380 School Days Later

Today was our last day of school in Tashkent. It was a great experience, and we leave with many great memories. The last few days have been tiring, both physically and emotionally. It was hard to say good-bye to so many wonderful students and truly outstanding educators.

Now it's off to the US for a nice 7 week break. In addition to seeing family and friends, I predict a few glasses or red wine, lots of good food and a few scoops of Ben & Jerry's ice cream. After we gorge for 7 weeks, it will be time to begin our Guangzhou, China adventure...and work off all that ice cream!

Now, it's time to sleep and get mentally prepared for our last time through the Tashkent airport.

Far too long...

Since we posted something. Just looked at the blog and realized I inadvertently posted a "school" post. Guess that's the problem with using blogspot for my school and personal blogs. Of course, now you all know that Paul's class is doing the exhibition, an incredible 8-week student-led inquiry unit. It's amazing to see students carry out their own inquiry. Fun stuff!

We are down to 3 weeks left in Uzbekistan. In addition to teaching and after-school activities, we have been busy with our transition to China. The moving company has stopped by to see what we will ship. We have located an apartment in China (30th floor of a high-rise) and signed the lease. We have our plan tickets from US to Guangzhou, and we are completing the paperwork for our Chinese visas.

We depart Tashkent on June 8 and spend a week in Maryland visiting Paul's family. Then we fly to Seattle to see Jeanette's family for a few days. Then it's off to Portland for 5 weeks. We're renting a place in the Pearl District where I'm sure we will spend most of our time drinking coffee, eating good food and drinking a glass or two of red wine. We have considered bringing a bottle of Uzbek wine back to share with everyone, but we'd like to keep our friends :)

We fly to Guangzhou on July 26. Our new school has a week's worth of orientation activities scheduled for us. Then it's a week of getting ready for the students to arrive. We're excited about our new adventure.

Exhibition Update

A quick update on the Grade 5 Exhibition. Yesterday and today, we began our "retreat" to kick-off the exhibition. Students have already selected their exhibition issue and have been grouped accordingly (please ask your child about this).

Looking at artifacts to learn about Transdisciplinary Themes and Key Concepts

Students reflecting on the process

 

We spent time working on the following items which will prepare the students for the work to come. Here are some things we did:

• Began brainstorming for "Group Agreements"--we looked at the Learner Profile and turned each profile into agreement statements; groups will use these statements to create group agreements on how they will work together
• Reviewed the Transdisciplinary Themes that guide the Primary Years Programme--we had students access their background knowledge about the themes and determine which theme(s) their issue fit under
• We also began generating inquiry questions based on the Key Concepts--students will narrow their list of questions down to a manageable number and use these to guide their inquiries

Next week, students will do further work on their questions and then create a research plan. They will also schedule their first mentor meeting.