Following the excitement of the Welcome and Learning Expo, Year 1 students were keen to continue their inquiry into communities and ecosystems. With our underlying theme of insects, students have been seeking to understand how insects can work together in a community that is similar to our own. Belonging to a community and culture is a key element of Active Citizenship, and it has been wonderful to see how students have embraced this inquiry and extended it to their own areas of interest.
In Week 7, students deepened their understanding of ecosystems by looking at features of living and non-living things, including an exploration of the gardens around the school. This led to an investigation into the life-cycle of a plant, and insects were even in our maths workshops as we looked at problem solving for ants!
In the performance space, students created their own insect finger puppets, writing and performing narrative plays to share with the class. Provocations continued to extend much of the learning from workshop times, including making directions for the bee bots, making mini books and comics, and play dough plant life-cycles.
We finished the week with a special visit from Ismo’s Dad, who shared with us many interesting facts about the weather. A big thank you to Nick for coming to talk to us all!
Week 8 saw students continue their maths investigations based on Peter Sullivan’s teaching model and the concept of ‘productive struggle’, with a focus on open-ended problems where students can choose their own strategies to solve them. By using a range of different materials for working out and documenting the problem, students are not only able to show their thinking, but also gain a better understanding of their preferred way of learning.
“I want to write mine in my book” – Goldie
“I used the textas and the MAB blocks” – Raphy
“I noticed if you take a zero out of 100 it makes 10” – Pascale
“I used icy pole sticks to make 10” – Sarah
We also explored language by writing letters to special people in our lives, and describing a day in the life of an insect. We prepared for Harmony Day by thinking about what makes us special as a community, but also as individuals, and are very excited to present our learning to the school in assembly.
In Wellbeing, we have focussed on our kindness goals – in particular, how we can make each other feel welcome and cared for within the Year 1 neighbourhood. We continue to check in on the Zones of Regulation, and discuss strategies for how we can move from feeling tired (blue zone), silly (yellow zone) or angry (red zone) into a calm and focussed green zone ready for learning.
As we near the end of the term, we reflect on the wonderful learning we have done so far, and are excited to see what will come in Term 2.