Hello all! This past weekend I had an amazing oppotunity to travel to Berlin! I have some cousins who moved to Berlin a little over a year ago and while I was in Europe I thought why would I not go visit them? I LOVED getting to see some family and see their wonderful new city! Berlin is an amazing place filled with beautiful art and an interesting history. My aunt was a wonderful tour guide that took me all over the city to do some shopping and seeing many of the sites. I left school on Friday afternoon and headed straight to the airport. I did not get into Berlin until late on Friday night but was greeted in the airport by my uncle and one of my cousins! What a fun thing to get off a plane and see a familiar face! It was wonderful to come into a house where everyone spoke English and knew me well and sleep in a comfy bed! I loved it! Saturday we explored the city and did some fun shopping. I got a few clothes. Some of the major sites that we saw on this day were the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag Building, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews. The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is extremely intersting. This church was bombed in World War II, but the city decided to leave it as it was. The top is not there and many of the windows were blown out. They have built over worship buildings around the remanats of the church, but it is beautiful to see. I think that it is amazing how they turned a horrible event when the church was bombed into a beautiful memorial. Another sobering area that we visited was the Memorial to the Murdered Jews. The memorial does not have any description and is supposed to be up to personal interpretation to anyone who visits it. The different sized concrete columns can become quite tall and it can be disorienting when you are walking around it. You cannot help but remember all the events that occurred around the second World War while visiting this memorial. I learned about Berlin's history and part that it took in WWII. This city has a lot of history and I was thankful to get to see some of it. On Sunday my aunt, uncle, all my cousins and I headed out to see the Berlin wall in the morning. We went to the information center to learn more about the history of the Cold War and the time of the wall. We learned about those that tried to escape and how hard it was to escape. I would encourage anyone who visits Berlin to visit this portion of the wall to understand how the separation occurred and what the security was like. This was another sobering event to learn about and hard for me to remember that it did not happen that long ago. After this portion of the wall we went and looked at the East Side Gallery which is another portion of the wall which has been turned into art murals. I love how Berlin took a dark part of their history and have tried to make it beautiful and a place for artists to make statements. After this we headed to Five Guys for lunch (because we all needed some yummy American burgers)! They were delicious. There wasn't much time left after lunch so we went to look around Museum Island - even though we did not go inside any museums it is a beautiful part of the city. We got to walk through a fun street art market and see a big part of the city. Sadly then it was time to go back home and for me to pack and go to the airport. I LOVED every moment of being in Berlin from getting to hug some family to walking around this amazing city. My weekend was not long enough and I cannot wait to come back and visit another time! I was so thankful for my family for hosting me and getting to show me their new German home!
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I know that it has taken me awhile to post these, but as promised I wanted to give an update on my student's summative assignment: the dioramas. As I mentioned in my last blog post last week my students finished one of their inquiry units and were working on their final projects. This unit covered celebrations. Each student created a diorama over one celebration of their choosing. In it they showed how people celebrate their chosen subject. Some of the celebrations chosen were Valentines Day, Christmas, and Dwali. Each student had to do research through books and asking others to fill out a fact file about their celebration including information such as when it is celebrated, how, where, and by whom. Then they made a plan of what they wanted their dioramas to look like and then began to execute it. Each student had complete autonomy over their own project and ideas as we wanted to be able to assess the students knowledge and understanding of the celebration unit. Today we had an open house at the end of the day for parents to come in and see the finished products. The students got to showcase their dioramas and all of the information that they learned during this unit. They were able to explain the celebration that they chose and show that they had become and "expert". I loved getting to see the students excited to show their hard work to their parents and have a place to demonstrate their knowledge. Many parents attended and were able to see the whole classes work. I loved this summative assignment and it was an interesting way to assess understanding. I have really begun to love the IB curriculum and philosophy of teaching. I love that the students have such an active role and so much independence even in the younger years. I have enjoyed learning techniques at the school and specifically from my teacher. I hope to bring some of these ideas back with me to America and one day into my own classroom. Here are some pictures of my students work! I have officially been back in Gothenburg for a few days and am loving being back in a routine. I loved every minute of the travel week and it was amazing to get to see three amazing cities around Europe, but overall it was quite tiring. It has been nice to have a few days to get back into a routine and relaxing some in the evenings. This week my teacher has been sick and so I have been getting a chance to do a lot of teaching. It has been a wonderful opportunity to step into a more prominent role in my classroom. I have enjoyed getting to see how teaching with the inquiry model in an IB school works. At times it can be different than how I am used to teaching back in America, but I am learning a lot. The other teachers on the grade one team have been extremely supportive and answering all my questions. I have had a substitute that is in the room with me, but since I already knew the students and was more familiar with our schedule I have taken lead of the class.
This week the students are in the final week of this inquiry unit - they have learned all about celebrates around the world: who celebrates then and how they are celebrated. This week they are creating their final project of the unit: dioramas on a celebration. Each student picked a celebration, they did research on it, and are now working on creating their own dioramas about that holiday. They must display at least four ways that their celebration is celebrated in their box. I am enjoying seeing their creativity and imagination come out in how they are making their dioramas. I will take pictures of some of the finished products and upload them in a future blog post. The IB program focuses on the process over the product. So while we want to the students to work hard and create a good diorama - we really want them to understand the celebration that they have selected. We want them to understand why celebrations occur in our world and how everyone has different things that we choose to celebrate. I have enjoyed getting to see how all my students are learning to appreciate the world around them and respect all people's celebrations and not just their own. ISGR is creating worldly citizens that respect everyone around them. I love getting to be in a school environment that pushes that mindset so much in their students. I hope to bring that back to my own classroom and teach my own students one day to have a similar mindset. This week has been long and has pushed me because of all the independence, but I am learning so much. I am appreciating the IB curriculum and program much more and have started to look into it more. I think that even if I did not pursue a career in IB schools specifically learning more about the inquiry model in my own classroom one day would benefit my students drastically. Stay tuned to see the finished dioramas and hear about the new inquiry unit grade one starts next week! Until then Hej då! Our last leg of our travel week was in the beautiful and historic city of Prague. Prague is basically in the very center of Europe in the Czech Republic. It is one of the best preserved cities in all of Europe because during WWII it was only bombed a few times. They only lost part of one building which has been almost fully restored. Prague has a rich and painful history that has gotten it to where they are today. I think it is one of the most beautiful cities that I have ever been to in Europe and extremely unique - I highly recommend it. Now we flew in from Paris on Thursday night. We checked into our apartment - which was near Old Town Square. I recommend staying in this area because it is close to most of the attractions. We never had to use a tram or public transport here - we walked everywhere. We ubered to and from the airport, but that was the only time we did not walk. After getting settled Caroline and I met up with Catherine and Madilyne (all of the Gothenburg gals) for dinner. We loved getting to see them after a week and swap all our adventure stories. On Friday that four of us had a whole day to explore Prague. We began by visiting the Klementinum library and climbed up into the tower. It was an amazing view of the city! We got to hear about some of the history of the library. One sad thing of this tour was that you cannot take pictures in the library, so sadly I do not have any pictures to share from there (you will just have to go see it for yourself to see how amazing it is). But we did get to take pictures on top of the tower. After the library we went and grabbed a quick lunch then went to cross Charles Bridge to see the Prague Castle. We came back to Old Town square and watched the Astronomical Clock on the hour. We had a quick dinner and then said our goodbyes because Catherine and Madilyne were going off to Copenhagen early the next morning. Saturday was back to just Caroline and I - we packed in a lot of cool Prague sites. We went into Old Town Hall, which is one of the oldest buildings in Prague. It was amazing. Inside you could also see the inner workings of the Astronomical Clock. We were lucky enough to be inside when the clock went off on the hour, so we got to see what happens behind the doors. Then we went up into the tower to get a look over the entire square. (We love getting big views of our cities!) After Old Town Square we grabbed a quick lunch and then went on a 3 hour walking tour of Prague. This was probably my favorite part of visiting Prague. I loved getting to hear all of the history and learn more about the city. Prague has a dark and hard history, but they have moved into such a good time in their history in the last 20 years. I loved getting to listen to how much resilience the Czech people have. If you are ever in Prague I would encourage you to go on the Sandeman free walking tour (you just tip at the end). They have other tours that you can pay for, but Caroline and I loved the one we went on. We learned all about Old Town Square and the Jewish Quarter specifically. This week has been amazing - exhausting but amazing! We have loved getting to see all of these amazing cities and experience so much culture. We are in the airport about to catch a flight back to Gothenburg and have school in the morning. We have loved getting to travel, but are ready to head back home to Sweden! |
AuthorHello! I am Virginia and here are some of my adventures during my month abroad. ArchivesCategories |