Sunday 28 May 2017

Week 4, Term 2

Immersion 

Energy

This week we began our new immersion learning!  Our concept is 'Energy' and the first context we are exploring this through is 'Whizz, Bang, Pop!' (The material world of science). 

Our Essential Questions are:

What is energy?
Can energy run out?
How is energy important in the everyday lives of people?

Bang, Crackle and Pop!

Before we began this context, we asked the children 'What is a Reaction?' and recorded our thinking on hexagons.  We then grouped our thinking.  At the end of this context we will ask the same question and reflect on our learning journey. We have recorded them on our learning journey wall.  

Experiments

We then kickstarted the learning off in style! Working in Guardian Groups, the children took part in four different experiments over the week.  We also sent home immersion reading to support the learning. Our key vocabulary was/is: energy, reaction, change, liquid, solid, gas, create, absorb, hypothesis (predict), experiment, results






Some of the key learning that we wanted the children to experience or be directly taught were/are:  

*Identifying and sorting solids, liquids and gases.  We did this during workshops but also as independent priorities.



*Predicting (coming up with a hypothesis) and recording their results

*Writing step by step instructions (procedural writing) directly linked to the experiment

*Measuring during the experiment e.g. using measuring cups and exploring measurement during priority learning. 

It has been a great week of learning! The children have been very excited.  Watch this space for more updates...

Friday 12 May 2017

WEEK 2, TERM 2

We have had an awesome second week in our new commons.  The children are enjoying the extra space to work in.

This week we have been continuing in our project groups which the children are enjoying being part of.  We have also started a Thursday rotation in the afternoons using the Portal, the Gym and teaching art skills to the children.

Some writing groups have started to learn how to write procedures.  This week we wrote about our "Walking Water" experiment.

Friday provided lots of interesting PINs workshops led by children and some very supportive parents. 









Friday 5 May 2017

Week 1, Term 2

Hello and Welcome to Term 2!


Our blog post this week will be focussed on our projects.  These projects are teacher led inquiries, based on the interests and questions that the children had.  They fell out of our immersion on the concept of 'Interaction' last term.  


Money

Our money group have been busy answering the questions that the children brainstormed.  We have learnt about different shaped coins and why paper money has dollar amounts on them.  The children have enjoyed doing coin rubbings and designing their own paper play money.  Next week we will be designing our own piggy banks using recyclable materials.






Where Do We Come From?

This week we have been discussing our ethnicity and sharing our culture.We have used a world map to look at where our families have come from in relation to NZ.We have also shared food and customs in our homes and taught each other a little about our language.  We are putting together a group project book so if you have anything from home we could add to this that would be wonderful (photos, family recipe, pictures showing your origin and culture).  The group voted on a country and culture we will look at in depth next week and we have decided to explore Samoa.


Cooperation Vs Competitive 

This week we have taken part in a number of challenges:

*The Hoop Challenge
*Rob The Nest
*The Paper Chain Challenge






Watch this space for more project updates next week!