Friday Fun

Here I am, trying again to keep the Friday Fun posts happening. I think the trick is to write it as we work through the week. A little each night is much more manageable than a big chunk at the end of the week when I would really prefer to be relaxing with my husband, enjoying take-away Indian food and a glass of Shiraz!

Our Inquiry

As well as continuing our work on reconciliation this week, we have jumped further back in time to learn about Indigenous Australian lifestyle prior to European settlement.

On Monday and Tuesday I worked with each group on their reconciliation plan and helped them to do some fine-tuning. One great thing about using the Explain Everything app, was that it was fairly easy to edit and make adjustments - changing pictures which perhaps weren't as effective, re-wording phrases where inaccurate information was being shared.

Through the students' work I was able to see some common misunderstandings and correct these during class discussion. Some things that needed clarifying were: that the stolen generations were taken long ago and are now parents and grandparents, and that Indigenous Australians don't want our pity - but rather our acknowledgement of the past and a commitment to an improved future together. On the weekend I had found out about an Aboriginal health service in our local area, so we have tailored our fundraising proposal to that end.

In the afternoons we watched the "before time" episodes of My Place Series 2. Students took notes on the first day, recording facts and questions under the headings - "The video showed" and "It made me wonder". Part way through viewing, we paused the video for students to discuss what they had seen and wondered so far. We encouraged students to think about Aboriginal lifestyle prior to European settlement (food, clothing, shelter, customs, environment) rather than focus on the plot of the story. Students then worked in teams of four to create a mind map with the Inspiration iPad app. The My Place Website is a great follow on from the videos.

Here is a picture of my mind map:

As part of our 30 Days of Drawing project (not consecutive days for us - more like one a week!) students took the statements about the connection to the land from Idjhil by Helen Bell and illustrated what one of the statements meant to them. The quality of student images was very impressive.

We also discussed the central idea of our inquiry unit: Indigenous cultures change over time. We thought of other words that could be used in place of the words in this idea. Students then used Socrative on the iPads to log how they would phrase the inquiry in their own words.
This was a quick and easy way to compile our ideas in one document, print and display. It was my second time with Socrative after a miserable failure last time. This time we ensured we were all connected to the internet before starting the app.

Maths

In our Maths lessons at the start of the week, we worked on the four times tables. We looked at the strategy "double, double again" and students practised applying this method. We practised with the Tables Toons on Mathletics along with a dice rolling game and a card game.

For the dice game, students simply rolled the dice and multiplied by 4 (doubling, doubling again if they couldn't recall the answer immediately).

For the card game, they played in pairs with a standard deck of cards (K, Q, J = 10, A=1, Jokers removed). The first student shuffled the cards and fanned them out for the second student to select one. The second student multiplied the number by 4 and gave the answer. The first student then tried to work out the card number by dividing by 4. This game helps students to see the connection between multiplication and division and assists with recall of facts.

I encouraged students to use these games at home to practise their tables.

Students also explored fractions using resources on Scootle, as well as iPads. In one of our sessions they used Notability to compare fraction sizes. In another session they worked with fractions of a group and used Explain Everything to record their thinking. These lessons will be explained in greater detail for Tech Tips in upcoming weeks.

Literacy

Students have been working on stories that they planned and began writing earlier in the term. We are trying to see these through to publication as books to put on our shelves. It is taking quite some time for students to complete the whole process, and we have had many interruptions.

We also read some Dreaming stories and students used post-it notes to jot down their thoughts on the following questions:

What are Dreaming stories?

What are their features and purpose?

Who is the audience?

We discussed these ideas and they were compiled into one document.


We've had another great week, full of new learning and challenges. Next week we head off on our school camp - hoping for warm weather and no rain!

Friday Fun

It has been quite some time since I wrote any Friday Fun posts. Generally, my school has had other ways to share learning with families, thus I haven't had time to double up. At my current school, I started writing up weekly reflections for families, which highlight the main learning in the grade level, some class specific items, information about events coming up, and some snapshots. This takes a bit of effort to put together each Friday, and needs to be left fairly broad in order to cater for all Year 3 classes. When I do Friday Fun posts, I like to add more detail, and give a better sense of the task, its purpose and how we went about doing it. In doing so, I hope to make it interesting for students and their families, as well as the teaching community. I make no promises in terms of whether this will return as an ongoing feature, but I thought I would give it another go this week at least!

Reconciliation Week

This week we launched into our new Inquiry unit, "Why Say Sorry?" The central idea of this unit is that Indigenous culture changes over time. Given that Reconciliation Week is this week, it seems very good timing on someone's part - though I think there was quite a bit of luck involved this time! 

On Monday I read Idjhil by Helen Bell to my class. This story shows the connection Indigenous Australians have with the land and tells something of the impact of European settlement in terms of loss of land and the stolen generation. I chose this narrative to give students a glimpse of these concepts through the eyes of a boy of their age. 

Once we had finished reading, we used a modified version of the thinking routine "Step Inside". Students imagined they were Idjhil and wrote down the things they thought he knew and believed. They then wrote down the things they thought he cared about. A second column labelled "What makes you say that?" prompted students to give evidence from the book for their ideas. I moved around the room marking student work, and those who finished early glued their sheet in and illustrated the border with symbols and images that were important to Idjhil. 

To conclude the lesson - we played "Hot Seat" where one student took on the role of Idjhil, and others asked him questions. It took a few questions before everyone engaged in what was happening, but by the end we were getting some well thought out questions. 

On Tuesday we read Walking for Reconciliation By Beth Hall. This followed on nicely after our story of Idjhil, and helped students to gain a better understanding of what Reconciliation is about and why it is necessary. We followed this reading with another thinking routine called Making it Fair: Now, Then, Later: Finding Actions. We talked about the stolen generation and students discussed how things could have been done differently in the past to make things fair, what we can be doing now, and what could be done in the future. Students used Google Docs on the desktop computers to record their ideas. I was a bit frustrated by some of the nonsense I got when students were contributing anonymously and had to keep on top of everyone to ensure they weren't erasing each other's ideas.

On Wednesday we looked at our Google Docs list (teacher edited) as a class, and everyone chose one idea that they would like to expand on. They wrote their individual responses in their Inquiry books and wrote the steps that would need to be taken in order for the plan to be enacted. These ideas were shared with the class and we sorted our ideas into things that could be done now, and things that could be proposed for the future - both for the school and for our city.

On Thursday students worked in teams to put forward their proposals. One group focused on writing a letter (using Google Docs simultaneously) to our local government about how we would like our city to celebrate at NAIDOC week, one focused on a fundraising proposal for our school and two focused on proposals to our SRC. The ones for our school used Explain Everything on iPad as we felt that a video presentation would be more appealing to the student audience.

On Friday I gave feedback to students and helped them to edit their proposals. I still feel that some need a little reworking to create a more professional product, however I'm impressed with the quality of their efforts and technical ability.

Maths

This week students learnt how to work out their three times tables mentally by taking the double and adding one more group. Students practised their three times with a friend. We then worked on times tables using an erasable multiplication chart and songs from the Mathletics website. Some students were extended to multiply two-digit numbers by three, and also to investigate the divisibility rules for 3. We will continue with this next week.

We also returned to some fraction work that we began earlier in the term. Students practised writing fractions along a number-line. In our computer time, students completed fractions activities from Mathletics including Rainforest Maths.

Literacy

We revisited Idjhil by Helen Bell, and discussed:

• What was the author's purpose?
• What does she want us to take away?

Students then wrote their personal response in their books using the prompts:
I think the author wrote this to...
I learnt...

It was definitely a busy week, particularly with parent/teacher interviews in the afternoons and planning for school camp. I look forward to seeing how things progress next week, particularly as we further explore our Inquiry unit of work.

Friday Fun - 5/6/09

This week Miss Eschauzier was teaching relief classes across the school, so I was back on board again. It was nice to be back again, but tiring at the same time. It's crazy how quickly you get out of the habit!

Fun This Week

Captain Lister Takes Us Back in Time
This week Captain Lister took us back to 1787 and the journey of the First Fleet. He explained how the Industrial Age influenced the lives of people, with machines taking over many people's jobs and people turning to crime in order to survive. He explained about the use of hulks on the River Thames to house the many criminals and Britain's need for a new place to send convicts as a result of the US War of Independence. Captain Lister went on to describe the journey and created discussion around the statistics of people aboard the First Fleet at the beginning and at the end. We finished with the arrival at Botany Bay and the significance of Australia Day.

Sketching the Golden Grove
On Monday afternoon Mr Tucker taught students about the ships of the First Fleet and worked with students to sketch the Golden Grove. He put the image up on the interactive whiteboard so that students could see it clearly to sketch it. You can see it, and the other ships of the First Fleet at the website of the First Fleet Fellowship.

Rounding Numbers
This week my class learnt how to round numbers to the nearest hundred. We used pretend cash register print-outs and students rounded dollar amounts in order to make an estimate. They then used calculators to find out the actual total and to work out the difference between the actual total and their estimate. We also spent some time doubling and halving numbers and students worked with a partner and a mini whiteboard to select numbers and double or halve them. Students who wanted a challenge chose two-digit numbers with each digit odd.

Frisbee Golf
Having played frisbee golf on camp, we set up a quick course for PE this week and students played in small teams. Not everyone got a turn this week because we had a lot of rain, but we hope to get back to it next week.

Indigenous People Group Projects
Students worked to finish their projects this week. As always when working digitally, there were issues with files being overwritten, people wanting to record audio at the last minute, photos with no credit given etc but I'm looking forward to taking a closer look at them and giving students opportunities to explore each others' work.

Fabulously Funny Fairytale Plays
This term students who are not part of the Fife and Drum Band have been learning and preparing plays. This week they worked on memorising their lines and organising themselves on a stage-sized space. We talked with each group about the props and costumes they will need.

Farewell Miss Eschauzier
Today was Miss Eschauzier's last day at our school, so we had a party to send her off. She has worked really hard with the students and has taught them a lot during her internship. They have become very fond of her and will miss her greatly. A couple of students put together a movie with photos and videos for Miss Eschauzier to take with her to remember her time with us. Other students created cards and brought small gifts. Students had the opportunity to tell Miss Eschauzier what they learnt from her and what they enjoyed about her. We then shared party food. We hope she comes back for a visit soon!

This week we my Literacy class read more of New Gold Mountain. You can read about it here.

What's the Deal with Australia Day?

We all have a bit of a laugh when we see this ad on television, but there is an element of confusion, and even a little embarrassment when it comes to Australia Day.
The 26th January 1788 marked the arrival of The First Fleet of British convicts to the shores of Australia and the beginning of European settlement. Prior to this day, Australian Indigenous people lived in 250 communities or nations each with their own language. For many Indigenous Australians, Australia Day is more rightly described as "Invasion Day". Australia has had a less than admirable history in terms of the treatment of Australian indigenous peoples. On the 12th February 2008, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made a formal apology to Indigenous Australians on behalf of the Federal Government.

So what has Australia Day come to represent?

Australia Day is a public holiday in Australia. Around the country many new Australians are welcomed in at Citizenship Ceremonies. Notable Australians are recognised for their efforts and achievements with Australian of the Year awards. Special events are held in the capital cities including fireworks, concerts, fun runs/walks, and parades. For full details and a cool video about what Australia Day is about go to the official Australia Day website. And of course, as mentioned in the ad, it's a day for watching the cricket or tennis!

UPDATE: 2009 Australian of the Year, Professor Mick Dodson, has requested a national debate about a change of date for Australia Day. Read more here.