Understanding Early Childhood Education
How building a city becomes a crucial learning experience Kindergarten has been undertaking a unit of inquiry called ‘The Features of Cities’. If you are an inquiring mum or dad you might ask: “Why is it important to learn about the features of cities?” or “Why on earth did the teachers choose Tokyo as a unit focus?” What’s the point? Indeed, when planning curriculum this is a crucial question, which we ask ourselves as teachers. Project Based Learning To answer this question one needs to understand some crucial objectives and theory of learning in...
read moreThe Reflection Section
When they are teaching for deeper understanding, one strategies teachers use a great deal at T.I.S. is reflection. Reflection is the process of pausing and ‘digesting’ what has been learned. One srt of reflection involves reflect about how we are learning not only what we are learning. This sort of reflective thinking has a fancy name: metacognition. The IB describes metacognition as thinking about thinking. In all good schools these days teachers are asking their students to pause and reflect. This may just mean turning and talking to a partner about what they have learned,...
read moreRoll up.. roll up… Read all about It
Roll up for FORWARD ROLLS! During a recent Physical Education unit of inquiry, Grade 5 students were practicing and sequencing gymnastic movements and balances. They will use these skills later in the year to incorporate into gymnastic designs and to perform their own, complex gymnastic sequences. In this video the students were perfecting a their own forward roll. The forward roll should show the chin to chest with the weight safely on the top of the back. The students should successfully finish the motion without using their hands. Mums and Dads if your son or daughter is in Grade 4,...
read moreOpening Classroom Doors
How does learning look and feel at TIS? At TIS we warmly welcome mums, dads and other visitors to enter our school to experience teaching and learning for themselves. Please make an appointment through the TIS office or speak to your child’s teacher. We are always keen to have parent helpers – you can greatly enhance the learning experience! TIS classrooms are alive with a buzz of activity. Students are thinking, asking questions, hypothesizing, problem solving, collaborating, designing and sharing their opinions. Many parents and visitors have expressed an interest in deepening...
read moreTIS World Maths Day
TIS was buzzing with Mathematicians at work yesterday as ES students took part in the first TIS World Maths Day. There was a lot of good thinking going on as usual. Congratulations to all students and teachers who participated in the World Maths Day practice days and the actual competition day. Thank you to all teachers who planned a fun Maths day for their students. Official results from World Maths Day will be shared with you later on. Please take a moment to watch this short video:...
read moreThe Power of Empathy
If you happen to ask the very best teaching experts (such as David Perkins at Harvard University) they will tell you that having empathy is a very important indicator of understanding. If we ask students to reflect about how the characters in their books feel or the views of individuals in movies, text books or documentaries research has shown that this process deepens understanding. Mums and dads you probably do this as you read with your children unconsciously, if not I suggest you try. Empathy is also one of the IB PYP Attitudes. In their unit of inquiry ‘It’s Not...
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