One of the learning targets in History was to be able to give reasons for events and changes in a certain place or during a certain timeframe. By visiting the STAM museum pupils got really fascinated about the city of Ghent, our host city. Why did people in the past choose to live here? How old is this settlement? How did the settlement grow into a city? To find out more we talked about the history of Ghent here in class, pupils read texts and underlined keywords, as a group project they made a long timeline and finally they independently wrote a text about the history of Ghent. It is a fascinating place and we are living in a city with an amazing story!
During this unit Upper Primary pupils have looked at a city from different perspectives. Learning targets in Technology have been to identify the ways in which products in everyday use meet specific needs and to gather and use information to suggest solutions to problems. Pupils for example learned more about different building materials by observing houses in the local area. They have carefully been looking at houses and made sketches to see the details. They have been locating services in the local area and discussed whether these are essential or non-essential. It was a really interesting discussion! What do people in a city really need and what services and amenities are just fun to have? Cities around the world are growing and growing and we need to think more carefully about how they are built - sustainability is important. We only have one planet! Upper Primary pupils have therefore also learned more about eco-friendly buildings. They are now trying to use their knowledge when planning and building their own eco-friendly house – a model, course!
During the sketching tasks, pupils were interested to find out more about how to draw 3D drawings. We therefore moved on to an art activity where pupils have worked with a street view, locating the horizon and the vanishing point. Pupils have really enjoyed learning how to draw a perspective drawing and the results are fantastic!
The end of this term is getting closer and we are starting to wrap up a lot of things now. Upper Primary pupils have taken their end of term-test in Maths, they show their best reading and writing skills during Literacy and IPC lessons. Some of the pupils in Upper Primary leave before the end of the school year and we are starting to feel sad about saying goodbye to good friends. But we also know that we can look back at a fantastic year together here at ISG.
We will enjoy the last two weeks that we have together before the summer holidays start! And this Sunday is Father's Day... We have not forgotten about it! :)