As we reach closer to the end of the term, the Year 1 students have continued their learning journey around culture and how we, as a community, come together. The students are also looking forward to sharing their fantastic work throughout this semester next week for student-led conferences via Webex. We are busy collating work into their portfolios from the beginning of the year, as well as choosing which work the kids are proud of and would like to share.
“Everything I’ve made I’ve always had a story.” Huey.
Our story is intrinsically linked with our culture; how we think, what we say, our attitudes and our feelings. This links in with our big idea, our school is unique because it is made up of many cultures that come together as one.
It is this, the idea of culture, who we are, that we have been exploring with the children; our family, social and school culture.
“I think your culture is a part of you”. Emma.
The children shared important objects from their family culture online and continue to bring artefacts from home. Religious icons, traditions, and family recipes passed down through generations, to name a few.
As we settle back in to learning at school we have been co-constructing our understanding about culture, and ourselves, through a range of provocations for the children to express their current understandings.
In the studio space, the children have been exploring a range of cultural objects brought in from home. Using still-life drawing, the children have been connecting to each artefact and sharing their stories and through this process, have found connections with each other.
“My family connects to sport through the Carlton football club.” Anna
“This book is another language but I can teach it to other people.” Kiko
Returning from online learning, we had a strong focus on the well-being of children. The children were asked to reflect on their feelings on remote learning through colour.
“The blue bits are the sad bits. And the colourful bits are the happy bits because I was both things. I was a little bit happy with my mum there and a little bit sad because I didn’t get to meet my friends and play.” Kiko
In term 1, the children began looking at pattern work in maths. A student made a connection of these patterns with the Rangoli patterns from Indian culture. We watched a video on Rangoli patterns and children have continued to explore and expand their patterns and motives through tessellations to tell stories. Using the flower motif, some children told the story of a wedding.
The children are exploring puppetry, centered around story-telling.
“If you’re saying you don’t have a story, you might not be able to make it because you might have characters, but you actually need to make sure you actually have the characters you need. Without a story, you don’t know your characters. Everything I’ve made I’ve always had a story. Huey
“You need the whole story…not just a bit of it, you need the whole story.” Lola W
“You need to know what the problem is and how are they going to fix it.” Freyja
“Because there’s always a problem in a story”. Huey
The children are continuing to develop narratives around family culture and known stories.
We continue to co-construct and develop the children’s thinking and understandings.
Year 1 Team