Our grade 5 geckos have once again proved that “Together we can achieve more” & the role- play which they displayed as part of their summative assessment was a perfect evidence for this.

It’s our pleasure to share the details of the role play, how it all started, why was the act on Christopher Columbus selected & how our geckos geared up for their roles and imbibed the characters & performed way beyond expectations by mesmerizing the audience with their wonderful performance in the role play.

The inquiry topic of our Grade 5 geckos was “Exploration” under the theme “Where we are in place and time.” we are happy to share that apart from different kinds of explorations that they learnt (Space, Mineral, Ocean, Arctic, Archeology), they explored the details of nearly 20 different explorers, their explorations, challenges faced by them & how they overcame those challenges and made a mark in history.

The Geckos decided to perform the role-play on Christopher Columbus as he is one of the greatest & well-known explorer who has given us the learning of different voyages.

The role-play covered the topics on the following:

  • Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy in 1451 to a weaver, young Columbus first went to sea at the age of 14. Shipwrecked near the Portuguese coast in 1476, he made his way to great port city of Lisbon, where his younger brother, Bartholomew was an expert chart maker.
  • Columbus settled in Portugal & married a women of noble background, Dona Felipe, who died soon after his son Diego was born C 1480. In 1485, Columbus & his young son moved to Spain.
  • Having convinced the King and the Queen of Spain to finance his voyage, In 1492, on Aug 3rd, Columbus quickly made port in the Canary Islands for a final restocking & left there on Sep 6th.  He was in command of 3 ships – The Pinta, Nina & Santa Maria.
  • Columbus was sailing for the Crown of Castile in search of westward route to Asia to access the sources of spices & other oriental goods like cotton , tobacco etc., this led to the discovery of new route between Europe & Asia.
  • He called the inhabitants of the land that he visited as “ Indies”
  • Columbus made a total no of 4 voyages to America between 1492 & 1502 settling the stage for European exploration & colonization to America ultimately leading to Columbian exchange.
  • Columbus died on 20th May 1506.

The above journey of Christopher Columbus was portrayed by our geckos extraordinarily. Our audience enjoyed the performance and information given by our geckos. Our geckos enhanced their organization skills by working independently on background work like props, practice, back ground music, worked, costumes etc., and displayed the sense of responsibility & commitment which is part of their attitudes. Our geckos exhibited their academic honesty by acknowledging the entire Gaudium TEAM and their parents as well who helped them in their learning. The Big Idea Behind this topic is to understand how “Explorations lead to discoveries, opportunities and develop new understandings.”

 

Some ‘discoveries’!