Start the year off with lots of inquiry thinking...

Some very interesting points are made here by Australian inquiry 'guru' Kath Murdoch and have certainly got me thinking (again!) about how to incorporate more inquiry thinking across all curriculum areas...

http://www.kathmurdoch.com.au/blog/2017/1/24/establishing-a-culture-of-inquiry-through-inquiry

DRIVE Term One 2016: In Great Shape!

DRIVE - the Inquiry process at Edendale Primary School:
Discover  Reflect & ask questions  Investigate  Vision and create  Evaluate

Term One 2016: HEALTH 

"IN GREAT SHAPE"

- What makes me a healthy person? 

PURPOSE/AUTHENTICITY:
* Personal Health and Physical Development is where students develop the knowledge, understanding, skills, and attitudes that they need in order to maintain and enhance their personal well-being and physical development.
* Healthy Communities and Environment is where students contribute to healthy communities and environments by taking responsible and critical action.

KEY UNDERSTANDINGS:
* Health and well-being (hauora) is physical, mental and emotional/spiritual.
* My health is my responsibility.
* I can support others as they keep themselves healthy and safe.
* We mature physically and mentally as we get older.
* We all have feelings and emotions that we express in different ways.

CORE KNOWLEDGE:
* We all have a range of feelings and emotions to describe our experiences in different situations.
* If I don’t take care of myself I will become ill.
* Healthy eating, hygiene, exercise, sleep, relationships, positive thinking, Sunsmart, water safety etc. SMARTS/learning styles, values and principles
* Our bodies and minds change at different rates.





RESOURCES FOR DISCOVERY AND INVESTIGATION STAGES OF 'DRIVE'

General
templates for tracking healthy habits
a variety of health/body templates

Food/Eating  - AN APPLE A DAY pupil group resource links blog-post
track your diet for a week - template   and five food groups tracking chart
Healthy eating for kids
expert: Mel McKenzie, Heart Foundation (Linda Harris)

Exercise - WARRANT OF FITNESS pupil group resource links blog-post
tracking your movement minutes chart
expert: Jane Muir

Hygiene - KEEP IT CLEAN pupil group resource links blog-post
healthy hands templates and unit
teeth - experiments to show why we should brush
toothbrushing tracking chart
kidshealth.org - why we need to brush our teeth
expert: Dental Health service educator

The Body - ENGINE PARTS pupil group resource links blog-post
variety of games/activities to print out
skeleton cut out
skeleton labelling sheets
heart health
expert: NZ Heart Foundation (Linda Harris)

The Brain - BRAIN POWER! pupil group resource links blog-post
multiple intelligences pupil survey printable
another printable smarts survey
expert: Maureen Deuchrass, Road Safety Southland

HEALTH - Firewise - Fire safety practices

For the first week of Term Three our school health safety focus is Firewise - very important with so many homes using fireplaces at this time of the year!

The NZ Fire Service Firewise programme is aimed mainly at Years 1-2 but the resources can be adapted for older pupils, with a DVD available for Years 7-8 (and some parts can be used with Yr 5-6 with careful consideration).

With my Yr 6 pupils our focus will be on revising the basics about fire safety eg keep matches out of reach, the heater-metre rule, don't play near barbecues or fires; with the main focus being on Get Down...Get Low...Get Out Fast! (and Stay Out) and having an at-home escape plan and safe family meeting place.

For our literacy sessions this week, I plan to pair the pupils up to research and present one aspect of fire safety advice, using the Firewise booklets that the Fire Service has sent us (again, these are aimed at younger pupils but my older pupils will benefit too from having the messages reinforced). We will set a criteria together first so pupils have clear guidelines of what to share.

Pupils will create a presentation of their choice on the ipad to share on their blogs and on our class blog.

2014: Inquiry: Being a life-long learner

Term One 2014 - INQUIRY - How can I be a life-long learner?

The wall display at the end of the term - most activities were digital and are on the pupil blogs.

Reason for this inquiry: 
* We have a new school logo, slightly changed motto and vision statement.
* The logo has children with backpacks – in these backpacks they put their learning tools: we need to introduce these images and concepts and help the children embrace them as their own philosophy.

HOST CURRICULUM: HEALTH - target curriculum level: Three (Year Six pupils)

Understandings: (Big Ideas/Key Concepts) 

• I am unique; so is everyone else. 
• I have different strengths that complement the strengths of others. 
• Making healthy choices helps my learning. 
• Great learning happens in partnership. 
• I am responsible for my own learning.

Core Knowledge: (Baseline knowledge)

• We can create our own toolkit for learning: SMARTS, turn-ons/turn-offs,school vision/motto/quotes/values; personal learning goals, making healthy choices (relationships, attitude, food, exercise, hygiene, sleep), working in partnership with others.

Inquiry Skill: Thinking      Key Competency: Managing myself      Value: Self-responsibility

Strategy: Six Thinking Hats         Blended Learning Opportunities: blogging, photos, tagxedo etc

Some of the concepts: motto, vision, competencies, backpack (toolkit) for learning

And, following our EDENDALE inquiry process, there was a huge range of possible learning activities...

EXCITING NEW KNOWLEDGE
(Covering the information in the core knowledge to build up a base of understanding to help pupils learn the Big Ideas.)

Attitude - having an attitude that is positive and healthy is important:

• Here is a lesson plan from the Education World site that emphasises the importance of can-do statements in building self-belief - pupils can 'bury' their negative statements.

What the competencies mean for us...

We carried out a variety of discussions and activities to reinforce the key understandings, and found that our Year Six Camp was the most relevant activity of the whole term for pupils to be able to put the concepts into action!

Showing we were lifelong learners with our activities at camp...

Pupils used the experience for a variety of follow-up activities - writing about their demonstration of the aspects needed to be a lifelong learner - many of these were expressed with digital tools...


Year Six Camp from Edendale Primary School on Vimeo.

Take Two News 2014 - Year Six Camp from Edendale Primary School on Vimeo.