Welcome back to the Year 3/4NH2 blog post. Our blog posts are an ongoing documentation of our inquiry this year and the other exciting happenings in the Neighbourhood. This week we have been celebrating Harmony Week. Harmony Week is about celebrating all of the different cultures and people in our community.
Our provocations have been looking at the backgrounds of our names, our histories and our cultures. One of our provocations encouraged us to learn the background and origin of people’s names. We’ve also been learning how to say our names in different languages as well as where our name is most popular. This has helped us to understand each other better. If you understand people better than you might be able to become friends. It can help you communicate better with them.
When we asked the children about why these discussions and understandings are important this is what they had to say:
Undram and Isabella: It helps us become more connected as a community.
Owen: This is important so we can help each other so that people can come together when you’re in tough times.
Flynn, Alex C, Leah: If we learn about other people’s cultures, we can stop racism. People might stop making fun of your names. We don’t want that to happen to other people.
Ivy Belle, Alex S, Evie M: We think the reason why we’re doing this kind of provocations it’s so we can learn about other people’s and our own cultures more deeply. This is so we can understand them more. You also feel more safe when you know somebody. If you move into a new neighbourhood, you might not feel safe because you don’t know the people. As you get to know them, you feel safer.
E: I want to add that yeah you also feel more safe because you have more people around you to help you and support you when you need them. I also want to add that when you have a community, you have people and buildings there to work with. If you didn’t have a community, you wouldn’t have shopping centres, schools etc and you wouldn’t be able to live like you do right now.
In preparation for our Harmony Week assembly on Friday, Alina suggested that we create a ‘Community Tree’. The children have added leaves with the names of family members and the countries connected to their family histories. She says “It’s great to find out what countries are in our Neighbourhood. It’s great to find out where people came from and we can start understanding and learning some people’s languages”.
Wilco: I have learnt more about myself in the past few days. I learnt that I have some Scottish heritage.
Coco: I know that my Dad was born in England. My Mum met my Dad in England and they came here. My Mum showed her parents to my Dad.
Ada: Before my Dad was born, my grandma came over from Ireland and she went on a boat all the way to Australia so she could live there. At her time, Ireland was having a war that’s why she moved to Australia with her family on a boat.
Charlie: My grandpa, when my dad wasn’t born, he went on a boat because his Dad went to Australia. He wanted to go with his Dad but his Dad said no, so he decided to come on his own. He couldn’t find his Dad but he decided to stay here and he built his home with his own hands. Then he met my Grandma and they made a family.
Alina: I learnt that my Mum’s Grandma came from Germany but she travelled to New Zealand because there was a war with Germany so she moved.
Undram: I learnt that if you go generations back, everyone was born in Mongolia. The first people in my family who were Australian is my little brother and my little sister.
Stay tuned for our last post for this term.
3/4N2