I’ve been thinking about what to call this article for a while. Why? because it is true that it is about the Festival but it also shows how we connect the inquiry with the culture and the community that surrounds us. Or in other words: How we work interciplinarity in our class
A very important aspect for IB is that learning has to be transdisciplinary. But what does transdisciplinary mean? Why has this celebration been transdisciplinary in Kindergarten and Pre-K?

A transdiciplanary learning is authentic and relevant for our lives across subject areas and real world. This process is the result of the collaboration between students, parents and the school staff (teachers, principal, administration…), to create globalminded citizens and life long learners that can connect the learning with real life.

Celebrating local holidays is bringing a bit of the community around us to our school. It is to show our students that we value their culture and / or the culture in which we live and work.
But being transdisciplinary is not just celebrating a day, to be truly interdisciplinary we have to connect with our learning process. In our case we connected the circle shape that we are learning with the moon and the mooncakes. But we did more …

After reflecting on the holidays and watching a video about the story behind the holidays, we had our first interdisciplinary activity with Mr. Paulo Seabra, the school’s PE teacher.
Mr. Paulo and I planned a collaboration based on the story of Houyi and Chang’e. I worked on the story in class and then with Mr. Paulo we practiced with the bow outside. We were shooting, like Houyi did to the suns! We connected the local culture and our motor skills. It was great to see the kids having such a good time! Mr. Paulo and I were amazed at how well the children did.

The next day we did our second interdisciplinary activity: we brought a bit of China to our class and with the help of teacher Beryl we made mooncakes, the typical sweet of these holidays. A sweet that is also round! That is why we started the class with the song of the shapes. While we were singing Teacher Beryl lovingly prepared all the ingredients. The kids loved having a special dough (that we didn’t eat) to play with and knead. They felt very big and autonomous helping teacher Beryl! Look at their faces!

Here you have the video we watched about Houyi and Chang’e: