Middle Elementary students recently finished up their unit on Beliefs and Values under the transdisciplinary theme of Who We Are. The central idea was: Belief and value systems offer explanations about the world around us. The students focused on beliefs and values and how they impact our choices and decisions. In addition, they explored what we value as individuals, families and as a school community. To conclude the unit, students created Values Billboards, which combined a written description of a value that is significant in their life and why it's important to them along with a complementary picture. Below are several Billboards along with a corresponding audio reading of each statement.
Emily on Tolerance
I value tolerance. To be tolerant means to be an understanding and open-minded person.You must understand no one’s perfect and people make mistakes. In my opinion tolerance is important because it helps with all the other values. For example if someone in math class is being a risk-taker by sharing their answer and they’re incorrect, be tolerant by helping them instead of saying “wrong,” because people make mistakes.
Being tolerant influences me because if I know someone’s tolerant I’m never afraid to tell them something. One example is that my dad and I used to play sports together in our free time. Then I discovered art. At first I was afraid to tell him but when I did it turned out really well and he was really tolerant about my new activity. Now we are more balanced with our activities. We do some art and some sports.
Juliet on Creativity
Being creative is an important value to me. Creativity means thinking of unique and different ideas. Creativity is an important value to me because I am so creative so I think of unique and different ways to do things. For example, during art class I thought of a creative way to show my learning: painting a picture.
This value influences me because once I created a clay sculpture and I used gems and paint. I try to act with creativity whenever possible. Being creative helps me keep an open mind. One day during math I was learning many ways to find the answer to a multiplication problem and I was openminded to try new ways to solve the problem instead of the way I already knew.
