The Nursery children have continued their Unit of Inquiry, ‘Collaboration helps build a community’ with enthusiasm. The ATLs we have been focusing on in this Unit are communication, social and research skills. The children have loved sharing their family photographs with their friends and teachers. They have been very inquisitive and have listened carefully to their friends when sharing information about their family members names and what they enjoy doing together at home. The children have shown great interest in drawing detailed portraits of their family. We have celebrated the children’s drawings by displaying them in the learning space for everyone to admire. This has been a fantastic talking point and we have observed children listening attentively and taking turns in conversations.

Our current unit of inquiry has the central idea 'People's homes can be influenced by the environment'. The ATLs focus is Communication, Thinking and Research skills. Our learners demonstrate and develop using these key skills throughout the unit in a variety of ways. Communication: ‘I speak clearly to express my ideas so they make sense to others. I state my opinions clearly and logically, and discuss ideas and knowledge with others’. IBO. Learners use discussions and small group circle times to present their opinions and ideas to the class.

The learners have been exploring the similarities and differences in the types of homes and used a venn diagram to show their findings. They explained their reasoning as to why they put certain homes in a particular group. Working as a part of a collaborative group the learners use their thinking skills in order to ‘analyse and form decisions’. The classes regularly have small group times where learners need to observe content and make a decision based on information given, making and drawing conclusions, giving their way of thinking within the group.

The learners are thoroughly enjoying their current inquiry into how “People use stories to express themselves”. The ATLs we are focusing on in this unit are communicator, risk-taker and open-minded. This unit provides authentic experiences for the learners to develop their skills by telling stories through different mediums. This week the learners worked in groups to do a Readers' Theatre performance of an Aesop’s fable. It was clear to see how these ATL skills have developed over the past few weeks in the confident performances we watched.

Taking inspiration from the Tinga Tinga Tales, the learners also wrote an independent story about how an animal acquired one of its distinctive features and learned a lesson along the way. We are looking forward to seeing our class stories brought to life as a part of a drama collaboration with Evolve Theatre Group next week. This is an exciting opportunity for the learners to find out about script and character development and to learn more about costumes and props.

During this current unit of inquiry 'Systems Connect Communities', Year 3 has been focusing on the ATL (Approaches to Learning) skills of critical thinking, self management and social skills. Our neighbourhood walk was a great opportunity to use many of these skills. Learners were partnered up and given the challenge of locating the different areas and systems in the local neighbourhood. They used their social and self management skills to work collaboratively with partners, sharing the resources (iPad and clipboard) and deciding what they should take photos of. Their critical thinking skills were also utilised as they took photos and were then asked to use the photos to identify many of the sustainable systems Singapore has in place, including solar panels to power lights, SG Blue electric cars and bike racks outside the MRT station. They are now using this knowledge back in class to become ‘Urban Planners’ and design their own sustainable city. It is exciting to see the learners effectively use the skills to help them further in their learning.

Year 4 learners are continuing to explore 'How We Organise Ourselves' through our central idea - Economic activity relies on a variety of systems. Development of the approaches to learning are embedded in all learning engagements. Through our recent ‘Global Trading Game’ our Year 4's were learning to take on different roles within a group. They worked as a team to develop strategies to increase the value of their resources through trading; they made group decisions; they learned to deal with setbacks when prices in our simulated global market changed; and children are learning to draw conclusions about how ‘supply and demand’ may influence the price of an item.

Recently our learners reviewed the distance items have travelled around the world before arriving in the kitchen cupboard. This raised questions about how the price of an item reflects the distance travelled as well as its value. Within this Unit of Inquiry learners are continually looking for connections, and evaluating the impact of aspects such as needs, wants, supply, demand and advertising on trade. Our Maths is supporting this Unit of Inquiry through developing data handling skills and through exploring money problems.

Last week we celebrated the end of our 'Who we Are' unit of inquiry with the sharing of our 'Nex' Talks. Learners had applied their research and self-management skills as they inquired into answers to their questions and created a presentation to share with their audience. It was fantastic to see learners being risk takers, as many chose to present in the auditorium or to their class. Opportunities such as this build confident communicators. Well done Year 5.

This week we have been tuning into our new unit of inquiry 'How we Express Ourselves'. The central idea is 'People can promote awareness through creative and effective actions'. This inquiry will build further on learner communication and thinking skills, as they inquire into our three lines of inquiry:

-The features of persuasion. (Form)

-Action as a tool to influence opinions/points of view (Change)

-Provoke critical thinking (Connection)

Learners tuned in with an activity that encouraged them to apply their creative thinking skills. They chose an 'object from a bag' and had the task of sharing how they might sell the item or convince others that they really must have it. Together they reflected on the features of persuasion that they already knew.

We are excited about our new unit of inquiry and look forward to seeing how our learners will take action next...

Our Sharing the Planet unit of inquiry has now been completed. Throughout this unit, we have explored systems within our planet and how humans impact them. We have discovered the importance of keystone species', and the potentially tragic impact to the environment if they are removed. We have also explored the trophic levels as energy is transferred from the sun to the highest apex predators and then recycled back through the system by tiny decomposers we can't even see.

Next week we connect what we have discovered to how humans use energy as we explore our How the World Works unit of inquiry. Our central idea Energy can be transformed and used for human purposes, supported by our Key Concepts and lines of inquiry provide a broad scope for us to delve into.

Lines of Inquiry & Key Concepts:

• Different sources of energy. - FORM

• How energy is used. - FUNCTION

• The connection between energy usage and preserving the environment. - CONNECTION

It is a unit of inquiry all of the learners should thoroughly enjoy exploring as we focus on developing the following Approaches to Learning:

Research Skills

Formulating and planning:

• I ask or design relevant questions of interest that can be researched

• I can plan for finding information and select appropriate sources.

Synthesising and interpreting:

• I sort and categorise information and use critical literacy skills to analyse and interpret information.

Thinking Skills:

Analysing:

• I observe carefully and can take knowledge and ideas apart by separating them into component parts.

We wonder what direction our inquiry questions will take us in the future?