What is going on?

Ms. Jane emailed me these photos:

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Make a comment to tell us:

• What you are doing
• What skills you are using and developing
• What was challenging
• What was quite easy

Sitting for Collaboration

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These groups are sitting in shapes and formations that will help them to collaborate – to work together effectively.

Can you make a comment to explain why their shapes and formations are good for collaboration? Can you see any problems that might happen in their group?

What else is important for collaboration to work well?

Homework: Publishing Writing About Kanchanaburi

You have many choices of ways to write and present your writing. To help you make your choices, I will give you a list of questions.

What do you want to write about? What moments, experiences and conversations were important for you? What responsibilities do you have when you write?

Who do you want to write with? Of course, you can work alone, but you also have the option to collaborate with other people in a number of ways.

Who are you writing for? Who is your audience?

Why are you writing? Why is it important to know the reason you’re writing?

How will you use writing to express what you want to say? How will you make sure people will want to read your writing? How will you get your writing read by other people?

For homework, today, spend some time brainstorming answers to these questions and then make a comment to tell us what you’re thinking. Read the questions very carefully and put some good thought into how you will answer them.

Who we are

This is the central idea of our next unit:

“The changes and challenges we face as we grow help us to understand who we are.”

We will be looking at this central idea using the concepts of function, change and responsibility.

These are the lines of inquiry:

• Physical and emotional changes during puberty
• Coping with challenges
• Changes in responsibility

Discuss all of this with some people at home, such as parents and older brothers and sisters, and then make a comment to answer these questions:

1. What do you think this unit will be about?
2. What do you think it should be about?
3. What do you think it should not be about?

Image from yankodesign.com

Photos from Parent Coffee Morning

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These photos show parents and students of 6SS looking at the students’ cards on the Gradual Release of Responsibility and discussing whether or not they are in the right place on the continuum. They also show parents and students collaborating to write a comment on the blog posting below, giving details of their conversations and telling us what their goals are for the immediate future.

Here’s a nice photo of the parents enjoying the relaxing part of the morning, organized by these students:

Aayush, Paula, Paul, Anirudh, Odette, Ken, Gabi, May, Pimboon, Am and Samantha. Well done to them!!!

New Goals for Gradual Release of Responsibility

With your parents, spend some time looking at the Gradual Release of Responsibility diagram outside the classroom:

• Explain how the diagram works
• Share your cards with them by taking them off one-by-one and finding somewhere to talk about each one
• Find out if they think your cards are in the right place on the GRR
• Discuss how you can work together with your parents to progress
• Decide on one or two goals for the next couple of weeks
• Make a comment to tell us your goals and a bit of information about the conversations you had
  

Remember, make your goals:

Sustainable (you will carry on doing it)

Manageable (it is not too much to take on)

Achievable (you can achieve success with it)

Realistic (it is appropriate for you)

Timely (now is the perfect time to work on this goal)

Bossiness vs. Leadership

What is the difference between being bossy and being a leader?

Make a comment to explain your ideas.

6GD have been blogging about this question too, have a look: http://blogs.nist.ac.th/6gd/2010/09/17/leadership-verses-bossiness/#comment-900

Our speaking and listening essential agreements

We have been telling stories and listening to stories and then talking about how we should behave when we are speaking and listening. We discussed our body language, our facial expressions and the choices we should make about when and how to speak.

Now, we need one or two sentences to become our essential agreement about speaking and listening. Make a comment and have a go at putting together a sentence that includes positive instructions about how to speak and listen successfully. If you can’t think of a sentence, just tell us what key words you think should be in the sentence.

Need Help!

For the hydroponics I’m going to plant the small seedlings on thursday. I need your help to do this. I will appreciate if anyone comes and help. It will only take a few minutes and we won’t get wet. This crop will be Thai vegetables so it will grow quickier than salad so we can harvest on the last week of school.

Extending the “Together We Can” Slogan

6SS have been thinking about what is needed in order for Thailand to emerge from the current situation as a better and stronger country. Today, we shared all of our ideas for how to extend the “Together We Can” slogan that was used to generate interest in the “Big Cleanup” on Sunday. The  students discussed what all of the causes of last week’s events were and tired to look behind the media, the gossip, the rumours and the colours.

By sharing their ideas they have formed seven new slogans:

“Together we can rethink about the choices we make.”

“Together we can all have a voice.”

“Together we can respect and care for eachother.”

“Together we can earn the trust of other people in the world.”

“Together we can make Thailand a cleaner place than before.”

“Together we can bring back the land of smiles.”

“Together we can correct our mistakes.”

A question for our audience: what do you think about these slogans? What effect do you think they could have? Could they be improved? Are they clear enough?