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Planning the inquiry
1. What is our purpose?
To inquire into the following:
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Transdisciplinary theme: Who We Are- An inquiry into the nature of the
self; beliefs and values; personal, physical, mental, social and spiritual
health; human relationships including families, friends, communities, and
cultures; rights and responsibilities; what it means to be human.
Central idea: People can be unique in their own ways
Summative assessment task(s):
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the central idea?
What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?
Goal: To research about themselves and demonstrate their understanding that each
person is unique. (Introspection)
Audience: PYP class 1
Summative Task: Students will work individually on a poster depicting themselves and
showcase their uniqueness in terms of the languages they speak, clothes they wear, food
they eat.
Class/grade: 1
Age group: 5-6 years
School:
School code:
Title:
Teacher(s):
Date:
Proposed duration: 6 weeks
2. What do we want to learn?
Key Concepts: Form, Function, Perspective
Related Concepts: Similarities, differences and behaviour
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?
Success Indicators: They will identify similarities and differences between themselves
and their peers. They will be able to identify themselves based on the learner profile
attributes that they show that makes them unique.
What our bodies look like and do (Form)
Summative Criteria: They will be assessed based upon the understanding of concepts,
acquisition of knowledge, and development of skills
People have their preferences (perspective)
How our senses allow us to understand our world (function)
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
Teacher questions:
How are people alike?
What do our bodies look like on the outside? ( Form)
How do the different body parts function?
How do the sense organs work together to help us to understand the world?
What happens if one of the sense organs is missing?
Teacher Provocations:
“Me” Mystery Bag:
Two favorite things that the students can share with their peers and which define their
personality.
3. How might we know what we have learned?
4. How best might we learn?
This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?”
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to
encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions?
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills?
What evidence will we look for?
Tuning in:
Prior knowledge
KWL chart: What we know about the human body and what we want to know.
Teachers will be observing students to see how aware they are of the different body parts
and the names.
Students will be given different body part posters. They will group the body parts into groups
and explain the reasons why they grouped it as such.
Students will be asked to label the different parts of the body. They will be asked to
explain the functions of the body parts.
External body part labeling
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the
lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?
Students will watch a video and understand how “special machines” help us to look inside the
human body. They will understand that body parts can be external and internal.
FA 1- What our bodies look like and do (Form)
They will read books on organ systems and identify the vital organs and their functions.
Students will answer a human body quiz.
Students will do a taste test activity as part of their research into the different tastes. They will
discuss their experiences and state their preferences with their friends.
FA 2- How our senses allow us to understand our world (function)
Students will create a “My book of senses”.
Finding out:
Turn and talk - Students will fall into small groups and discuss their likes and dislikes and
share it with their class.
FA 3- People have their preferences (perspective)
Students will work in pairs to conduct a survey. They will call a friend to find out about
their likes and dislikes and present their findings using a Venn Diagram.
Students will learn to conduct surveys to find out more about themselves, their friends and
family.
They will chart out a family tree and talk about similarities and differences between their family
members.
Students will also complete a circle chart on things they do together as a family unit.
ALL about me and my friend activity- students will create a survey question and conduct a
survey. They will then compare their preferences with their friends
Sorting Out:
Students will sort out the information collected through the surveys using a Venn Diagram. They
will use this diagram to identify and talk about similarities and similarities between themselves
and their friends/family.
Students will reflect and identify things/activities that they can do independently and activities
they need support from an adult. They will write this down in their journals.
Students will sort out objects/things around them based on the sense organs they use to
describe it.
Going further:
Students will work on a healthy and balanced lifestyle poster, to understand the many ways they
can take care of their physical and emotional well-being.
Action:
Students will speak about a healthy and balanced lifestyle and their well-being to spread
awareness amongst their peers.
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the
development of the attributes of the learner profile?
Communication Skills: Students will share their information through think pair and share activity
and turn and talk activities.
Research Skills: They will research and find out information about their friends through surveys.
Learner Profile Attributes:
Principled - They will be principled when they learn to respect everyone irrespective of their
physical appearance.
Open-minded-They will be open-minded when they discuss that even if people from different
countries have different skin color or hair but they all are just like us.
Subject Integrations:
PSPE
(Identity): talk about similarities and differences between themselves and others
Activity: Students will discuss their abilities. Things that they can do independently and things
that they need help with.
Students will compare themselves with their cousins in their family. They will share how they are
alike and how they are different.
identify themselves in relation to others (for example, family, peers, school class, ethnicity,
gender)
Activity: Students will discuss the different types of families they are a part of and this that make
their families unique. They will create their family tree and share it with their friends.
(Active Living): engage in a variety of different physical activities
demonstrate an awareness of how being active contributes to good health
Science: Students will learn about the human body and the various systems that function as a
whole to keep the body healthy and active.
Math’s: Students will conduct surveys - they will interview their classmates about their hobbies,
hair and eye color and the people and animals that live in their homes; after sharing the
collected data with their groups everyone creates a graphs
Students will learn how to record information in a tally graph and then learn about Venn
diagrams and compare what they have in common with each other.
Language: Students will learn to use adjectives. They will use their senses to describe things
around them using appropriate describing words.
Art: Students will engage in a mirror activity. They will observe themselves in a mirror and
create a Self-Portrait and in the process they will discover how unique each one's physical
features are. They will then share their portraits with their peers.
Students will participate in a perspective art activity and through the activity they will understand
how unique each one is.
Mandarin: Students will draw the portrait of myself and label the body parts in Mandarin. They
will be able to describe their appearance in short sentences. They will work in pair and use the
venn diagram to see the similarities and differences.
They will also read picture books 《我爸爸》，《我妈妈》
French: Students will learn how to greet each other in French. They will learn parts of the body
in French through flash cards and a song. They will be looking into genders, and into adjectives.
They will learn about sense organs in French. Students will read stories in French, looking at
flashcards related to different feelings, how they feel when they receive a birthday card. They
will play damsharas and guess each other’s feelings.
Hindi: Children will learn words through different activities like sing along, matching words. They
will learn parts of the body and its function in Hindi through story,,flash card and song.They will
describe themself ,their likes and dislikes in short sentences orally.They will do model reading
to understand that people have different choices and preferences.
5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?
Books: Human Body
Books on Epic
https://youtu.be/Vot7V7_2UoI The Human Heart
https://youtu.be/1aCYsYSM1MA The Human Brain
https://youtu.be/sOFQHqdpxQg Interesting facts about the human body
https://youtu.be/AHQGNb0zBgg All about the human body
https://youtu.be/rg34VwymLXc Learn about the human body
https://youtu.be/f9ONXd_-anM The circulatory system
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’ understanding of
the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and teaching of
the inquiry should be included.
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
This was a successful unit as the students demonstrated their understanding of the
characteristics that make them unique through their posters. Through the poster
assessment sharing, students identified similarities in languages spoken, food, types
of family, hobbies etc. between themselves and their peers. They could clearly
explain how it is the differences that make each one of them unique in many
different ways.
Mandarin-students enjoyed the activity to describe the appearance of their favorite animals as
well as their parents. singing the song<head, shoulder, knees and toes> in mandarin to help
the students to memorize the body parts in mandarin.
Hindi- Children enjoyed the activity to describe about themselves and their likes and dislikes.
They learnt the body part and its function through song and story.
French - Students learnt the body parts through the song head ,shoulder, knees and toes.
They enjoyed describing themselves using adjectives, They did a listening activity on parts of
the body.
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more
accurate picture of each student’s understanding of the central idea.
The Formative Assessments and Summative Assessment demonstrated pretty
accurately the student's understanding of the central idea and lines of inquiry. It also
pushed students to higher level thinking and allowed the teachers to see who was
ready for that and who was still developing that skill. Due to the COVID-19 scenario,
group/collaborative work could not be planned.
Mandarin-Due to the current Covid 19 pandemic, the assessment was prepared by the
students at home, students were asked to complete a worksheet which included name the
body parts, write down the description of the animal and share it to their parents.
Hindi- Students were asked to draw a figure and label different body parts. They were asked
to complete one worksheet which tells about their likes and dislikes.
French - Students were asked to label the parts of the body. They were asked to present
themselves, saying i am big/small, girl /boy beautiful and handsome by a video recording.
They did a worksheet on Five senses.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the
transdisciplinary theme?
Students learnt about their body systems and how the organ systems functioned. They understood
the importance of healthy living and how it affects their body systems. They reflected on how their
sense organs helped them to understand the world in their own special ways. They were intrigued by

develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to learn?”

demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?

develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.
Form: Students watched educational videos and read non-fiction books related to
the human anatomy to understand how the various organs look like and how they
are connected to one another/interdependent. They used play dough to construct
the various body parts and the body systems and labeled them.
Function: They inquired into the manner in which the body systems functioned.
They did a mind map to understand the journey of an ‘apple’ (food) from the mouth
to the point it is excreted from the human body.
Perspective: Students conducted several surveys and used Venn diagrams to find
out and compare peoples preferences about food, games, television shows etc. and
through this they understood that people have their own preferences/likes and
dislikes.
Communication skills: Students shared their survey results and compared how
they are similar to and different than their peers and family in many ways. They
discussed about their, I am Unique’ posters and through the sharing sessions gained
many interesting information about their peers.
Research skills: Students read books to research about the various organ systems
and how they functioned as a whole to help the whole body work as a unit. They
conducted experiments to inquire into the different ways their sense organs worked
to help them understand things around them. They collated their research and
prepared a ‘sense organs booklet’ to demonstrate their understanding.
Learner profile attributes and PYP attitudes
Principled: Students showed an understanding of this attribute when they shared how
important it is to respect every ones choices as it is the choices that made the person unique.
Open-minded: Students had many opportunities to read story books about people who are
differently abled. Through discussions, students explained how it is important to accept that
everyone is special and should be treated equally.
Mandarin-students were encouraged to find out the similarities and differences of the body
parts between different animals as well as their parents and understand how unique they are
the differences amongst themselves and this gave them an idea to understand their own selves
and who they are. They inquired into their preferences and how this helped to shape their identity.
in the word.
Hindi- Children were asked to find out the similarities and differences between them and their
parents and understand that people have their preferences.
French - Students were encouraged to find out similarities and differences between them and
their siblings. They were encouraged to speak about 5 senses and which part of the body are
responsible for them.
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?
9. Teacher notes
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that were
incorporated into the teaching and learning.
The unit was really interesting for both the students and the teachers. The children loved
inquiring into themselves and sharing it with their peers. As it was the beginning of the new
term, it created many opportunities for students to know and understand one another better.
At this point, teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn” and highlight the
teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.
How are people alike?
What do our bodies look like on the outside? ( Form)
How do the different body parts function?
How do the sense organs work together to help us to understand the world?
What happens if one of the sense organs is missing?
What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?
Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to reflect,
to choose and to act.
Students understood how to respect their friends and family even if they had preferences not
similar to theirs.
Post a reading the book ‘Giraffes can’t dance’, a student pointed out,
‘It is not good to bully people who are different. Being open-minded makes us unique’.
Students used the word balanced when talking about the many different activities that they
participate in that makes them special.
Mandarin- What does our body look like? What do our bodies look like on the outside?
Hindi-Why do we look different ?
French - Why do we look different?
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2011
As this inquiry was mostly done virtually, students missed out on opportunities to physically
work alongside each other and work on their collaboration skills.