Planning the inquiry
How We Organize Ourselves
1. What is our purpose?
To inquire into the following:
•
transdisciplinary theme
How we organize ourselves
In inquiry into the interconnectedness of human made systems and communities the structure
and function of organizations societal decision-making; economic activities and their impact
on humankind and the environment.
Planner 4
Class/grade:
Kinder
School: Rodriguez E.S.
Title: Community Helpers
Teacher(s):
Date: Jan – Feb 2016
Proposed duration: 6 weeks
Date: January - February
Age group: 5-6
School code:
PYP planner
An inquiry into: The interconnectedness of human-made systems and communities
Project: Community Helpers Display in main hallway writing reflection how people organize
in different places in community. Language Arts Writing: How community helpers
contribute to the community and how it would be without their help.
Central idea: Society has systems.
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?
•
Early Childhood Rubric (1,2,3)
•
Observations
•
Explorations
•
Work Products
•
Journals
•
Verbal communications through discussion
•
Map of community-small groups (workstations): Students make a map of
community, sort and classify tools and community helpers.
2. What do we want to learn?
What are the key concepts to be emphasized within this inquiry?
Key Concepts: Function , Connection, Causation
Lines of Inquiry
Human Needs
• Rules provide structure in a community
• Type of community helpers
• Different community helpers maintain a balance in our infrastructure
• Impact of community helpers in our lives
• How we contribute to the community
• We collect data to learn and improve
• How fine arts affect our way of organize our learning.
Lines of Inquiry:
•
Rules provide structure
•
Maintaining balance in our lives
•
Ways to use data
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
•
Why are rules important?
•
What is a community?
•
What are some examples of community helpers?
•
Which facilities do the community helpers work?
•
What type of work does your mom/dad do?
•
What do you want to be when you grow up?
•
Why do we collect data?
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
Planning the inquiry
3. How might we know what we have learned?
This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?”
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills? What
evidence will we look for?
•
Small and whole group discussions
•
Discussions about what they have observed in the world around them.
•
Describe past events in their lives
•
Discuss and describe community helpers they have seen in the world around
them.
•
KWL Chart
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 be expected to participate in take home projects. They will have
to make a connection and tell how the community helpers relate or help them
in the community (take pictures, draw pictures, use magazines/newspapers,
etc.)
•
Participate in classroom jobs and contribute to the classroom community.
•
Show sense of responsibility for individual behavior and actions.
2016-2017: Students will be exposed to data analysis, for example: They can
collect information in class or at home and then analyze. Students will be expected
to ask and answer questions related to the data they collected.
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
4. 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?
•
Draw a picture in writing journal about what the student wants to be when she /he
grows up
•
Career day - Invite a community helper to talk to the class
•
Bring a picture and interview a relative that helps the community
•
Talk about our classroom responsibilities and jobs
•
Make a class book about community helpers
•
Have students bring in objects or pictures of items used by various community
helpers to build vocabulary
•
Create graphs based on data collected in school or their home.
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the
development of the attributes of the learner profile?
•
Students will identify similarities and differences among different community
workers (thinker, knowledgeable, Inquirer)
•
Students will use simple tools for analyzing data and information. (Inquirer)
•
Students will describe different types of rules and systems for different
community helpers in the world around them. (Thinker, Knowledgeable,
communicator)
•
What are the advantages of having community helpers/systems/rules? (Thinker,
Knowledgeable)
Reflecting on the inquiry
5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software,
etc, will be available?
•
Community helper speakers such as school nurse, librarian, principal, etc…
•
Field trip to a place in the community such as the Rodeo or Zoo
•
Collect various books on community helpers to place in class library and to
read to students
•
Websites such as united streaming and discovery kids
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to
facilitate the inquiry?
Community Helpers inside and outside the school will be utilized such as the classroom
(small group, whole group, workstations), Science Lab, playground and school grounds.
•
Draw a picture in writing journal about what the student wants to be when she /he
grows up
•
Career day - Invite a community helper to talk to the class
•
Bring a picture and interview a relative that helps the community
•
Talk about our classroom responsibilities and jobs
•
Make a class book about community helpers
•
Have students bring in objects or pictures of items used by various community
helpers to build vocabulary
•
Surveys that guide students to ask questions to their family and gather data.
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
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.
Students were able to become more familiar with various aspects of community helpers
such as uniforms, tools used by each helper, and the places where they work. Students were
also able to become aware of less familiar community workers and increase their
vocabulary. Students learned why each worker is important and how they contribute to the
community. The students learned what would happen if a particular worker did not do their
job. Students were able to connect outside community workers with community workers in
the school. Connections were also made through classroom discussions and activities.
Students learned the importance of staying organized to avoid chaos in a community
environment. We discussed the importance of people’s needs and wants and the important
role that everyone has in the community. Students had a chance to pick what they would
like to grow up and draw a picture of themselves in the community helper’s attire. Project:
Community Helpers Display in main hallway writing reflection how people organize in
different places in community. Language Arts Writing: How community helpers contribute
to the community and how it would be without their help.
2016-2017 Students collected and displayed different types of data (collected from home)
like number of family members, languages spoken at home, country of origin, number of
siblings. Students could analyze the data and compare their information with peers in whole
group.
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.
Show and Tell activities
Use different scenarios such as what would we do if there were no community helpers….
Have real/actual community helper come in and speak
Students will have a gallery walk opportunity that would allow them to interview other students
from other kinder classes that will be role playing a community helper. (Each classroom will be
designated a particular community helper to role play)
2016-2017: Let students individually write the outcome about the analysis of the data and
compare it to their peers. At the end, students can share their findings in whole group.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the
transdisciplinary theme?
The students were able to provide evidence that connections were made between the central
idea and the transdisciplinary theme by presenting their take home research projects and
demonstrating the needs of having a society that is composed of rules and systems.
2016-2017:The students were able to make connection through the use of vocabulary related to
community, organization, and the meaning of what a system means. The students were able to
explain rules and structures that are embedded in a system to make the society function.
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
Reflecting on the inquiry
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
• Develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to learn?”
Connection: Students discovered that we have systems everywhere, for example, they
could explain that the grocery store is organized, so people can find what they need to
buy.
Function: Students understood people in the community help each other to stay healthy
and safe.
Responsibility: Students understood the importance of making good choices, following
rules, being good citizens and leaders in the classroom community as well as the outside
community.
Form: Students identified and described the jobs of various community helpers and
categorized the tools they used the places they work.
2016-2017
Connection: The students could explain that rules have a purpose in society.
Function: The students could identify community helpers, and the importance of their
contributions to the community, the function and importance of data in society.
Causation: The students described how people needs from each other to make society
function.
• How did students demonstrate the learning and application of particular
transdisciplinary skills?
Thinking Skills: Students applied their background knowledge using graphic organizers and
extended this knowledge by recognizing similarities and differences amongst communities
and people’s jobs.
Social Skills: Being able to cooperate with their peers during small group workstations,
participate in classroom jobs and work as a classroom community. The students demonstrated
cooperation when they analyze their data and compare it to their peers.
Communication Skills: Students took turns listening and presenting their books and graphic
organizers. Students participated in inquiries and discussions in class, and they could compare
• Students developed attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
Communicators: Students shared verbally and communicated the importance of community
helpers and identified their roles.
Principled: Students learned the responsibilities of community helpers and how they impact
everyday life.
Balanced: Identify how community helpers keep us safe, healthy, and organized.
Knowldegable: Students gathered data collected from home, for example, country of origin,
number of siblings, language spoken at home, and they concluded that we all have differences
and similarities by collecting data and plugging it into a graph.
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that
were incorporated into the teaching and learning.
•
What is a community?
•
Who built our school?
•
Is the pharmacists the same as a doctor?
•
Does a veterinarian help lions too?
•
What is the difference between a doctor and a veterinarian?
•
Do all communities have the same helpers?
•
Who is our mayor?
•
If I become a reporter will I be on TV?
Students’ initiated questions?
•
Why is there water on top of the grass?
•
Do worms have eyes? I can’t find them.
•
How do dentist organize themselves?
•
How do firemen help people who are stuck in the car?
•
Why is Ms. Key not the doctor? School nurse because she wears scrubs.
2016-2017
•
What is a graph?
•
Where is Honduras?
•
Do stores in another country like stores in Houston?
•
Do stores in another country organize products in the same way as here?
•
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.
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 initiated spontaneous dramatic play of the community helpers and making
connections in the different workstations; such as read to self, read to someone, etc.
During whole group, students could explain that a non-fiction book has a table of content
that helps to find information in the book, just like if you go to the store and want to find
something to buy.
Students explained that we have rules everywhere and one of them stood up and said that
he has rules at home.
9. Teacher notes
As a Technology Class, guided lessons along with the use of computers and software such as
Education City Science will provide our students with the multiple opportunities to be
exposed to diverse and meaningful interactions between the natural world and human
societies.
Also, our students will be able to comprehend how human behavior impacts our planet.
Students will develop and portray characters with voice, body, and gesture… cont.
performance in drama situations.
Function: How does the character move?
Causation: How do we know when a story or play is finished?
Reflection: (retelling a familiar story) what are your favorite /special memories of
childhood?
Activities:
Game: “Add-on”
Students will improve acting and memory skills by incorporating multiple actions to
characters (while moving across an open space.)
Character
Add-on #1
Add-on #2
Pirates
catching a big fish
with poison ivy
Mad Scientists with stomach aches playing freeze tag
Disco dancers
with itchy backs
need to use the bathroom
Jugglers
on skateboards
yodeling
Ghosts
snowboarding
singing opera
Next Year Initiative:
We will incorporate Language Arts Reading lessons within our IB planners. For example
“When I Grow Up”- Community Helpers, etc.
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007