This week our class had it’s third Bike ed session. This time we learned about passing bike/ scooter riders and pedestrians safely by ringing our bell or calling out. We love each session and the new skills we’re focussing on.
Monthly Archives: June 2014
Personal Inquiry Time
This week we had our third Persona Inquiry time. This is a chance for students to investigate a topic/ idea/ art form/ sport/ etc, that they really are keen to find out more about. They have 3 hours to complete their creation and present it to the class during a gallery walk.
As these sessions have progressed we have noted the many skills we are developing:
- creating
- co-operating
- collaborating
- sharing
- giving
- listening
- investigating
- compromising
- organising – resources, materials, work spaces, partners for activities
- explaining
- planning
- inventing
- constructing
- naming
- relating
- designing
- imagining
- predicting
- testing
- working
- examining
- recommending
- assessing
- finding
- listing
- prioritising
- communicating
- laughing
- and so so many more!!!
So many of these skills are needed by everyone around the world and they are skills we all need to continue to develop.
As the weeks have gone by I’ve noticed that students are being more thorough in their planning and organising of work partners and resources and that creations are becoming more detailed and of a very high standard. (As a teacher observing the students in her class.)
We have 1 more Personal Inquiry session for this term and then we will tweak our process and expectations for next term’s sessions – we need to reflect upon how we can improve our sessions, what have been our successes and our challenges, how can we ensure that every child is creating something important to THEM!
We loved finding out that our Year 5/6/7 students have ‘I’ time – this is their chance to choose their own investigation and follow it through. We were really excited to find out that our Personal Inquiry time will continue as we get older and move into different classes within our school.
Stay tuned for more amazing creations!
Personal Inquiry – Week 3 Session on PhotoPeach
Can you offer us any suggestions for our future sessions?
CSIRO Lab on Legs
Our class had a fantastic session with the CSIRO Lab on Legs teachers.
This year we chose the topic of Push and Pull. ‘Push and Pull’, a workshop designed for students from Reception to Year 3, provides young learners with the opportunity to observe, investigate, share and record their observations about forces. Using hands-on equipment, students examine some of the ways in which forces are applied and the resultant outcome.
Forces are at work in everything we do-we push to open doors and pull to tie ropes. Gravity is a force which pulls things down and keeps them down.
The demonstrations and hands-on activities will be chosen from the following topics:
- Balanced & unbalanced forces
- Waddling ducks-measurement
- Motion & mass
- Force and distance
- Magnetism
- Repulsion and attraction
- Floating & sinking
- Cartesian divers
- Centre of gravity
- Balancing point
All of the Reception – Year 3 students are participating in the workshops this week.
CSIRO Lab on Legs on PhotoPeach
Are there any suggestions you can make for future investigations for the students?
What was your favourite part of today’s session?
Ride a Bike – Week 2
We continued our Ride a Bike sessions this week. We were split into 2 groups – 1 that needs a bit of extra practise with their riding skills to become more confident and the other group practised riding along footpaths and remembering the safety rules that apply – like slowing down near driveways in case cars are reversing out. We played a game where the slowest person won – it was all about riding your bike and controlling it when you go as slow as you can. To start the game the teachers called: ready steady slow!!
IMG_1651 A quick video clip of group 1.
IMG_1659 Group 2 riding slowly.
Here are some photos from our session today:
Personal Inquiry Time – Let’s Be Creative!
Every Friday from 12noon ’til 3pm our class is having Personal Inquiry Time. We do lots of inquiry learning about different topics (Maths & Inquiry topics) during the week but this is a special time for each student to pursue something they’re really
After our discussions the students realised this was a chance to be as creative as possible and choose to create an object of any kind. We have had long class discussions and planning sessions so that each student is clear that they have 3 hours to create something that interests them personally.
Our whiteboard was covered in plans and ideas for the class to share and show what they would be creating.
The following photos show most of the items that were created last Friday.
The students created:
- iMovies
- 3D models – lots of different structures
- Lego movies
- sewing kits used to make puppets
- dioramas
- art works
- Minecraft characters
- charts
- chocolate chip cookies
- and many more items!!
After our 3 hour session we did a gallery walk to see what people in our class had created.
We loved looking at all of the details of each creation.
We reflected that we need to stay focussed for the entire 3 hour session, challenge ourselves, make sure our creation is detailed – we have plenty of time, teamwork is a great help, we need to have all materials ready to go, get help if you need to and how wonderful it feels to be really empowered by making decisions about your own learning.
What are you planning for your next ‘creating’ session?
Can you make any suggestions for our students – items to inspire them / challenges for them?
Bike Ed lessons begin
Here’s 2 videos of our session.
Today our class had their first bike riding lesson with the Bike Ed teachers.
Our first session included:
- the rules of Bike ed to keep us safe
- safety lessons – why we wear bike helmets and some basic road safety tips
- fitting our helmets properly
- learning how to got on our bikes properly – opposite side to the chain
- how to use our rear brakes safely – if we use our front wheel hand brakes we could flip over the handle bars
- riding at different speeds
We had lots of fun and 3 of our students had a really successful day – in 1 lesson they’ve learned to ride without their training wheels!! What a great achievement for them.
Check out the Craigburn Primary School’s Facebook page for some photos from our session and here’s some more photos.
Our lessons will continue every Thursday for the next 3 weeks.
What do you think we’ll be learning about in our future lessons?
Musical Chairs Reading
Last week our class tried something new in reading for this term. We took our chairs outside and books from our class library and played ‘musical chairs reading’. We placed our chairs in a large circle and Miss Sporn put different books onto the chairs and then we played some music. When the music stopped we needed to read the book or books on the chair.
This is a great way to try different books – fiction, non fiction, picture books, joke books, novels – just to name a few. As the author Jackie French told us during her visit to our school a few weeks ago – we should ‘taste’ lots of different books to see which ones we like and read, read, read.
We needed to remember the 3 different ways to read the book-
- read the words
- look at the pictures
- retell the story to someone else.
We read for around 1/2 an hour and everyone really enjoyed the books they read. One of the main comments in our feedback chat was “I’ve never read some of those books before and I really liked them. I’m going to try to find more in the Library”.
Try musical chairs reading – we loved it and can’t wait to play it again!