What do families look like? What makes my family unique? How are families alike and different? How do we transfer our cultures through families? What makes me who I am? All these challenging questions were explored by the P3 students at the beginning of the school year through the Who We Are unit of inquiry. Our central idea ‘Families form our identities” led to meaningful questioning and authentic learning.
First, we explored the concept of personal identity and related characteristics such as appearance, interests, cultural and language backgrounds. The children were happy to share their personal stories with others and learn about themselves and others. We investigated our differences through graphing and surveys, which was a great mathematical “hands-on” and visual experience for our young learners. The children were able to reflect on who they are, their origin, languages, and preferences.
We continued our inquiry by inviting family guest speakers who shared their knowledge about cultures, languages, and family traditions. We learned songs, dances, games and listened to many stories and presentations prepared by our parents. It was amazing to observe our children's pride in their families and cultural traditions. They could see how their family and their classmates’ families share commonalities and differences.The P3 Family Breakfast was the culminating event. The children interviewed their parents and created brief family stories to add to our community tree. Our Community Wall is a symbol of all the great involvement from our families in P3 at TISA.
It celebrates our diversity and our togetherness and can be seen at the beginning of the TISA 1 corridor, outside the P3 classrooms. As a summative assessment task, the children created identity boxes, including items that represent their cultures, families, and interests. It was lots of fun to explore the boxes and guess who they belonged to. The children presented their identity boxes, showing their deepened understanding of the central idea.
The learning journey was intense and engaging. The children are now able to speak about their families and themselves showing more understanding of the importance of families in forming personal identities. In their final reflections, the P3 children shared:
