Signs And Symbols 

Communicating without Words

This week all Grade 4 classes began their new Unit of Inquiry “Signs & Symbols”. 

    Over the next few weeks they will be looking into how the use of various signs and symbols facilitate local and global communication. As an introduction, the students were split into small groups. One person was chosen in the group to be the communicator, the remaining students were interpreters. The communicator was then given a message by the teacher on a card. This message then had to be conveyed to the interpreters without speech or the written word. The messages varied in complexity from “Nod your head slowly 4 times” to “Jump 3 times, quack like a duck, flap your arms like wings, then sit down crossing your legs!”. During the activities, the class discussed the various problems and difficulties of communicating without speech / language. This was then linked to the birth of writing by the ancient Sumerians.

It is an interesting subject and all of the Grade 4 students seem to be enjoying it, this unit is engaging, challenging and fun to learn for all the students as well as us. Every time we teach we learn something new from the ideas our students come up with. 

A Warm Welcome Back 

To You All

 Welcome back to RIS, we hope you all had an enjoyable winter break.

It was a pleasure to see the students back in school on Monday this week with such enthusiasm for the new term ahead. We have lots of exciting things planned for the coming weeks and you can keep informed about them all right here in the RIS Weekly Newsletter. 

Wishing you all a happy and knowledge filled New Year!