Middle-Primary - Ms. Kelsey and Ms. Anelda

The IPC -focus this week has been legends and myths, where we have worked with two History tasks in the IPC-unit "The stories people tell".

The pupils have learned more on how to summarize the main events in a story and how to describe the characters and the setting in a story. There has been a lot of different activities going on in our classrooms. The pupils spent quite some time searching for synonyms for frequently used words, by using a thesaurus. They also wrote character portraits or filled out character description grids, to show that one can describe both appearance and personal characteristics when describing a character. They worked hard with their story maps, and since we had read "The legend of Robin Hood", there were many trees to colour in in the end. We have discussed the fact that a story can be told in so many ways - we can read a book, see a movie, hear a song, read a poem or look at a picture.

Tuesday afternoon we went to the library to borrow new books. We tried to find books with a legend or a myth, but we also looked for books about bears, since the Primary pupils soon will read storybooks to the Pre-primary children, and the Pre-primary children are momenterily working with an IPC unit about bears. We are looking forward to this exciting activity, but first we need to practice, practice, practice!

Of course we have done a lot of other things as well! The pupils have worked with their reading and follow-up in class and they have worked in their numeracy books, played numeracy games and discussed numeracy! We are quite certain that everybody learns something new every day!

Many of the stories that we enjoy today are influenced by the stories that have been passed down through the ages. By studying older stories, such as myths and legends, we can become storytellers too, writing and performing our own stories to entertain people today.

In History, we’ll be finding out:

• About myths and legends from different times in the past

• How to create our own legend about someone we know

• About the gods that people used to worship in the past

In Art, we’ll be finding out:

• How people in the past have represented stories and characters

• How we can use art to tell a story

• How to create our own Greek vases

• How to design and make our own dream catcher

In Music, we’ll be finding out:

• About songs and music that tell a story

In Geography, we’ll be finding out:

• About stories from different countries and cultures

We will introduce this new IPC topic with the Entry point - brainstorming, discussing and drawing as many different characters from stories that children already know. We will also talk about the different ways stories can be told and see what ideas the students already have about what a myth, legend, fable or fairytale is.

Following this we will focus on the history tasks of the unit and explore legends and how they are a mix of fact and fiction. First we will share some well known legends and then children will be writing their own. To do this, please discuss at home one family member (preferably from the past) with your child. Discuss things this person did, maybe activities they were involved in, character traits etc. In two weeks we will use these ideas in class, and the students will write their own legend about this family member, embellishing with some fictitious ideas to make it an interesting legend!

We will also explore a Greek legend, and how pictures can be used to portray a story. We will even make our own Greek urns representing a legend we have read - how fun!

Following this we will read and write our own creation myths. We are sure the students will come up with some creative ideas about how the giraffe got such a long neck!

To finish off we will reinforce some important morals through some traditional fairytales and listen to the fantastic musical story called Peter and the wolf.

As part of this unit we will be inviting parents (from Primary or pre-primary students) to come into our class and read to us! Maybe you have a traditional story from your home country that you would like to share - you could read a book, or just share your story orally. Let us know if you would be interested!

We are going to be busy and have a lot of fun in the Primary class!

Click on the following link to have a look for yourself!

http://www.educreations.com/lesson/view/ipc/14790015/?s=HmMazN&ref=app

Before we started our research tasks we had a look at the skill that we were focusing on from the IPC Assessment for Learning - 'To be able to find out about aspects of the past from a range of sources of information. We introduced to the students the children's assessment rubric and we discussed whether they thought they were beginning, developing or mastering the skill. This was not an easy task! At the end of our research projects we discussed the assessment rubric again, and all of the students felt like they had moved a little closer to mastering! Miss Maija and Miss Jenny also plotted student's names on the teacher rubric. This was the first time we had used the IPC Assessment rubrics together. We will continue to practice using this self-assessment tool!

Every Tuesday Mr Simon, our music teacher, comes to the Primary class. At the moment we are learning how to play the recorder and the Glockenspeil in preparation for a little performance at the ISG Christmas fair. We are learning basic music notation using a different colour for each note. We are practicing the recorder throughout the week, making sure our finger tips are covering the holes properly! Mr Simon has an ambitious plan for our Christmas fair performance with students playing a 4 part harmony on the glockenspeil and recorder while some students also sing!