It isn't Easy Being Green

Our Inquiry context of environmental issues, e.g. pollution was of great interest to my children so was a very successful inquiry unit. We used the define thinking map to understand our topic of It isn't Easy Being Green. By using the define map, we could write a definition of our topic. From this process questions were developed. Children used SOLO to develop substaintial questions that they wanted to know about.
I had identified from the previous term's inquiry that the majorityof my children were struggling with the understanding of information. Children weren't skimming and scanning information and using keywords. So when asked to find information, I focussed on using book reference material rather than computer generated information. I was then able to focus and teach these skills to my children. By using books I found that once the children had skimmed and scanned information and wrote down the keywords, the books were put away and so information couldn't be copied. Children then used comic life to present their work and this can be viewed on our classroom blog. We also used podomatic again this term, so that we could consolidate what ICT skills we used last term.

Room 3

I think this has been the most successful inquiry unit that I have taught. We used the school inquiry intersection effectively. I placed the children into mixed ability groups and then set them off on their journey. We displayed where the children were working on the intersection and it was their responsibility to move their group car as they moved around it. I felt this worked well as the children were all very aware of where they were and what they needed to do next. SOLO was quite a big part of this inquiry and I felt we used it well and now have a better understanding of it. Next term I will begin to incorporate SOLO into other learning areas as I feel the children are ready to use it on a wider scale. I dont think that we used the apply stage of the intersection very effectively and so am looking forward to next term and making the apply stage happen. All in all, a fantastic inquiry with fantastic children.

Room 2

This term's inquiry really lent itself well to continuing with the emphasis on SOLO and using this as a base for questioning. The kids came up with a lot of questions that were very similar to each other, and this provided a good base for being able to rework, assess and analyse against SOLO. The majority of the class are now beginning to analyse their own questioning and answers against SOLO, with the self motivation to be reaching extended abstract. There was opportunity to also focus in on the find part of our inquiry, with information needing to be found from a range of sources. This led to looking closely at information literacy skills such as skimming and scanning and making notes in their own words.
The kids loved being able to present their work on comic life. We found that because of the amount of information found that the comic life presentations were a few pages for some groups. Next time we would work at narrowing our information down even further, but I decided that for the purpose of this inquiry it was ok to be kept as it was. Each group allocated time so that every member of the group could use the computer at some point when constructing their comic life. This inquiry fitted really well into the 6 week time frame.

By Lois

We in room 6 have very much enjoyed this Inquiry unit "It's not easy being green". The children had limited knowledge of conservation but were able to share their families practices and from those discussed and asked questions about being green. Our visit with rooms 4 and 5 to the Re-cycling Centre and the Wind Farm created great learning experiences and gave the children much to think and develop ideas about. The oral language development has been amazing and they are now using lanuage with understanding that is appropriate to the topic. They are also applying their knowledge of re-cycling both in the classroom and to a certain extent at home. I feel this unit has been successful at our level and we will continue to build on our understandings and practices.

By Louise

This has been a great inquiry for lots of hands on learning and exploring. When I was at Teachers College I did an assignment on how important it is with environmental education to each children to love the world before you burden them with trying to save it. So our learning in Room 5 was largely centered around this concept. Something I felt that I didn't do well last term with inquiry was to integrate it into othe curriculum areas, so this was something I wanted to ensure I did better this term. The children really enjoyed growing their plants which we were able to link into maths and measurement. Our trip to the recycling center and windfarm were highlights for our class, and also making recycled paper. I have found it quite teacher intensive getting the children creating their comic lifes and uploading these on to the blog, but we are getting there! We have also created photo stories and lots of artwrk around this topic so it has been well integrated to all areas of our classroom.

by Nicky

Inquiry this term was great. The children really got into the whole thing, especially good was the visit from the Green Rig and the Trip to the Recycling Centre. There was a huge amount of prior knowledge for starting and we spent alot of time in the exploring and finding.Exploring being both at the beginning and the end. Some children even found aspects in novels they were reading, like a Zac Power story at one stage was highlighted to the class because there was a recycling aspect in it. The art work around mosaic work with bits of paper and making paper with Melanie Fleet was really enjoyed. Many children also followed up the making things from old packaging in class to making things at home from bigger boxes etc.
Overall a great inquiry enjoyed by all.

nicky

This was wonderful topic but I found I cannot rely on parental input for answering personal questions. I spoke to many parents at meet the teacher but only a few came back with information. Many said they dont have family treasures thinking they were material things even though the information home said it could be a song.
I chaged tactics when Veronica arrived with a book about a Maori cloak handed down through the Ages and so we used that as the basis for an intergrated unit. This was really successful. The solo questioning got lost amongst the trying to get everything on for the ICT component.

Room 3

The inquiry in our class this term has been fantastic for being able to introduce SOLO to the children and to really work on and understand how it can help us improve our thinking. The children have found it really valuable using SOLO to improve their questions and rate their thinking. It has been difficult working in groups as this inquiry appears to be taking the children on very personal independent inquiries, on the other hand it has been wonderful learning about the kids and where they have come from. I also believe that the kids are very highly motivated to participate in this as they are learning more about themselves and their whanau. We have started asking questions but mostly on a very simple level. Some children are asking questions like "Who am I named after?" but others are starting to think more indepth and ask questions like "What boat did my family arrive in NZ on?" and " Which people in my family were in the war?". Next week the children are going to begin finding the information for their questions and it will be interesting to see if some of the children are able to identify that they need to work on what they are wanting to find out and improving their questions. It has been wonderful going on this journey with the children, particularly with SOLO and De Bono's thinking hats as I have not felt very confident at implementing this in the past. I am looking forward to completing this inquiry with my children and looking back at our successes.

Room 2

I have found the concept of this inquiry difficult in the fact that it doesn't lend itself to group interaction in the sense that it is a personal inquiry. On the other hand, because of this, it has allowed our focus for this term of asking questions to not be lost in amongst all the other things that an inquiry involves. The children have been very motivated to get into it because it is about them adn their family.
We have spent a lot of time on SOLO, and increasing our understanding of this and how we can use it. We have linked all of the discussions about questioning to SOLO and asking ourselves what type of thinking are we doing when we answer this question? We looked a lot at the different levels of SOLO and how none of them were "bad", and sometimes we need to think at different levels for different tasks.
The class have now come up with their own questions, derived from the four subsidiary questions we chose as a class. Some of these I have left at a lower level of thinking, rather than getting the kids to rework them. This is so that we can discuss any other questions they may have needed to ask and whether they actually got the information they were hoping for. Some of the kids have already decided that they didn't have the right question to start with and so have reworked it themselves.
Next week we will start to understand and present our information.

Through the Ages

Through the Ages has created some excellent discussions with the children about what are considered valuable or treasures. The best thing has been the variety of things that are or families consider as valuable. Some are material items like spoons, people who are important through to special awards family members have recieved. This has brought about thoughful discussion and the thinking of some being unistructural through to relational and hopefully by the time we get finished there will be extended abstract thoughts.
We read the book Wilfred Gordan MacDonald Partridge and discussed elder family members.
I have found trying to fit the Inquiry in much harder this term especially with other afternoon activities. At the moment we are at different stages some still asking questions and others finding out more information on their family. Some of the children have needed help from home to answer some of the questions they have asked in class and have not come back with the answers.

Louise

In Room 5 my own personal success so far has been just getting my head around the inquiry process and how I can most effectively implement this into my classroom practice.

We are still in the exploring stage of our inquiry. This has been a time for us to share and learn about each other as we explore story books to prompt discussions and activities. I have found the use of picture books to be an effective tool for motivating discussion and ideas. Some of the books we have looked at have been; The Treaure by Melanie Drewey, The Talking Stick by Dot Meharry, Wilfred Gordon MacDonald Partridge by Mem Fox. These books have all provided valuable starting points for discussions around what we value, what stories do we want to tell and what memories do we have.

A challenge is finding the time to fit Inquiry in our timetables with other activities taking up he afternoons.

Next week we are going to start asing questions and developing ideas around what questions we have that we want to find out about.

Through The Ages

In room seven we have been discussing family histories. We have worked on our questioning and listening skills and have had some interesting discussions. The children have questioned their parents and grandparents about where they are from and about what life was like for them as children. This information they have brought back to school and shared with the class. They have gotten excited about learning this new information and have questioneed me on my history and that of my parents.
We have also worked on them looking at their themselves and building an understanding of their own personalities and what makes them special. The children have choosen a person, parent grandparent, friend extra who is a treasure to them. We have discussed and written about these people and why they are special. As far as our development through the solo taxonomy the class is generally at the unistructural stage.

Through The Ages - Room One Inquiry

Our successes with inquiry this term are that the children know the Poroutawhao Inquiry intersection very well, so I haven't had to go through this with them in great depth this term. I have however touched upon it because of the new children in the school. Our focus has been on the questioning techniques through the use of Solo Taxonomy. Children are really starting to think deeply about what questions to ask and the impact of their questioning on the answers they are finding to these questions.

Our inquiry topic has provided our children with a lot of motivation and are really into finding out about themselves and their ancestory, also about the taonga that are important to their families.

This too however, has posed a challenge in that the answers to questions aren't easily accessible through the use of computers and books. Children have had to brush up on their interviewing skills and have had to use people resources. This has been challenging for children as a lot of their sources are not so easily accessible. Children are also have to reflect on the type of questioning that they are askng as the answers to certain questions aren't achieveable.

Once all of our research has been found we intend to present on voicethread and as a scrapbooking piece.

Term 1 - 2010, (Through the Ages)

Kia ora everyone,

I have been around the classes and spoken to some students about where they are at with this term's Inquiry - Through the Ages. They seem very well motivated and in general have done the background work at home in choosing something to focus in on, this being either someone or something that has connections with their families past.

I also like some of the question coming through like, "how much am I like ?????" or why is this ????? so important to our family, or "why is our family name?????.

It is also very apparent that information sources will mostly be contained to other family members and these inquiry will be very personal and don't lend themselves to many opportunitites to work in groups.

Lets get on with these and quickly wind them up. I do want to culminate in quality sharing time in your classes and in school assembly, (for some). The other critical area is on class blogs so that parents and other whanau can see and hear about findings at home.

Ano

Neil Hirini

2010

Welcome back to our inquiry journey for 2010!
We will continue to post where we are at with our inquiry, our successes and challenges and how our children at Poroutawhao School are engaging with their learning.

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

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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.