things that have worked well in the past and I have added in some new systems. Read below for more details!

I'll begin with my favourite. This is the popcorn display just outside the classroom door. On the first day of school, the students are going to write their goals for the year on popcorn-shaped paper. We're then going to analyse them - noting which attributes of the Learner Profile, transdisciplinary skills or PYP attitudes are connected to their goals.

And let's take a look inside the classroom. Here are some views of the whole room. Scroll down to read about specific sections of the room.

 You'll notice there is just a "Learner Profile" title on the door. The children will make the Learner Profile posters in the first week of school. To do so, I'm going to share a Google Slides presentation and they will all be collaborators, adding text, pictures, drawings, photos, etc. as they see fit. This will be used as an interactive display. I will cut out pictures of each student. When they feel that they/their peer has shown an attribute very well, they move the picture to the related attribute. We will regularly discuss who we have moved and what they have done. The skills posters are my own. On the narrow board, we have our class jobs. Each child's name is on a crayon template on a peg. 

As with other years, I will continue to use this polkadot behaviour management clip chart that I got for free from Under The Alphabet Tree (on the tall bulletin board). It has worked very well for me in the past. The purple and orange object hanging on the left of the photograph is my PYP Attitudes certificate, handmade by one of the children in my class last year (and again this year!).

I've displayed the PYP attitudes posters on the cupboard doors, along with our school's mission statement. If you look closely you can see that my "superglue" basket is still going strong! The "Vowels glue words together" poster and "Super Adjectives" word mat are from Sparklebox. These two boards at the back of the room will remain blank until for now. Then they will be filled with student work related to the first unit of inquiry. 

This year I decided to ditch the words "Wonder Wall" and have a "Burning Questions" area instead. I've also put the 8 PYP key concepts around it so that the children's questions can be sorted as they place them on the wall.

Next to the burning questions, we have a reflection area / "Wow work" wall. If you've seen my other classroom reveals, you'll see that I've used homemade Lego superheroes to hold up the essential agreements in the past. As I'm still not ready to part with them, I decided to use Hulk to hold up this title. How cool is the Hulkbusters font? I then hot-glued some Hulk fists to pegs so the kiddies can pin up their favourite work. They can then take the attitudes / Learner Profile attributes or skills from the plastic envelopes and pin on the ones they feel they developed while doing their chosen piece. I made the skills posters. I couldn't resist making the "Reflective" lettering actually reflective. Have a look at my blog post to see how I did it!

Behind you can see this lovely inquiry cycle graphic that I got from Mr. PYP. Then there is this Action board. I downloaded the action cycle posters from The Classroom Contessa. Underneath is a fantastic "What kind of action do I want to take?" poster from Jessica O'Hanley.

Above this is the main unit of inquiry board. I created this display pack last year and love it. I have all of the transdisciplinary themes, Learner Profile attributes, attitudes and key concepts printed and laminated so I can just switch them every time we start a new unit. 

At the front of the room, I made a more grown-up looking calendar in a grey and mint theme. I made a sheet for our birthdays using the same colour scheme. I'm very excited about the "Student of the Week" section. This year, I'll choose a student on Monday to be our Student of the Week. The other students will be encouraged to note instances where they demonstrate attributes of the Learner Profile. They can add this to the sheet. The sheet will be given to the student at the end of the week. As you can see, this sheet is put on with little pegs so it's easy to change weekly. Also on this display you'll see some reflection posters based on Marzano's Levels of Understanding. I just changed this one what I had previously to match the colour scheme and fit better.

I also put together those clock labels to help with reading digital and analogue time. I made them using these gorgeous free glitter digital papers from Jena Hudson at Sew Much Music.

On the other side is my personal teacher board. There I have these 3D cacti that I made over the summer. Read about how I made them in this blog post. You can also see my name card which I made with this Southpark Avatar Creator. I'm still in love with my Van Gogh "Starry Night" laptop case. It makes it so much easier to find my computer if we move around in staff meetings / collaborative planning sessions. 

In the green cup, you'll find these Ladybug & Chat Noir flipsticks. I use these to choose students at random. You simply flip them over and then you can easily see who you have not yet chosen. 

Like last year, I've displayed the PYP key concepts around the board. I got these fantastic keys for free from Ms. Murdoch. I have also attached my remote controls to the side of the board using adhesive velcro squares. 

I'm reusing the giant symbols and header of "Magic Maths Words" display. The students will add useful words to it as the year goes on to help with problem-solving e.g. multiplication words could be "multiply," "groups of," "by," "double," "times," etc. I got the title banner from Sparklebox, the symbols from Fun for Learning and the adhesive googly eyes from Flying Tiger.

If you've got this far, thank you for taking the time to have a look around our room!