It's not Fair

Another powerful learning engagement was a game we played to demonstrate how the distribution of the world's wealth and resources can at times be unfair. The class came up wth some thoughful ways of making this fairer.

Our protest song- rhythm and tunes and Bridge Ranking

After a very productive protest song workshop today we have chosen two existing tunes to work with when writing our own protest song about child labour.
See below:

Imagine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_km0u64OLng&feature=related
Get up , Stand up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7iXcKKpdx0

We began making a diamond ranking of important features of our protest song- this evolved into a whole new visible thinking strategy- A Bridge ranking.
A bridge ranking has the bridge as the central idea of the song, at either side of the bridge are important factors that support the song and underneath are additional features that add to the song.
Very creative 4C.

Writing our own protest song

This week in 4c we have been analyzing the structure of various existing protest songs, beginning with Get up Stand Up and leading to Imagine.

We used expert groups to share information about the following 4 focus points:

1.       Repetition

2.       Rhyme

3.       Syllable count- rhythm

4.       Feelings and emotions

This will lead to a diamond ranking to decide on a checklist for the final assessment- writing our own protest song using the tune of imagine.

 Thanks to Alek's dad for the Bob Marley link.

Also watched a great clip of U2 performing with Jay Z in front of the Brandenburg Tor - double protest song Sunday Bloody Sunday with Get up stand up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucOFQD8kVGU&feature=related

We are all looking forward to listening to the finished masterpieces.

3 Questions to rights (from Lucia)

1-What other rights should kids have?
2-How could we help kids without or with less rights?
3-How can we protect our rights?

Check List for a protest song by Alek

1. Rhythm
2. Repetition
3. Syllables
4. Feelings
5. Words that make you think about rights.
6. Alliteration
7. Capital letter at the beginning of a sentence.

Charity T Shirt Designers

We are now busy designing charity t-shirts from an idea presented to the class by Christine Mayer (Karim's Mum)
With the central idea of Simplicity, truth and love, the t- shirts will eventually raise money for children in Nepal, to provide them with the chance to go to school, have a warm meal everyday and to have a school uniform.
If you want share your designs ,  post a photograph of your sketch here.

Give Kids a Chance- Our first protest song

4C created their first class protest song- to be sung to John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Give Peace a Chance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNU7jb1Syjs

We explored the following language features:

• Suffixes- ness, less, ful to create a rhyming pattern
• Use of syllables
• repetition or repeating patterns
• Use of artistic license

Here goes:

1,2,3,4...
Ev'rybody's talking about...
Sadness, tiredness, angriness
Sportless, respectless, soundless

Freedomless, restless

All we are saying…

Is give kids a chance

All we are saying…

Is give kids a chance

Ev'rybody's talking about...
Exploitedness, faintness, injuriness

Hopeless, speechless, airless

Careless, penniless

All we are saying…

Is give kids a chance

All we are saying…

Is give kids a chance

What we wanna talk about is...
Hopeful, peaceful, careful, thoughtful
Respectful, joyful, thankful, grateful
Healthful, harmonyful.


What we are saying...
Is give kids a chance
What we are saying...
Is give kids a chance

Can you post a new verse

Newspaper Bags- Emotional responses

Visual Responses to Children's Rights Issues

Child Labour- What does it sound like?

Based on the powerful experience yesterday, post your thoughts:

Child Labour- What does it sound like?

Child Labour- What does it look like?

Based on the powerful experience yesterday, post your thoughts:
Child Labour- What does it look like?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2VFOzH1Qr0

Taking Rights Away

Today 4C had a moving, sometimes emotional learning engagement

To deepen understanding about children’s rights and more specifically child labour, 4^th grade students made paper bags  to emulate the daily experiences of child labourers. In the afternoon, students watched a video on students taking action against child labour and reflect on their experiences.

Such learning engagements help children see that human rights are not just understanding the UN declaration on the rights of the child, but also about building palpable empathy for those in other circumstances.

 This evening they will be bringing home one of these bags for reflection and discussion.

With their bag they can decorate it with a logo, words to describe today's feelings, put any ideas inside it.

We look forward to sharing our reflections.

We can...make a difference.

I can...we can...

http://www.ted.com/talks/kiran_bir_sethi_teaches_kids_to_take_charge.html

This film was the source and inspiration for today's learning experience.

Fionúir, Everybody has the right to live

Short story to demonstrate newly learnt vocabulary 

from Reading Prompt 2

(VCOP)

Everybody has the right to live… live and let live …

I absolutely tremble when I see a savvy spider, I stare at it and think that this utterly ugly creature can’t exist; I want to destroy it, nail it down but I just quiver and panic all around.

I am afraid that spiders can enfold me, eat me, engulf me …! And nail me down and destroy me ! OK I have learned that every creature has the right to live whether it is hideous or drop-dead beautiful ….

THE END

Thank you for reading … Fionúir

poem

THE WORLD NEEDS PEACE BUT NO CRIME THEN IT WILL BE NICE AND FINE.

Still life- Symbolising Children's Rights

Which rights can you spot?

Kinderrechte

Wir, die Kinder der Klasse 4c, möchten uns für den Besuch von Lucias Papa bedanken. Er hat uns in spielerischer Form die Rechte der Kinder näher gebracht. In den kommenden Tagen werden wir all unsere Ideen zum Thema aufgreifen und vertiefen.
Vielleicht gibt es dann noch eine Gelegenheit unsere neuen Kenntnisse zu zeigen.

Danke :)

Visual Responses

We started creating a visual response to children's rights using the title:

INSIDE OUT

as a prompt.

Once completed, they will be on display on the blog- watch this space.

School Headlines- see outside the class

We created headlines to summarise the schools we read about.

Schools around the World

 By scan reading, big diary writing and peer assessing we learnt about school life in 20 different countries around the world- there were many common features.

Common features of school life- beginning

Common features of school life- end

RULES

WHERE DO WE FIND RULES?

• In games e.g Monopoly


• on the Street e.g traffic


• In the internet e.g blog etc...

And more.......

OR THERE ARE OTHER RULES BY LAW LIKE:

• In restaurants you are not alowed to smoke


• You have to be 18 just then you are alowed to make your driving lessons

Thank you for reading if you have some more ideas please give them as a comment. :-)

Lino-Rules for religions following Fionuirs what? where? when? how? why?

In every religion there are rules for living together.
The Christians have the Bible as their rule(and story)book
The Jews have the Tora
The Moslems have the Koran

Do you know others?????

In EVERY  Religion there is a ''golden rule'' like:
treat others the way you want them to treat you.
Or a german saying from the lutheran bible:
Was du nicht willst das man dir tu'
das füg auch keinem andren zu.

This is what I found:

Dies ist die Summe aller Pflichten: Tue keinem anderen das Leid an, was bei Dir selbst Leid verursacht hätte.

Hinduismus, Mahabharata, V,1517 (vor ca. 3700 Jahren)

Was Dir weh tut, tue keinem anderen an.

Judentum, Talmud, Shabbat (vor ca. 3500 Jahren)

Tut keinem etwas an, was für Euch selbst nicht gut erschienen wäre.

Zoroastrische Religion, Zoroaster Shayast-na-shayast, xiii,29 (vor ca. 3000 Jahren)

Erachte den Vorteil Deines Nächsten als Deinen Vorteil, und Deines Nächsten Nachteil als Deinen Nachteil.

Taoismus, Kan Yein Phien,3 (vor ca. 2600 Jahren)

Füge Deinem Nächsten nicht den Schmerz, der Dich schmerzt.

Buddhismus, The Buddha, Udana, v, 18, (vor ca. 2500 Jahren)

Alles, was Ihr also von anderen erwartet, das tut auch ihnen! Darin besteht das Gesetz und die Propheten.

Christentum, Jesus Christus, Matthäus 7:12 (vor ca. 2000 Jahren)

Keiner von Euch ist ein Gläubiger, solange er nicht das für seinen Bruder wünscht, was er für sich selbst gewünscht hätte.

Islam, Mohammed (vor ca. 1300 Jahren)

Bürdet keiner Seele eine Last auf, die ihr selber nicht tragen wollt, und wünscht niemandem, was ihr euch selbst nicht wünscht. Dies ist Mein bester Rat für euch, wolltet ihr ihn doch beherzigen.

Baha\'i Religion, Baha'u'llah (vor ca. 140 Jahren)

Big Writing- Diary Writing

Here is the rubric that we used today as we wrote our diary accounts:

•         I have a Title that is a headline about school or my country e.g. SCHOOL OF HARMONY
•         I have included Dear Diary, and date
•         It is written in first person, I form
•         I have a short description of my your school/ school life
•         I have expressed feelings about how I like school and where I live.
•        I have expressed secrets, wishes or dream
•       I  asked a few questions
•        I used creativity to talk about my character, to help me be in role

We planned the accounts by scan reading an article, highlighting interesting part as word finders and summarisers.
Following this we re-read the article and completed a I see...I think... I wonder... as in the previous week to organise our thoughts.
Comparing our assessments from last week's writing, we created a new rubric (see above)