A Transdisciplinary Inquiry about Rainbows

The transdisciplinary Unit "How we express ourselves" became a great opportunity for my young 1st graders to analyze the concepts of form, perspective, and connection. 

We began the week writing what we know and want to know about rainbows.

Using the song and video "I can sing a rainbow", students were challenged to learn the colors of the rainbow in sign language. This allowed us to understand different ways to express an idea and how expressing ourselves can connect us with others.

Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5m3TLBmeuc

Students' questions also guided the inquiry:

 can you eat a rainbow? (perspectives and connections) and how are rainbows formed? (form)

To answer the first question, we read the book: "I eat a rainbow" by Bobbie Kalman.

This inspired us to express our ideas through a poem:

To answer the second question we watched videos to learn how a rainbow is formed and to finish this transdisciplinary inquiry week, students looked at the scientific perspective on rainbows through a hands-on project: Rainbow in a jar.

Students also wrote a short reflection on what they learned during the week.

Even though my class's first language is Spanish, they did an incredible job sharing their ideas and knowledge about rainbows. Using their previous knowledge and creative thinking skills they were able to share their ideas, questions, and understanding in a second language.

Online learning due to COVID restrictions has represented a challenge when it comes to engaging young learners in the inquiry process, but they demonstrated great resilience and did a great job this week!