What an exciting week in my classroom. My students have been learning all about 'The Power of One' meaning that one person can influence change in the world. A big part of this unit is students figuring out ways that they can get involved and make a change in their school, community and the world.
Action.
Taking action is a large part of the PYP. The goal is not just for students to learn different concepts and memorize them. We want our students to apply their learning outside of the classroom as well. We call this Taking Action. Each classroom at our school has a 'Taking Action' poster either inside or outside the classroom where we post pictures, notes and examples of students who are taking action.
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Originally, I thought that students had to bring in examples of what we are learning about from home and when I taught kindergarten it was very difficult to remind students to bring things from home. At an IB conference I went to in Indianapolis two years ago, I learned that action can take many forms.
Since action is all about a verb, I started to write down on sticky notes when I noticed students taking action by sharing a thought wit the class or noticing something in books and let students know that this was taking action. I soon began to realize that students were taking action every day!
So back to second grade... My students this week really ran with Gandhi's quote "Be the change you wish to see in the world." They decided to come up with their own action plan. They wanted to encourage others to pick up trash, stop littering and recycle more. On Monday, they are going to be making an announcement to the school to get the community involved in their action, as well as make posters to hang around the school reminding people to pick up their trash and recycle.
How awesome is that! Students taking action and getting excited about it!
Also, something else we did this week was a Pathway to Change. I got this idea from A Year of Many Firsts. Students traced their feet and wrote on them how they can make a change. It is our hope that anyone who comes into our school will read our feet, which will inspire them to make a change. Check out the pictures below.
Our pathway goes from the front of the school all the way to the second grade classrooms. We have already received a ton of compliments from students, teachers and parents about how impressive and motivating this project is. The only downfall is that it has slowed some students down when walking to their next class because they are stopping to read our feet!!!
Whether you are a PYP school or not, encourage your students to take action with their learning. you could also start your own Action Board in your classroom or in your school to encourage students to take that next step to apply their learning.
