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Spring 2012

Family Histories
Where we are in place and time

Central idea:
Family histories provide an insight into family and the individual.
Lines of inquiry:
The similarities and differences between family histories
The impact our family history has on our life
How do we know about our family histories

Unit of Inquiry and

Chinese
Page 2

English and Math

Page 3

New Unit of Inquiry

Page 4

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Spring 2012

Unit of Inquiry
Through various homework tasks, class based
activities and the field trip the students were
able to understand many of the lines of inquiry.
Some children took action during this unit by
bringing in family photo albums or by asking
probing questions to family members showing
their enthusiasm to be inquirers. By presenting
their family trees to the class and sharing their
work during assembly, the children
demonstrated their ability to be risk-takers. The
children began to show an understanding of
different sources of information and which are
more useful in finding out about our family. Did
your child show some action at home
during this unit? Please email let us know!

Chinese
The children reviewed all Chinese Pinyin, and they made sentences with
them. They learned family members names in Chinese, and they could
read and write their family members names in Chinese, they practiced
making sentences with their family members names, too. We looked at
different types of family photos and described them in Chinese; they
talked about what they saw and the differences between the family
photos in Chinese. The teacher recorded what the students saw, before
they read the sentences in Chinese. The children described their family
members with sentences, and the teacher recorded these key words.
The students got these key words from the teacher and made their own
vocabulary cards to review them. Each student made their own My
Family book, they wrote long sentences in Chinese to describe what
was similar and different between their family members. The students
began asking the teacher to write a vocabulary card for them when they
dont know how to read/write a Chinese word, then we make our own
2
Chinese dictionary which they will continue to add to.

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Spring 2012

English
The children enjoyed exploring the concept of family using different
storybooks and they understood the broad definition of family, that it
could include friends, family and even pets! The children went on to
write about their family using their wordbooks to help them spell
unfamiliar words. The children enjoyed inquiring into the British Royal
family using related vocabulary to talk about the relationship between
the people on the family tree including mother, father, aunt, uncle,
cousin etc. The children looked at examples of technology that their
parents or grandparents may have used and talked about how they
have changed to their current format. Each Tuesday the children
shared their homework with the class and talked about what they
noticed for each spelling rule. We are currently working on applying
these rules to their writing.

Math
In math, the students worked on learning the words more than and
less then in Chinese as well as consolidating their knowledge on place
value by looking at numbers with hundreds, tens and ones. The
students practiced a range of strategies, in Chinese and English to
add and subtract two-digit numbers including regrouping, using a
number line and a hundred square. The students solved word
problems involving ages in both Chinese and English. They were
encouraged to explain how they arrived at an answer and talk about
the strategy they used with a partner. In English, the children have
been practicing their rapid recall of the 2 and 10 multiplication tables.
The children also used Venn diagrams to look at similarities and
differences between their family histories and toys from the present

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Spring 2012

New Unit of Inquiry

Who we are
Central idea:
People eat a broad range of food across cultures and societies
and food affects well-being.
Lines of inquiry:
Healthy choices and food
How diet affects health and well-being
Peoples responsibility with regard to nutrition and health

Learner profile focus:

Balanced and Open-minded

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Nutrition Newsletter
Unit of inquiry
Central idea: People eat different foods that can affect their health.
Key Concepts: Causation, connection, Responsibility
Lines of inquiry:
Healthy choices and food
How diet affects health and well being
Peoples responsibility with regard to nutrition and health
The children looked at a range of different foods from around the world. We created
an understanding in the classroom of what the words healthy and unhealthy mean
with regards to food. This resulted in discussions about organic food, the effect of
salt on the kidneys and high fructose corn syrup. The children had many questions
that they wanted answers to such as Does fish really make us smart? What is the
healthiest food in the world? and What does the g on nutrition labels mean? These
were then incorporated into our unit of inquiry. For the summative assessment the
children created different recipes that they then used computers and iPads to find
out the nutritional information for their recipes before writing a written reflection
about how healthy and unhealthy each one is. The childrens enthusiasm for this unit
of inquiry was evident through the action they performed such as bringing in vitamin
bottles to talk about the nutritional information or through bringing in recipe books to
share healthy recipes.

G2

Chinese

we

The students learned related Chinese

vocabulary and wrote sentences in their
writing journal. They went on to choose food
and create a food pyramid using the
vocabulary they had learned. We played a
grocery shopping game where the students
made a shopping list in Chinese to describe
what food and ingredients they wanted to
buy. They wrote in sentences to explain why
they needed this food, then their friends
would read their Chinese shopping list and
draw what was on the list. The children wrote
a self-reflection in Chinese about a recipe
they wrote in English to explain if it was
healthy or unhealthy, and why they thought
that. The students wrote their own story
books in Chinese if they finished a task early.
They could then sign up to show and tell their
own story in Chinese.

Chinese grammar :

G2
2

Math
Our focus for this inquiry was data
handling. The students learned how to
sort data into groups. They made their
own bar graph in Chinese. In English
the children gathered information from
other classes to find the answer to the
question, What are some peoples
favorite foods? The children then
created a pictograph and tally chart of
their results before analyzing the
information.
One of the questions asked by the
children was What does the g mean on
nutrition labels? This lead to a short
inquiry into mass including the words
balanced, heavier and lighter. The
children concluded their inquiry by
estimating the mass of different fruits
and vegetables before using scales to
find the mass of them in grams.

Donec
varius,
felis eget

G2
3

English
Each Tuesday the children participated in a debriefing session about the
spelling pattern from the previous week. They shared the different words they
found and talked about what they noticed. Through their reading the children
demonstrated enthusiasm by recognizing words that followed the spelling
pattern. As part of the summative assessment the children wrote recipes for
different dishes. We looked at writing instructions and organizing our ideas.
The students then had a go at peer assessing another students work providing
2 stars and a wish. The children are continuing to be inquirers by building up
their personal word dictionaries. We are continuing to hone our speaking and
listening skills through bi-weekly show and tell related to school and the unit of
inquiry.

New unit of inquiry:

Central idea:
Clocks and calendars were invented long ago to
organize and understand the world.
Lines of inquiry:
Clocks and calendars work to tell time
Clocks and calendars have changed over time
Calendars can be different
Key concepts:
Function, change and perspective

G2

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2

Water Newsletter
Unit of inquiry
Central Idea:
Water is a natural resource that changes.
Key Concepts: change, responsibility, function
Related Concepts: Water Cycle
Lines of inquiry:
How the water cycle works
The change water goes through
Peoples responsibility to conserve and protect water sources
The students read the book Water Cycle that was translated into Chinese. They went
on to create their own illustrations for each page of the book to explain their
understanding of the content. The students then went on to apply their
understanding by making their own water cycle book that they shared with their
friends and parents. As part of the summative assessment in Chinese, the children
made a poster showing the stages of the water cycle, and in English they explained
how human activity can affect each of the different stages. Through the field trip to
Nunes watershed restoration site the children understood that we all have
responsibility to conserve and protect our water. Some of the key questions that
were inquired into were: What is the water cycle? How does the water cycle work?
What kind of human activities affect the water cycle? The children applied their
understanding of scientific concepts by conducting experiments into water filtration,
hydrogels and the states of water.

Chinese
The children have been working on
completing the Langlang Chinese
workbook 3B. They have learned
how to describe their birthday party
and show their appreciation to their
friends
.As part of our Chinese
curriculum, we have learned how to
observe words and regroup them
with their pian pang bu shou (left and
right side of a Chinese character
split, often a hint to know the
meaning and pronunciation of a
character) to help students recognize
and remember new words. The pian
pang bu shou we have discussed are
which can be found in the
Chinese characters related to water.

The students observed pictures

related to water. They completed a
visible thinking routine called, I
see..., I think..., I wonder... to
express their initial understanding
about water. The students cut out
pictures complete with a
description in Chinese about the
water cycle and stuck them in their
correct order. Below are the key
words which are related to the
projects we have been working on:
r
yn
hi yng
li jn
xn hun
y dng
bin hu
zhng f
yng yun
d d xi

Math
In Chinese, we have been working on
sharing numbers into different groups, with
equal numbers in each group using known
multiplication facts. We discovered that
some numbers couldnt be regrouped into
certain groups. In order to support the
students understanding of temperature, we
conducted a science experiment with hot,
cold and warm water. The students marked
the temperature of different types of water
using thermometers, before going on to
compare them. We observed the
thermometer at school to recognize the
difference between degrees Centigrade
and degrees Fahrenheit. In English we
spent time looking at capacity and inquiring
into different containers to see how many
cups of sand each container can hold. This
very quickly led to a discussion about
fractions, when we talked about if they
containers were a half, or fourth full. The
students compared different fractions using
watermelon to physically inspect which
fraction was bigger, and which was
smaller. The students very quickly realized
that the higher the bottom number, the
smaller the part.
3

English

We begun this unit of inquiry by exploring some of the key vocabulary surrounding this
unit by discussing a non-fiction text. The students recorded three things they learned
from the extract, two things they found interesting and would like to know more about,
and one question they had after reading the text. Before our field trip the children read
Dr Seuss story The Lorax. The children showed their understanding of the story by
writing about the choices made by the Once-ler in his production of the thneeds. The
children observed a drought map of the U.S.A to discover that California is not the only
place experiencing extreme drought, also according to the map, there was a small area of
land on the Pacific coast, bordering Oregon, which is not experiencing a drought. We
concluded our inquiry by listening to a range of funky songs about the water cycle,
putting actions to each of the different stages. Some children even took action by
listening to the songs again at home!

New unit of inquiry:

Central Idea
Extinction impacts the environment.

Lines of Inquiry
Endangered animals and the causes of extinction
The influence of extinction and the changes it causes on the planet
Peoples responsibility to prevent extinction

Key vocabulary:
Extinction/ mi ju
Endangered/ bn ln mi ju
Environment/ hun jng
Food chain/ sh w lin

Fossil/ hu sh
Prevent/ fng zh

Transdisciplinary theme:
How we organize ourselves
Central idea:
Clocks and calendars were
invented to organize and
understand the world.
Key Concepts:
function, change, perspective
Related Concepts:
Time, Clocks, and Calendars
Lines of inquiry:
How clocks and calendars work
to tell time
How clocks and calendars
have changed over time
How calendars can be different
G2

Unit of inquiry
In order to help the students inquire
into how clocks and calendars have
changed over time the students made
a sundial and water clock. The
students used their water clock to
time themselves doing various tasks,
including jumping jacks and reading.
The children decided that it would be
a good idea to use their water clocks
to time each other during show and
tell. After making a sundial the
students observed how it works,
including how the shadows change
during the day. The children showed
they know how clocks and calendars
work to tell the time by independently
creating their daily schedule, including
special days, appointments and
times. The result was their 2015
bilingual calendar. The students read
Eric Carles classic The Bad
Tempered Ladybug before creating
their own version of the story. As part
of a field trip we visited Berkeley
Stonehenge at the Berkeley Marina,
and the Clock tower at UC Berkeley.

Math
Our focus for this inquiry was using various clocks to tell the time, to
the nearest 5-minute interval. The children looked at analogue and
digital clocks, before independently documenting the time they
arrived in school.
For number, the students learned the concepts of multiplication and
division and they solved mathematical questions written in Chinese.
The students inquired into ordinal numbers before applying their
understanding to the summative assessment.
2

Chinese
The students made background
and stage props independently for
the Lunar New Year performance.
They practiced speaking long and
complicated Chinese sentences,
showing creativity by adding lots of
their own ideas into the show.
We begun Show and Tell in
Chinese and the students have
been signing up to share interesting
objects with their classmates. It has
been such a positive way for the
children to practice their Chinese
speaking and listening skills.
The students counted the word
cards in their Chinese dictionary to
know how many new Chinese
words they have learned in Grade
2. It showed that they have added
100 - 250 new words to their
vocabulary. We will continue to add
more words into the dictionary, as it
is an effective way to help them
learn Chinese reading and writing.

English
As part of our provocation for this unit of inquiry Mr. Simon hid the
clocks. The children very quickly understood the importance of
clocks in helping to organize our daily lives. After making the water
clocks the children wrote a reflection about how they made them
using different sequencing words, including first, next, after and
finally. Towards the end of the unit the children demonstrated their
understanding of clocks and calendars by making a poster and
videoing the presentations for the kindergarten children. We watched
the videos as a class and we talked about affective presentation
skills, as well as addressing misconceptions, such as The date is 1
of July. February has 29 days. and Mr. Simons birthday is July 5th
1982. After reflecting on the presentations the students went on to
record 2 stars and a wish. The children are continuing to work on
applying their knowledge of the spelling investigations, to their class
work.

New unit - Stories

Transdisciplinary theme:
How we express ourselves
Central idea:
Stories can engage their audience and communicate
ideas and feelings.
Key Concepts: connection, form, reflection
Related Concepts: Fable, Myths, Legends, and Stories
Lines of inquiry:
The basis or origin of stories
The properties of stories
The interpretation of stories