We Are Knowledgeable

HOLY CROSS ACADEMIE INTERNATIONALE

PRIMARY YEARS PROGRAMME (PYP)

January 2018 Volume 2 issue 4

PYP EXPRESS

IB Learner Profile of the Month

Thinkers (Sensés)

We use critical and creative thinking

skills to analyse and take responsible

action on complex problems. We exer-

cise initiative in making reasoned, ethi-

cal decisions.

Exploring Quality of Life

Coffee, Tea and IB for Grade 5

Date: Wednesday, January 16th

Time & Location : 18:30 - 19:00

Location: Holy Cross—Réseau

Goal: We will be overviewing the grade 5 Exhibition Project in order to give parents a bet-ter understanding of how they can help their child with their actions.

The Grade 1 students created the Tree of Knowledge (We are knowledgeable!) for the learner profile of the month. Every student in the school was given a leaf on which they were able to write a piece of knowledge that they wanted to share with the Holy Cross community. If you are in the school, come visit our tree of knowledge and see how knowledgeable our students are!

As part of their IB Unit under the theme How We Or-ganize Ourselves Grade 3 students have been explor-ing the following central idea: Societies organize themselves in a way to help others. Throughout this unit of inquiry, students have been exploring the fol-lowing lines of inquiry:

Factors that affect quality of life and poverty

Organizations that help provide care and support to people in need

Their responsibility to help others

Students started this unit early in December and will continue their exploration in January. To start their unit, students reflected and created a puzzle contain-ing all the factors contributing to their quality of life. As a summative task, students will create an action plan to help others in the community.

Supporting our Soldiers

This Christmas, some Canadian soldiers will not be able to spend the holidays with their fami-lies. Grades 1B and 4/5B classes worked together in creating Christmas cards for those soldiers who are currently in other countries helping to keep people safe. Our school thought that they could do something to help the soldiers feel the same Christmas spirit that everyone else is feeling and thank them for their heroic acts.

The first graders came up with the ideas for the cards, and the fourth and fifth graders helped them modify a couple of their ideas before writing them on the cards. Students collabo-rated responsibly. Everyone stayed on task and made sure that their work was well done before they moved onto other things. Actually, they had such a good time, that they decided to get to-gether again the next week for book buddies. Finally, they were very caring in the sense that they were nice and open minded to the ideas of others.

(Ben N., grade 5 student)

The Grade 1 students recently completed their second IB unit of inquiry entitled “Un pour tous, et tous pour un” (One for all, and all for one). This unit of inquiry, under the theme of Sharing the Planet, focused on how people in our larger com-munity (Edmonton) cooperate in order to give us a good life. Students began this unit by identifying and sharing their talents in order to see how each person’s unique talent helps make our classroom environment better. Students participated in a number of collaborative activities to investigate what coopera-tion is and reflected on what skills are needed to cooperate. They also inquired into different decision-making processes. Grade 1 students were fortunate to have a number of commu-nity members present how they contribute to our community, through both their paid and volunteer work. Students kept an open-mind when asking insightful questions about the pre-senters’ work. Students demonstrated caring when they parti-cipated in a community project by making Christmas cards for soldiers serving overseas. Students showed their understanding of how people work together in our community by dressing up as a community member and explaining how this person contributes to our community. Together, we created a classroom book about our community.

All for one and one for all!