In the Primary Years Programme (PYP), learning and teaching centers around transdisciplinary themes, or big ideas that span across multiple areas of study. These transdisciplinary themes challenge learners to form connections and make meaning across the subjects to develop a more well-rounded understanding of themselves and the world around them.
In Grade 4, we are currently investigating the theme, “How we organize ourselves,” with a specific focus on interactions within and between social and ecological systems. Our central idea is, “Organizations function through interconnected networks that are essential for community well-being and development.” This theme and central idea have guided and integrated our learning in all areas of study.
In Literacy and English, we have been inquiring into how narrative texts are organized, as well as how to structure ideas in the simple and continuous verb tenses to write our own stories. During Mathematics time, we have been exploring how the value of numbers can be organized and represented using place value. In Science, we have been analyzing how all living things are organized with structures that support their survival, growth, and reproduction. The fourth-graders have been able to make similar connections in Health, discovering how the human body is organized with organs and organ systems that work together to support health and well-being.
So far, however, our investigation into “How we organize ourselves” has been the most powerful in Social Studies, in which the grade 4 students have been undergoing a Community Jobs Interview project. In order to research how people organize themselves through jobs and volunteer work, the students have been interviewing members of the school community about their careers. This has provided us the opportunity to bring more staff and parent voices into the learning and teaching process, as well as inspired students to think deeply about twenty-first century careers and the local and global community they want to create.
We look forward to collaborating with members of the DLTS International School community more as the year goes on to take advantage of the wealth of knowledge, skills, and values you all have to offer. Thank you for your continued support. Together, we can organize ourselves as a school community that makes a difference and continuously “chooses excellence.”
Article by
Ms. Haley Nieves, M.Ed.
Head of Grade 4
