Library News | Junior School

Display Highlight: Attributes of the PYP Learner Profile

Our current PYP Learner Profile display is for the attribute of Balanced. According to the IB if we are balanced we:

‘Understand the importance of balancing different aspects of our lives – intellectual, physical and emotional – to achieve well-being for ourselves and others. We recognise our interdependence with other people and with the world in which we live’.

This display includes books about people who have shown this characteristic through their lives, including Leonardo da Vinci, Muhammad Ali, Barack Obama and Michael Jordan.

We also have a section in the display where students are encouraged to record the name of someone they know who demonstrates this learner profile attribute. We invite you to participate in this discussion by chatting to your son/s about what being balanced looks, sounds and feels like, and sharing with them someone you admire who shows the attribute of being balanced.

Year 5 Where we are in Place and Time Library/UOI lesson

This term in our Year 5 Library/UOI lessons we have been inquiring into the ways that different cultures have used space/the night sky to make sense of the universe. We have been focusing on Indigenous culture, and exploring their stories about the stars, constellations and black space in the sky. The boys have compared and contrasted stories such as the Seven Sisters vs the Greek story of the Pleiades, and discovered that this constellation appears in the stories of many other cultures, including the Zuni people of New Mexico. They viewed a painting by Alma Nungarrayi Granites representing the Seven Sisters and made predictions as to what they thought the painting was showing.

Working in groups, the boys have listened to the story of either the Emu in the Sky, Jalpur or the Torres Strait Islander story of their creator spirit Taigai, and then summarised this story for the rest of their class.

We have learnt that Aboriginal Australians (and many other indigenous tribes around the world) have used the night sky for thousands of years as a way to make sense of the universe, to manage land conservation (including when to plant and harvest crops and other food), and as an important aspect of many cultural rituals.

We are looking forward to continuing to expand on our knowledge and understanding in this area, and creating our own artistic representation of the Emu in the Sky during the final weeks of this unit of inquiry.

_{Artwork credit: Alma Nungarrayi Granites  |  Yanjirlpirri Jukurrpa – Seven Sisters Dreaming}

Miss Gillian Gratton | Teaching and Learning Librarian