Room 4 Inquiry - Term 4

To begin I found it challegening to think of ways the children could explore the topic so we decided to use youtube to find videos of christmas parades. From these videos questions started to flow. I quickly found that the children had no idea or concept of what a float is or might be. We found different pictures using the image selection on google of different parts of parades. Using lots of discussion we classified each picture into groups and used language to describe characteristics of each group. From here we slowly formed a clearer picture of what a float is.We chose the group of pictures that we all agreed were floats and made a list of attributes:

1)used car, truck or trailer with wheels
2)ooked like it was floating
3)advertised something

Then we talked about things like saftey and rules for entering a parade. The children helped to create a design breif to use as a guide when we designed our floats.

1)Start from a flat trailer with wheels
2)Think about safety (eg how will kids stay on the float, banners covering wheels is this safe?)
3)School and Christmas themed
4)No Father Chirstmas

From here the children knew where they wanted to go and the ideas began to flow. After brainstorming in groups, sorting ideas and voting on the most popular theme each group had a concept they could work with and use to draw their designs.

The next challenge was getting their ideas off the paper and onto a model. The children struggled with scale and ideas on what sorts of things they could use to substitute for things like christmas trees, mountains etc...

We spent a lot of time discussing equipment, and materials. This required lots of critical thinking and creative solutions.

To present I let the groups go for it and quickly discovered that they were distracted and forgot about their original design. I then had to pull them back and work with each group to regain focus.

Because we spent so much time discussing what a float actually was to apply our knowledge there will be lots of discussion on the day of the parade to see how childrens ideas have changed.

Room 5 Inquiry Term 4 - Lois Fraser

Room 5 Inquiry Term 4
This Inquiry unit was somewhat of a challenge for new entrants and year one children as they were sure that a float was a toy they played with in the bath. So we had many discussions about Christmas Parades, some children could remember seeing one but most had never. We used library books and Googled the subject and eventually got to the idea that we were to decorate a truck with a theme of Christmas and our school. Wow the ideas that came out were great but then we had to narrow discussions down to those that were practical. This exercise was successful. From here I felt I had to take the lead. Our question was how can we decorate our float? We used those ideas that we sorted and shifted to vote on the best theme which was a Christmas cake. The children had to use critical thinking to come up with substitutes for real world things to put onto our model.Presenting was the next stage so each child had the opportunity to work with each other and myself to complete aspects of the model. We are looking forward to being part of the Christmas parade. They will apply their knowledge by differentiating between float entrants and others such as bands and people observing.

Room 3 Float on By

This unit created a lot of excitement amongst the children in the class. However, being technology based, I found a few challenges initially, in that the children had great ideas but the practicality of them working on the back of of truck, with very little assembly time, was a difficult concept for some of them to grasp. We began our explore and find ideas by using google to look for christmas float ideas and then just float ideas and what was it the School wanted as its theme. There were two major trains of thought in the end, first a Christmas scene, the other School based. This generated asking questions about how we would sell our school, and what were the most dominant aspects of Christmas. As some where confused as to where they wanted to go with these ideas 4 groups emerged. 2 out of both having Poroutawhao school and Christmas combined, 1 solely Christmas and 1 solely school.
The ideas from their individual concepts where then combined to come up with one group idea for which they would use as the blue print for their construction of the float on their tissue box. The children really enjoyed the making of the float athough there was difficulty with actual overall realitivity of size according to their design and fitting it on a tissue box.
I enjoyed firstly hearing the delegation of jobs within the groups, and then the discussions, sometimes needing to be resolved by my intervention but mostly their own strategies to create something that was agreeable to all members of the group.
The children were all very pleased with their group floats and saw positive aspects in all presentations. A successful unit for us in many ways.

Our Inquiry Model

The inquiry model that we have developed in conjunction with the ICT cluster is pictured to the left. We based our model on our highway theme, being situated on State Highway 1. It is an intersection and made in a circular shape as it is a process that requires both backwards and forwards movements. Most classes also use some sort of car system to visually car where each group/student is up to on their inquiry process.

Room 2 Term 4

to

This term's inquiry "Float On By" has been technology based. Although it took me awhile to get my own head around linking the technology process of designing a float for the local Christmas parade, the children in Room 2 got the idea a lot quicker! They were able to relate each step of the design process to our inquiry process and some of the reflecting they have done throughout the unit really blew me away. The have once again worked in groups for this inquiry and I still find that this is vital for them to achieve success in this at the moment. The discussions are so valuable as they work through the process together. It has been quite a quick unit, and I think this has been because we didn't spend as much time exploring the topic as we normally would as the children all had knowledge about floats and what was required to design one. We were able to still incorporate some thinking maps into the process, mainly used as a way to organise their ideas. They enjoyed using mywebspiriation for their initial brainstorm of ideas.
http://www.mywebspiration.com/view/219344a20c61
Having to keep a design portfolio has not been a challenge for the children as they have commented that it is just like how they normally track their inquiry process anyway. The clearfiles for each group have worked really well for this again. The children now expect that as standard practice and each task/stage is documented as they go along.

Overview

Over the last three years, Poroutawhao School has developed a localised curriculum as a part of our ICT cluster. These are some of the documents that have been created to support the building of this curriculum.

Poroutawhao Learning Highway

Our school curriculum is best represented in the Poroutawhao School Learning Highway design. This design encapsulates our local geography from which our school name of Poroutawhao, (the edge of the bush), is derived. It shows our students engaging in an eight year journey to develop attitudes, knowledge and skills to be lifelong learners. This is represented in the bus journey along the highway.

At the core of our curriculum are Literacy, Numeracy and Inquiry Skills which form the centre line of our highway in the design. These are supported by the integration of our local school values and the NZ Curriculum Key Competencies that sit at the side of the highway in our design.

Staff Sharing

All staff were presented with the challenge to implement a new ICT tool to enhance learning in their programmes as a direct result of being away at ULearn 09. Following is what each staff member shared:

Amber(Year 2/3) - implemented a regular use of the digital camera into the classroom. 3 children per week have the use of the camera to take photos of the weekly blend. They then present these on comic life.
Nicky (Year 3/4) - has implemented the use of the internet as a tool for research in her class programme, linked to her inquiry units. Children have been learning to safely search for images on the net and save these into their personal folders.


Amanda (Year 7/8) - has implemented the use of the tracking tool within her writing programme. Children type draft pieces of writing onto the computers and edit from there using the tracking tool. Amanda also completes her marking of them using this tool.



Kirstin (Year 4/5) - has begun to implement podcasting as a way of sharing ideas on her class blog. She uses Audacity to record the children and then uploads to a podomatic site, which is then able to embed the audio onto the blog.

www.room7poroutawhao.blogspot.com

Fiona (Year 6/7) - implemented another new tool to use on class blogsites: glogster. This provides another way for the children to express themselves creatively and share this with a wider audience. To start with, each student made a glogster stating their goals for this term.

www.room2loves2learn.blogspot.com


Lois (Year 0/1) - has implemented the use of word and paint for the students to share their stories. These have also be posted on their class blog.
www.pororoom5.blogspot.com

Ulearn Conference Lois Fraser

What an awesome 3 days I had at the Ulearn Conference in Christchurch last week. Having just returned to the classroom after a break of 5 years the technological advances have been somewhat overwhelming to me. Plus a great challenge. So the conference fair blew me away with the classroom uses and communication globally. I did perhaps feel that computers in the junior room were an extra but now realise that they are an integral part of the whole learning experience and I am really excited about implementing ICT into everyday practice. My first challenge will be to get my classroom blog up and running and look forward to sharing our successes with the wider community. The children have already, with the help of a mother help, published their written expression. Next week we will do this again but use a paint programme to illustrate their work.

ULearn Conference

This was the third ULearn conference that I have attended. Everytime you go to these conferences you come away with inspirational ideas on what to do with your children in your class. The three days backed up my thoughts on the future educational practises and how important ICT and inquiry is with their learning and the fact that the tools with ICT are both motivational and important with children's learning. Obviously this was the view of many keynote speakers, including Anne Tolley. Conferences such as these also make you feel good as you know that as a teacher you know where you're heading and the direction education is going, so it isn't a surprise when you are asked in the future. The one thing that I've come away with from conference and would like to use in the future at our school is the use of e-portfolio's. They are the way of the future where parents can get involved more with their children's education, knowing what their children are doing at school and commenting on it as they are doing it, rather than a snapshot of work at one time as our paper portfolios are now.

U learn 2009

Kia ora,

First and foremost what a fantastic achievement it was to take all Poroutawhao teaching staff to the U learn, ICT, conference in Christchurch this year. Without a doubt it was money well spent in so many ways. Exposure to this high quality professional development is absolutely essential if major changes are going to take place in any area of a school's performance. To have the whole team hearing the same thing at the same time is the ultimate dimension. The buzz on day one back at school this term was evident amongst us all.

Our major objectives of further reinforcing in our minds the importance of the integration of the ICT tool and then exploring different tools and applications we would actually use in our classroom was achieved. Alongside this there was also the invaluable experince of meeting some pretty impressive people working in this field, including other from within our own cluster.

I now look forward to staff introducing a new ICT tool or application into their classroom programmes. Each staff member has been challenged to do this by the end of week 4 and then give a presentation about this to staff, (using ICT of course).

Over and above this, all staff have also been challenged to not only get their class blogs up and running but ensuring that their class community is regularly contributing to it. This is also an expectation that must be shortly met.

Regards

Neil Hirini
Principal

Wow! What an amazing 3 days. There were so may positive aspects about attending the Ulearn09 conference, where do I begin? Firstly I left the conference exhausted but totally motivated to implement as many of the fantastic ideas that were shared, that i possibly can.

Tony Ryan was an inspiration. I think the biggest idea that I came back with, is that I need to provide a lot more opportunities for my children to just "think". I have begun to use the 'see-saw' thinking activity that Tony Ryan shares. The children get into pairs and say one word related to the topic I give them, then its their partners turn. They go back and forth for about 2 minutes. I had the children do this activity when I introduced our 'Float on By' inquiry unit. We used the words Christmas and floats. I used this activity to get the children to think outside the square. My children responded well to this and I can now see where I can use this activity in lots of areas. I am really excited about finding out a lot more about Tony Ryan's Thinking Keys.

I have come away with a confirmed belief that the use of ICT in the classroom is another tool to engage children in their learning. I didn't realise how much support and how many wonderful ideas are out there to provide our children with an amazing tool to extend their ability to gain more accurate and up-to-date information so easily.

I was also shown what a wonderful tool 'Blogging' is and how i am not utilising its availability as much as I could. I can now see the rewards that this gives the children when their work is "up in the clouds". The children obviously will gain a lot of rewards from feedback that they may receive. I am really excited about getting my class to blog more regularly. I would also dearly love to see parents and whanau visiting our class blog, so I will be advertising the blog a lot more.

Staff collegiality was another huge bonus that I felt came from attending the conference. Not only with our staff but also with other teachers from our wider community.

I am really looking forward to seeing myself and the children using the ideas from Ulearn. I would like to acknowledge Neil and our Board for providing me with this wonderful opportunity to extend my personal growth in the implementation of ICT in my classroom.

U Learn Reflection Nicky Jeffries

What an excellent opportunity to learn new skills, gain motivation for integrating more ICT into the classroom and meet fellow teachers(especially local).
I attended 6 breakouts and I enjoyed the two practical workshops the most. This was because they were targeted to junior children were presented by an enthusiastic teacher with examples of how she used these in the classroom and were ideas that inspired me to think about incorporating into the classroom ths coming term. Both had many great ideas for digital camera use and getting the children to take charge, much easier to implement quickly in the junior area.
Two things I have introduced straight away are just letting the children 'play' more with the programmes introduced last term like comic life, and allowing the children more freedom with the digital camera. Last term there was a set task for the use of comic life and now, they can create trying out many more of the options available. I had introduced a cameraperson last term and tended to call on the more reliable of the children. This class opened me up to just making sure the cord was around their neck and let all have a go! I now have a list so all will get a turn and I am getting the previous camera person to show the next how to download the pictures into our class file.
Two other breakouts gave me alot to think about as they were creating thinking and inquiring minds.

ULearn Reflection - Amber Sanson

Wow!!! Another great conference and a fabulous opportunity to learn new skills and gain motivation for integrating ICT into a new term at school. I attended 6 breakouts and I enjoyed the two practical workshops the most. They were targeted to junior children and were presented in such a way that I thought "YES I CAN DO THAT". So on Monday I was keen as mustard to get stuck into it. I have introduced 4 new ICT/thinking processes in my class already. The most influential idea I have come away with is to "let go" let the children have more independence with ICT and give them the opportunity to play - figure out - and experience each tool. This week I have let the children loose with the camera to record blend sound pictures for blend posters - each week I will assign a group of children to create a blend poster using the camera, comic life and word. The children talked about and wrote about their holiday expereicences and then using the camera they took pictures of each other posing to show what they did in the holidays. We have cut the photos out and will be using them for art work. For reading each child used a question matrix to ask question about the front cover of a book that they will read next week. This has been a great exercise as I have been able to read their ideas, prior knowlegde and wonderings. We can also use their questions to find answers as a reading response activity. We have also used a question matrix for oral news.

ULearn 09

We had the fantastic opportunity to send our whole staff to this conference last week. Once again, there are so many ideas, concepts, new tricks and learning that has been shared with us. One of the many breakouts attended that really stood out for me was about the use of e-portfolios as a way of communicating learning with families. I am looking forward to developing this idea more and making it work for our school in the future, as one of our goals over the next three years. There will need to be some programming played around with first to find the most ideal way of presenting these online learning connections. It is very exciting to think of this becoming a reality in the near future for our school.

Rocking Room 1 Term 3 Inquiry

To start our inquiry journey this term on Mauri Mahi, Mauri Ora (Values) as a class we found that using the different types of thinking maps, such as a describe map, compare & contrast map and define map really helpful in the area of exploring. By using these maps lots of meaningful and indepth discussions were had. From these discussions as a class we decided that we had to change our original question. Our original question was too broad and had to be narrowed down more so that it was more focussed/relevant so that information could be easily found. The finding stage was quite difficult, children knew their question and what they wanted to find out, but realised that the answers weren't as easy to find as they thought, especially from the internet. Children had to be very careful with what they searched for on the internet. Good keywords were vitual for this process. The use of dictionaries was also very helpful and an excellent source of finding meaning and information. The tool we used for presenting was through the programme of comic life. What an awesome colourful, exciting and attractive way of presenting new found information. We are at the applying stage at the moment and are using the tool of Survey Monkey. From using this tool the children will use their thinking skills to collate and use the information gathered from the surveys to apply to a values road sign for our Poroutawhao Learning Highway.

Room 3 Inquiry Term 3 2009

We are currently creating Comic Life presentations as required for the ICT focus this term.As our inquiry does not lend itself to physical evidence as such, there has been far more discussion than actual finding information. The class understands values but applying these to situations has been easy when lead by me, but with the younger class members I have had to prompt the thinking more. Once we put thinking or talking bubbles against our comic pictures I may find they can show their true depth of knowledge.
This was true and the children really enjoyed using Comic life as it easy use gave them some new learning tools to try out and reinforced tools from other programs. It allowed them to create something bright and cheerful and as it was an easy program to use, it gave me a chance to get the children with digital camera knowledge to teach some others how to download photos and create files.
We spent alot of time in the exploring, asking and finding, and the presenting and understanding seemed to come together for this topic.

By Nicky Jeffries

Room 7

Our Inquiry unit has been very challenging this term. We found the context fairly difficult to find information on. We have followed our school's inquiry process and have begun to use different thinking tools. We used a define map to define what a value was. We then used SOLO to rate our thinking and to see if we could improve. Unfortunately I got the kids to rate themselves without any consultation with their peers, therefore some children rated themselves higher than where their thinking was at. Next time I think, as a class, we would discuss and rate everyone's thinking, using SOLO, together. I would expect the children to be able to justify themselves and why they put themselves on SOLO. Although this was not a wasted activity, the children were able to talk about how they could increase their thinking and what they needed to do to do this. We also started using a describe map. At the finding stage of our inquiry, the children found it very difficult to access appropriate information for their group questions. We used google search engines and books to get the information. We also used Survey Monkey to create our own surveys to get more information. Unfortunately there were very few people who participated in the survey. Therefore we were unable to analyse much information received from this. Next time I used this with my class, i think i would send a note home for parents to inform them of what we were trying to achieve. During the presentation stage I felt that the children became quite confident at using both the digital camera and using Comic Life to present their questions and answers. I think that the next step for us in Room 7 would be to look at finding information and understanding it better. The children are great at getting answers but often, cannot explain what they have found in their own words. We are really looking forward to achieving even better results in next terms inquiry.

Room 5

We have been discussing the school's values as part of our inquiry. We used the 3c's, care, courtesy and consideration. From this base we had some valuable discussions and the children's thinking was becoming deeper as we progressed through this. We will be continuing to work on asking questions and answering them with deeper thinking, linking to SOLO as I become more familiar with it.

Lois - Room 5

INQUIRY TERM 3

For Explore this term we have read lots of stories and watched movies with strong value themes. From these children have been able to relate to things characters have done or make suggestions on how they would have done things differently based on values. To get started we first needed to investigate the word VALUE. To do this we used a compare and contrast map to expolore the differences between the meanings of"valuable" and "value" as well as drawing out similarities. The children needed lots of prompting and explanation to build up prior knowledge before we could complete this effectively. The children then were able to describe that "valuable" has more to do with tangable things like, money, friends, toys etc. They then established the idea that "values" come from within and are displayed in the way we act or feel. We moved onto the question "How do values make us who we are". To do this we reflected back on the stories we had read like " The Little Red Hen" " The Ant and the Grasshoppers" and " The Engine that Could". We talked about the attitudes, actions, and feelings of each character then related the obvious characteristics to some well know valuse like: Care, Consideration, Courtesty, Hard Working, Paitence as well as discussing new values like: Persisitance, Resilience, Faith, Participation. To find information at this stage the children found lots of discussion about personal experiences and opinions most helpful for understanding. Some children even sugguested using a dictionary to help us with definitions. Other children sugguested other stories we could read with similar themes like "Are You My Mother". One student suggested a MacDonalds add and I also sourced some other adds on youtube that displayed values helpful for a deeper understanding of our new values. The children really benefited when we used story writing to describe a character and give examples of values they used in the stories. I found that they were reall able to demostrate a practical knowledge of their understanding and relate it to their own lives. I had decided to pose the questions to the children this term so we could focus on gathering information and presenting. Our question was " How can I use values to get better at something". We used describe maps to draw out information to answer questions like "how do we know we are good at something" " how do we know we are not good at something". We could then start discussing how we could use the values we had disucssed as actions to get better at something we know we need more practice at. To draw an even deeper understanding of each value we did lots of role play in real life situations when we are learning something new and how we cope with the challenges we face. We used the digital camera to record some of these situations and matched them to our values posted on the wall. I found this exercise most valuable. For Presenting our challenge has been to learn how to use the program Comic Life.

ICT Communication

Kia ora,

A very important part of how we already communicate in our school is by using the electronic tools we now have at our disposal. The most common function that we readily access is by electronic mail or e mail. I am pleased that in general, we have developed the practices of regularly checking these and utilising this to communicate within the school and with others outside of the school. Further to this we have created a desktop function that provides important links for us and a school Wiki which also provides important information and links to current information sources which may or may not be useful to literacy, numeracy and inquiry work.

Another tool I am totally receptive to using around the school are our cellphones to txt or even phone each other. They are an efficient use of our time and for me, if left on vibrate, are far less intrusive than we phsically entering each others rooms to pass om message or to ask questions of an urgent nature.

Further to the above I am keen to push on with the work we have done in establishing blogs. With regard to our own internal staff sharing the use of Our Learning Highway blog remains a tool that we can utlilise a lot more in sharing our teaching successes and challenges. Its current focus is on Inquiry where this is also a requirement of the I can, We Can Cluster. My ultimate goal is that we will want to share in this way and that this became an integral part of our staff learning environment.

Class blogs have also been established. The intention of these blogs is to share what is happening in general in our classes at any given time with opportunitites for individuals to also post samples of their work to be viewed at home and perhaps commented on. This mode of communication with home will become increasingly important as time goes by.

This is an important part of where we are going so we all need to get on board.

Neil Hirini
Principal

Term 3 Cluster Day

Great to see everyone in the cluster again today! A very informative session from Suzie Vesper, with a HEAP of really cool Web 2 tools to use in the classroom. It was a good reminder of what is out there for our use to engage our kids and get them excited about their learning.

Our school wide ICT goals for this term are to have implemented into our classes the regular use of a blog as part of our written language programme and to keep posting new links for our kids to use on our school wiki. We really need to have these basics functioning fully before we can introduce some more of the fantastic tools out there for us. We will have a new focus for next term once these goals are met.

Term 2 Roundup

Kia ora,

How re-affirmimg to get such wonderful feedback from the Education Review Office team from their recent audit of our school. In particular, it was great to hear that our students are very much engaged in learning as highlighted by their ability to describe what they already know and then what they need to do to learn more. It is also highlighted but the excitement they show in their voices when communicating their thoughts and ideas.

Their understanding and practical application of the Inquiry Intersection is an integral part of the motivation and engagement that they are showing for learning with much of what they are doing clearly understood and self driven. The teachers are now beginning to truly take on the role of facilitators of learning where they guide our children into their own learning pathways rather than direct them into areas they believe are more appropriate.

My stocktake would suggest that a concentration on more in depth questioning may enhance the process even further. The development of deeper questions based on SOLO taxonomy is a direction I feel we need to take. Beyond this, I also feel we still need to do something more with what we discover.

Kia kaha whanau

Inquiry intersection for room3

This term has been a very good one for Room 3 as the topic has allowed us as a class to move around the intersection and talk about it as we now have separate walls for each off road. This actual physical space has made the intersection mean more to the children and I will use the same idea next term. However, I will need to find more wall space as it is very cramped this term with such an interesting and engaging topic.

Room 4 Term 2

This term our focus was to stick to a time table to ensure we completed the entire process. It has not only been beneficial for the children but mainly for myself to keep on track. The children have been especially excited and interested in this terms topic. I am still directing the inquiry and I have found it tough to foucus on one question as the children are always asking more. It has been great to have a libray full of books to do with the topic because I have been able to direct the children to those books to find answers to their other questions. This has worked well. We have also used writing as a way of exploring other questions. Our focus has been on rain, clouds, and thunder storms and I have found that because the children already had a great knowledge base to start from that we have been able to ask deeper questions and find truley new information.

Survivor!

Room 5 has been rocking with inquiry this term. We have really looked at the intersection and the kids seem to have a greater knowledge of where we have been, where we are at and where we are going. Our focus has once again been on questioning skills mostly as the children are still not quite there with the 'ask' part of our model. Having the work presented on the wall has been very effective as the children often refer to each section of the process and can discuss what has been going on. Adding the science component and working with the rest of the Junior School has been fantastic. The children have enjoyed finding information through scientific investigation and this has lent itself very nicely to explanation writing which is what we are working on for story writing. We have been using SOLO to assess ourselves as we go through the intersection and it seems to be working as a class. I am not sure if the kids fully understand SOLO yet so will still need to keep working on this each term. Next term i would like to focus mostly on Understand as it is probably an area of the model we haven't looked at in depth. I am very proud of what Room 5 has achieved this term and can't wait to see how this continues as the year goes on. Rock on Room 5!!!

The Year to Date

Kia ora Everyone,

Apologies for not checking in sooner but with one thing or another time has just seemed to slip by. First and foremost I have to congratulate my two staff members, Amanda and Fiona, who presented our Inquiry model, the Poroutawhao Inquiry Intersection, at the Learning at Schools Conference in Rotorua back in term 1. The feedback from this to date has been outstanding and this truly represented the fact that we have taken our school to the next level in terms of Inquiry development and implentation in our school. We are now confident enough in what we are doing to share with others. Ka pai tera!

Last term I was also thrilled to be able to analyse our second set of data, based on our Term 3, 2008, Inquiry unit. This data was based on assessments taken against our Inquiry matrix, showed that the vast majority of our students, 92% in fact, were Inquiring at or above an age appropriate level.

This year it was awesome to introduce the revised inquiry assessment matrix with features being the inclusion of SOLO taxonomy within the indicators and the creation of a bank of Level 5 indicators. To date, this has been well received.

Recently I once again took the time to rove through the classrooms and talk to students about Inquiry and was thrilled to hear comments such as, "you learn so much", its makes our work so interesting", and "I always know where I am". The feeddback that I got proved to me that our children are more engaged in learning through inquiry and are therefore far more motivated. They are also far more able to describe their learning, ie what they know now and what they need to know or do to enhance learning from there.

All in all, a very rosy picture in terms of Inquiry in our school.

Room 3 - Term 1 2009

We have been sharing with room 4 a guest speaker from the police and talking about traditional tales that explore the idea of telling lies, and making wrong choices. Using the "good character.com" and making the "right choices" a book from the police we have discusssed good and bad choices with reference to SOLO and HATS. We have not yet got to the intersection.

Room 4 - Term 1 2009

We have been introduced to our new learning intersection model. We have begun exploring our topic "Order in the Court" by reading stories, having a guest seaker from the police department, talking about Right and Wrong, and using information about making right choices from "good character.com". We have started using Multistructural thinking to list choices that wrong.

Room One Inquiry - Term One

Hello all. Great start back to 2009. The one thing that has gone really well with my class this year are my children. They are great, they have carried on with the already learnt knowledge of our inquiry intersection. Our inquiry intersection is becoming embedded within our children. Thank you Fiona for the children who have come through to my class with this knowledge. With our classroom inquiry 'Order in the Court' we are at the stage of finding information from various sources of information to answer our own questions, which were generated through our ask session. An activity which was exciting and interesting for my class was at the exploring stage, where we had the local police educational officer in, who took 2 sessions on law and rules. This session was very interactive and really had the children thinking and questioning the topic of law and order.

Room 5.

Its been hard getting back into the swing of inquiry after being on leave. My children have all been able to give a definition about rules. I am really happy with the results that I got from this. We have just started to introduce solo which is a slow process and I am hoping to get the kids to assess their own defintion. We have just gone on to ask. Our question is How can we fix a problem after breaking a rule? We will be doing some role-plays and I want the children to use the video camera to record these. I also have a range of people coming to talk to the kids i.e. neighbourhood support co-ordinator, fire safety educator and a police person. The kids are really looking forward to the ride in the police car.

Learning at Schools 09

Yeah! We did it! Amanda and I presented our school's journey into the process of inquiry. We were both very nervous, but the content of the presentation was received very well. There were lots of questions, and lots of people wanting further contact for visits and more information! Rock on Poroutawhao! Here is our powerpoint presentation.

Publish at Scribd or explore others: marketing business

2009 is Here!!!!

Welcome to the continuation of Poroutawhao School's inquiry process!
We have begun the year with a unit entitled "Order in the Court", looking at the big question of why do we need rules and laws?
We are exploring this topic with a range of exciting activities including visits from police officers, define maps and looking at Goldilocks and the 3 Bears!
One of our goals for inquiry this year is to make sure our journey's are being recorded in some way ie: blog, books, wall displays.