Valuing Diversity Activities

On Tuesday and Wednesday this week, the school was involved in "Valuing Diversity" Activities. Our school is very multicultural given it's proximity to all the embassies. It is really exciting to see the children exploring various cultures through a selection of activities. The hard thing with events like this is that what you present is only a snap-shot of an impression of a country and it's culture - not completely accurate, but still valuable.

On the first day, we divided the students into mixed grade groups (K-6) and in these groups they visited different 'countries' (one per classroom). Each teacher was responsible for organising 3 or 4 activities related to a country, that students could complete as a group without teacher assistance. The groups arrived, chose an activity, did the activity, packed up the materials, and were given a score for how well they did these things. Teachers were able to determine how many groups to have in their room at any one time. As each group had about 12 children, it was suggested that 2 groups would be manageable, 3 would be maximum. For most of the day, I had 2 groups.

The teachers did a great job of selecting a variety of activities for the children to experience - these included food tastings, games, art & craft, dancing, listening to songs/stories, and races. All the kids were really engaged and it was great to see the big kids helping the little ones.

In the afternoon we had a big assembly where the points were announced and the top three teams were given prizes.

On the second day, students wore traditional costumes from around the world. We met together to parade the costumes, and then shared a lunch of foods from around the world. Parents had kindly donated foods for the children to taste. One of the teachers played the didgeridoo and some of the kindy kids mimed the appropriate animals - kangaroos, dingoes and kookaburras.
Some Balinese dancers also visited from the Indonesian Embassy to show us some of their dance style.

Both days were really enjoyable, and the kids learnt a lot from the experience. It was well planned and organised and came together really well.

Numeracy Education Day

On Friday we had our Numeracy Education Day. Students were organised into mixed-aged groups for a series of activities moving from one classroom to another. Teachers prepared a 50-minute lesson that they presented 3 times during the day - two before lunch, and one after recess. This ran similarly to the Literacy Education Day we had for Book Week.

Teachers selected math activities involving space, measurement, problem solving, and chance and data. The activities were predominately hands-on math tasks with students working in pairs or small groups. Those working with 2D shapes created pictures using tangrams or other shapes. Some students went out to measure distances in the playground using metre trundle wheels. Others created a spinning colour wheel using instructions and measurements in centimetres. One group tried to solve brain teasers like matchstick puzzles.

My group was subjected to another Circle Time! This time related to chance and data. The group consisted of children from Kindergarten to Grade 2. I organised it as follows:

Check in: Students said their name, their class, and then coloured in the appropriate square, above their classname, on a graph. We then discussed what we can determine from this graph. Which class had the most members in the group? Which had the least? etc.

Mixer: One student stood in the centre of the circle and said "I like [McDonalds]". All children who agreed with the statement changed places in the circle. The person in the centre had to try to find a spot, leaving someone else standing in the centre. The game continued until everyone was mixed up.

Activity: The Car Race - I made another graph with numbers 1-12 along the bottom and some cute little pictures I found of cars. Students then worked in pairs to roll the dice and add the two numbers together. They then coloured in the squares above this number. The 'winning car' was the first one to reach the top of the graph (where I had some cute little pictures of checkered flags!) Before beginning, I got the children to choose which car they thought would win the race.

Debrief: We went around the circle and each group told me which car won their race, and how many spaces car number one moved. We then discussed why car number one didn't get to move at all. (It is impossible to roll 1 using two dice!) We then looked at the chances of rolling the other numbers, paying particular attention to the "winning car" numbers.

Energiser: I found a toss-a-coin tool on my Smart Board, but could have settled with an 'actual' coin! We then played a game of Heads and Tails. Students put their hands on their heads if they thought the coin would come up heads, or on their tails if they thought it would come up tails. Students who got it right stayed in for the next round. Play continued until one player was left and declared winner.

Check out: Students checked out by saying their name and one thing they had learnt about Maths through this activity.

I was really satisfied with how well these activities flowed and the discussion that arose as students explored chance through the roll of dice.

For more information about circle time, click here, or search this blog for 'circle time'.

Book Week - CBCA Awards

Many Australian schools celebrate Book Week in the week following the CBCA's (Children's Book Council of Australia) announcement of the Books of the Year.

At my school this year, we did this through a day of book related activities. Each of the teachers in years K-2 chose one of the nominated books and prepared related activities to last a total of 45 minutes. Students in these grades were divided up into mixed-grade groups. We ran two 45-minute sessions before lunch, and one after lunch, followed by a sharing and reflection time in own class groups. This meant that each teacher taught the same lesson to three different groups, and each student experienced the lessons of three different teachers.

The talk amongst the teachers at lunchtime was all very positive. We enjoyed the opportunity to meet and teach kids from other grades. We had a chance to polish our teaching through the repeated lessons. And we had fun, developing lessons around the chosen text.
The reflection of the students was also mostly positive - focusing on the enjoyment of working with different people for the day. The negatives were mostly about not getting the teacher they wanted or being with the kids they wanted.

I tried out a circle time for the mode of mine, and again it worked really well. I found it actually worked particularly well in this setting because it seemed quite normal for everyone to be "Checking In" by saying their names, and this served a valuable introductory purpose for the group. One of the things that really stood out to me was how quiet and settled everyone was compared to my usual group! I felt almost as though I needed to tell them that it was okay to talk to each other and get to know everyone.

For those interested in the actual lesson, it went as follows...

CHECK IN: Hi, my name is _________ and I am from class ______.
MIXER: Students lucky-dipped a bookmark and found someone with a matching bookmark. They sat together while they coloured-in their bookmarks. This was also how I formed the pairs for working together later as well.
ACTIVITY: I read the story "Parsley Rabbit's Book about Books" by Frances Watts. (As the title suggests, this is a book about books!) We then discussed favourite books, and students filled out a worksheet about their favourite books. Their partner helped with spelling etc. If they finished early, they could choose books from the displays to read with a partner.
DEBRIEF: Students told their favourite book.
ENERGISER: We danced to an old song about a rabbit. (Sorry, but I don't remember the title. I recorded it back in the days of cassettes!).
CHECK OUT: Hi, my name is ________ and I like to read books that ________.

We have a Maths day coming up in a few weeks, and I think I will use circle time again - this time to teach concepts in Chance and Data. I'm really looking forward to it.