What's the Unit? Provocation

This is the question I posed to the class today. To help them make some predictions I gave them 8 different pictures including the ones below:

 

 

In pairs students spent a few minutes considering the pictures or quote. I asked them,

• What can you see? What does it remind you of? How does it make you feel?

Many students had focused and thoughtful conversations about what they were seeing and how this might relate back to our Unit of Inquiry. Some predictions included travel, differences, the world and senses.

Tomorrow I will give them some more pictures for some more hypothesizing and then we will be able to discuss our focus for the next six weeks.

Here are some photos of the students hard at work reflecting, thinking and inquiring.

  

Nepal Earthquake Teachable Moment

As part of our unit of inquiry on migration, we asked our second grade students to reflect on the many reasons why people choose to, or are forced to leave their homes.

One student started a really intense conversation by connecting what we were learning to the tragedy of the Nepal earthquake. What a teachable moment! When the students broke for recess, our team quickly pulled together some before and after pictures of Nepal to continue the conversation and to show a very real migration event that was happening in "real life."

Here is what we presented to our students for them to reflect and connect to our unit of inquiry:

On Saturday 25th April, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck in Kathmandu, Nepal. According to the UN 8,000,000 people have been affected by the earthquake. UNICEF says 1,000,000 children will be affected.