Constructing Knowledge

This week 2C and 2D have been constructing their own knowledge, the question we kept in mind when planning was 'How can we enable deeper thinking and learning?'.

The students engaged in the following tasks and activities as part of our Unit of Inquiry. Rather than the teacher taking centre stage, students worked together with a partner to inquire and understand the four science topics through these student questions:

• What causes seasons?
• What causes changes in the moon?
• Why do we have day and night?
• Why do we have time zones?

Some skills the students were using were:

• note taking
• reflecting on information on whether it was 'trash' or 'treasure' and could answer the question they were inquiring about.
• group decision making skills
• visual interpretation of information
• analysing digital and print resources and deciding what information to extract

Note-taking Introduction and Practice

Using digital media

Using Print resources

Once students collected and constructed their knowledge in their inquiry journals, they engaged in a marketplace where they shared their knowledge with other students.

Investigating Time Through Seconds and Minutes

In Maths this week we teamed up with another second grade class to investigate the length of seconds and minutes that different activities take. 

We used stopwatches and timers on the Ipad to estimate and then recorded the duration of time. 

Here were some of the things that we first estimated and then timed:

How many times can you....?

• hop in a minute
• throw a basket ball into the hoop in 3 minutes
• run around the basketball court in 2 minutes
• star jumps can you do in 30 seconds

The students then decided on some of their own activities to time using the stopwatches.

This was a fun activity and moving out of the classroom into a different environment for maths was motivating for the students. Working with another class also ensured some new friendships were formed.

The Arrival: A Provocation

Yesterday morning, the Grade 2 students arrived at school and were immediately thrown into a role-play provocation. 

We set the scene by looking at this image (from 'The Arrival' By Shaun Tan) and imagined that we were characters who had just disembarked in a new country.

The Arrival

\We gave the students passports, lined them up and then filed into the 'arrival hall', where the Grade 8 drama students were waiting for us.

The arrival hall was chaotic, the 8th grade guards were speaking a language which the students did not understand so they could understand how it would feel if you didn't speak the host country's language. The students had many forms and medical checks to complete and photos to take. Here are some photos of the provocation:

Can you understand what these forms mean? How did you know how to complete them?

During the provocation these were some of the comments made by the Grade 2 students: 

• I can’t understand their language, but I understand their actions.
• I feel angry because I can’t understand what they’re saying to me and I don’t know where to go or what to do. 
• She wants me to come here again and be tested, but I’ve already done this! 
• We’re lining up but I don’t know why. 
• I’m trying to see where I’m supposed to go, but I don’t understand what their language is. 
• I got this form from over here, but I don’t know if I filled it out right. 
• She told me to sit down quick and then sent me away. 
• There are too many people here. 

After our provocation we reflected in class on what we saw, heard, touched, experienced and thought.

To dig deeper we used a technique called Chalk Talk and CSI (Colour, Symbol and Image), identifying what our strongest emotion, thought and memory was.

I also asked students to identify what they are now wondering about Migration, now that they have experienced a migration process different to theirs. These were their answers:

Students continued the reflection process by blogging their responses to these questions:

• I want you to keep thinking and reflecting, how would you answer these questions? 
• What did you learn about migration today? 
• What do you still want to find out?

Cultural X-Rays

Each student created a personal cultural x-ray using an outline of a body shape with a large heart inside. The metaphor of an x-ray highlights the need to understand what is on the outside, the visible culture, as well as the inside of each of person’s cultural being, the invisible culture.

Visible Culture 
On the outside of their bodies, students created labels and drawings to describe the behaviors, appearance, and other aspects of their identities that others can observe or easily determine.

Invisible Culture 
On the heart shape inside their x-ray, students placed the values and beliefs that they hold in their hearts and that may not be immediately evident to others around them.

Through creating Cultural X-rays, students come to:

• Recognize their multiple cultural identities
• Develop conceptual understandings of culture
• Raise awareness of how and why culture matters to each person