Dear Families,
I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Break! I had a good
time hanging out with my kids and their families.
I’ve been pondering a lot about our study of Fiji for the
multicultural festival and I want to bring you up to date on my thoughts.
I approach Multicultural Festival from several directions.
The kids are very excited and some of them take off from the start. Some of my
planning is built around their ideas and interests. I also strive to round out
our studies so they have more depth. Frankly, I didn’t know much about Fiji,
but I love researching and I’ve learned quite a lot in the last week.
Friday, I sent home blank I-Search contracts for Fiji
projects. I usually have the kids fill them out at school with my guidance, but
it seemed like our time was short, so I decided to send them out. The plan is
for every child to be able to choose the topic they are most interested in for
a personal project. It doesn’t matter if other kids choose the same topic. As
some of you have observed, choosing a topic that really interests you is great
motivator.
We will round it out in class as we form groups around more
global concepts and the kids work in small groups to research and create ways
to present what they learn. These groups will cover geography, history,
government, economy and living, ie., food, language, shelter religion and
rites.
Tuesday we will start with generating questions. An overall
question is “How can we understand life on the islands of Fiji?” I look forward
to hearing what the questions are for the class. The questions will guide our
research. Meanwhile, I will be presenting information as a foundation to build
our knowledge from. I will also be generating vocabulary words that will help
deepen the kid’s understanding.
I always get wrapped up in too many ideas. Over the years I
have learned to provide support while allowing the kids ideas to guide the outcome.
So, this week will focus on laying out our inquiry. Next
week we will work on projects. I am working on a list of possible ideas and
projects. Some kids take off and some benefit from a pre-organized project to
help them get started so they can have a hand in the creating.
In my next edition (wink, wink) I will have an idea of the
kind of projects we will work on and offer a schedule when it would be best for
parents to come in to help. As you might
guess, I’m open to your ideas as well.
More to come,
Bette
