Who We Are
Welcome to Grade 4! The first six weeks of school were hectic as always, but we enjoyed it by getting to both learn about ourselves, as well as countless people who inspire us!
To start off the unit we thought back to all our previous units and asked ourselves - what is unit of inquiry? We then took our ideas and interpreted them by drawing them! We also reintroduced ourselves to our Learner Profiles, discussing each one, and writing down a few words, phases, or sentences to remind ourselves of what we are trying to achieve.
After we spent some time getting to know each other and our new teacher, we started in on our first unit.
Central Idea: Iconic Figures Have an Impact on Our Lives
Lines of Inquiry:
- Perspective: Characteristics of positive and negative icons
- Reflection: How negative and positive icons influence us and our actions, thoughts, and decisions
- Function: Iconic figures and their influence on society throughout history
This is a very fun unit for us as it gives us the chance to learn about all sorts of people all over the world who have been important to us, our parents, and people in general. To start we tackled the question of what are the characteristics of icons? We created posters based on famous icons we watched short biographies on BrainPop about, and used our thinking skills to come up with characteristics. We then tackled the question of "good and bad" icons, and decided that most people fall within a spectrum, rather than being one or the other.
After this we moved on to personal icons and how they can influence people. This time we researched people we were personally interested in, and presented to our friends about how they have influenced us and others. We presented our icons to the rest of the class, and explained to them who they were and how why we chose them. These were our first solo presentations in grade 4, and we did a great job!
For our final line of inquiry we went back in time and looked at iconic figures from all over the world. We discussed which ancient icons we still now today, and how their lives are still important to us today. It was very fun to learn about how so much of our world today was created impart by the great inventions, important ideas, and actions that inspire us for years.
Finally, it was time to demonstrate everything we had learned. We each chose an icon we had not learned about before, making sure that in our research we learned as much about them as possible so we will be able to think carefully and deeply about things like their impact and influences.
After all our research we got together with a partner and planned an interview between our icon and a friend. We tried hard to ask questions that were deep and thoughtful, rather than simple and could easily be answered. Then we organized our information, put together a costume, and got ready to create our very own wax museum! (Full videos will be sent to parents, take a look so you can watch us at our best!)
Overall we had a great time with our first unit. We loved learning about all different people and all different types of people, and can't wait to keep learning about famous people during each of our units!
P.S. Special thanks to Albert Einstein who was our example for the entire unit!
