The 2014 Exhibition Has Begun!!!

The Grade 5 ISPP students changed class early Monday morning, March 31 bubbling with excitement. Immediately, they jumped into exploring various issues through reading books and scanning a few selected websites in order to find facts for a "Did you know...?" wall that they will organise based on issues later this week. After this learning engagement, students began to discuss and draft a list of potential issues to inquire into.

This morning, students met with our second guest speaker, Ms. Caroline McCausland from ActionAid Cambodia. The students listened and took part in lively discussions with her about poverty and its causes, issues of access to education, human rights, and disaster management, and ways that organisations like ActionAid Cambodia seek to help Cambodian people and the government to deal with these issues. In collaborative groups, the Grade 5s then planned and created murals to demonstrate what they had learned from Ms. McCausland before Tweeting about her talk. Students benefited from an early exposure to a variety of issues and to the concept of action through her visit; as teachers, we hope that they are already formulating ideas about what action they might take as a result of their inquiries.

Please remember to check out recent photos of our Exhibition as it unfolds by clicking on the "Photos and Media" section of this blog or by clicking the following link:

Photos and Media

Second Exhibition Meeting Completed! Students Have Interpreted the Transdisciplinary Theme "Sharing the Planet"!

Grade 5 students met for the second time last week to learn about and interpret the transdisciplinary theme for the Exhibition at ISPP, "Sharing the Planet".

This theme can be described in the following manner, based on the PYP document, "Making the PYP Happen":

Sharing the planet

An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other

people and with other living things; communities and the relationships within and between

them; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.

Students worked in groups to read through this descriptor, highlight words they were unfamiliar with, and to describe sections of the description in their own words. 

This is all part of the Exhibition process. Students start out by looking at the big picture of the unit in the form of an overarching theme and will be zooming in on concepts and issues that go into understanding this theme as the Exhibition progresses. In the coming weeks, students will be: creating a central idea to guide their inquiries through this unit, doing some initial research into various issues that could help them understand this central idea,  and writing questions about these issues based around the key concepts of form, change, function, connection, causation, perspective, responsibility, and reflection. 

Check out the photos below to see students in action and records of what they discussed together.

Welcome to the Grade 5 ISPP Exhibition blog of 2014 onwards!

Dear Grade 5 students, parents, teachers, and potential mentors,

Welcome to the Grade 5 ISPP Exhibition blog of 2014 and beyond. We, the Exhibition teachers, hope that this blog will evolve into a learning forum where we and all of you can post and read information and musings about our growing PYP Exhibition this year and for years to come.

Please watch this developing space.

In the immediate future, watch for photos and descriptions of early Exhibition meetings with the Grade 5 students.

However, keep an eye out for labeled sections with information tailored to your needs as a parent, a mentor, an Exhibition teacher or specialist teacher, or a student.

We look forward to the development of this blog with input from all of us!

Best wishes,

The Grade 5 Exhibition Teaching Team

Mr. Jon Banules
jonbanules@ispp.edu.kh

Ms. Bridget Brian
bridgetbrian@ispp.edu.kh