Movement and Survival

Below are some snap shots from planning documents and recorded quotes and conversations relevant to what has been happening lately in Inquiry for the ‘Natural Movement’ group working with Nerida.

23rd May

Discussing why it is interesting or important to explore the movement of the various things in the drawings that children did at the start of our inquiry. For some reason, the interest in movement evolved into a fascination with survival! Here are some key quotes from the children:

• If we didn’t have any water then we would die.
• If we didn’t have water, our land would be dry.
• If we didn’t have any sea creatures then there wouldn’t be any museums.
• Because if we didn’t have any planets we wouldn’t have a home.
• You shouldn’t actually catch dangerous animals because otherwise they’ll kill you and they weren’t always dangerous – sharks were like… great white sharks, you shouldn’t catch those things ‘cause otherwise they’ll try to kill you. And they weren’t dangerous but now they because dangerous because you’re hurting them.
• If you didn’t have water, you wouldn’t have anything to eat ‘cause living things live in water and you catch them to eat and if you don’t you’ll die.
• I drew snakes, well, some of them could be dangerous. We do know one things anyway – some things have red and that’s a warning sign – if you see a snake with red, then stay away. Only if they’re scared they’ll bite you.
• If there was no sea creatures, you could still live, it’s just you can eat meat from other animals that don’t need water, that don’t live in water; and you can catch dangerous sea creatures because they can’t breathe out of water.
• Some sea creatures have to come up out of the water to have a breath.
• If you didn’t have a sun, the earth would be… no body could live on it.

31st May

Track the movement of the sun – trace shadows with chalk.

• The shadows will get longer at the end of the day. That’s what happens at the end of the day.
• The Sun makes your shadow. The Sun gets colder and colder and the shadows get longer and longer.
• If we stand far away then it will just like change. What if it’s bigger?
• He accidentally made this arm shorter than it actually is.
• When I stretch my arms out, it looks like this one’s a little bit longer.
• Yeah, one is a little bit longer.

18^th June 

“Window” by Jeannie Baker

19^th June 

Thinking Routines to go prompt deeper thinking.

Resources: Lots of images relevant to survival, eg. animals fighting, fleeing, camouflage, drought, hunger, etc.

“See, Think, Wonder” - in pairs, find someone with the same image as you. Discuss what you can specifically see in the image, what you think is happening in the image and what you wonder.

Dog and Crab 

think

- I think the crab’s claw chopped the dog’s body off.
- And when the crab eats the dog, the crab’s going to choke.
- And I think that the crab might not survive.
- Yeah, me too.

Whale in a net

see 

- I can see blood.
- I can see blood and a net.

think
- I think that maybe a pirate stuck his sword in there and then put a net over the top.
- I think the same.
- I think that a pirate jumped off a ship with a… and pulled it over the top and threw it over him. 

wonder
- I wonder if the crew is going to run over him.
- I think the blood’s really hurting ‘cause of the water.

Duckling on dried-up lake

(Two children use magnifying glasses to examine their image.)
see
- A wing, there.
- And a crack, there.
- Yeah, crack’s in the ground.
- A canyon!


think
- Maybe it was flying but then it lost balance and fell down.
- If it was dead, something could have poisoned it, like a snake.

wonder
- I wonder if the bird is still alive.
- I wonder if it’s going to survive.

“Move and Reason” – in two groups, with all images in the middle of the circle. Which images do you think go together? Why?

• They both look like they’re fighting. 
• I think this one and these ones go together because they’re all dead.  
• I’ll put that one there because they’re all in danger.
• I think this one and this one belong together because they’re both dead.
• These two, because they’re both skeletons. (How do you think they died?) A human killed them.

Prep Picnic

We had a fantastic day today at Fleming Park. We were lucky enough to have perfect weather, and it was a nice opportunity to mix with some of the children, teachers and parents from Triciclo. We also got the chance to play some more unusual games that we don't typically get the chance to play in the yard. This was also an opportunity for parents and students to say goodbye to Amy, our Prep team leader, who sadly is leaving us at the end of this term.  

The bubbles were a big hit.

This air powered rocket could be fairly unpredictable.

Serenaded by the ukelele.

Dog-stomping.  Not sure what it is exactly but it looked like fun.

A picnic day wouldn't be complete without a parachute. 

 Quieter times with twirling ribbons.

"Chase the snake"

Showing off some impressive ball skills.

Handstands - none of the teachers were brave enough to try these.

 Negotiating the footy rules.

Some more impressive ball skills.

Robots & Minds

As you may be aware, a group of students have been investigating machines in inquiry, and shown a strong interest in robots in particular.  To support this interest we explored robots a little further in our philosophy session recently.  We watched some videos and photos of very human like robots and discussed how they are similar and different to humans.  Here is a snapshot of what we came up with.

"Because there’s a hole inside his head, that’s why he couldn’t be a person."

"They’re called a robot and we’re called a person, if they were real they’d be called a human"

"robots have wires inside them and they can’t get them out and that cannot mean they can be human."

"Because people have bones and tubes and robots have wires and they’re made out of diferent things and people are made out of skin and flesh and robots are made out of like metals and paper and string and things that humans do not have in their body."

What if part of you was replaced with wires and metal? What if you lost your arms and legs and had them replaced with prosthetics/robot parts? (Teacher Question)

"You’re still a person"

         Why?

"Cos the other ones are not like the ones that aren’t there any more...the other arms and the legs, they're not like the other arm."

         

"I think that you’re still human, because that makes part of your body metal and wires and tubes, so that makes you a robot"

"Then what happens if you’ve broken everything, and you need to replace everything?"

"You would definitely be a robot"

"I agree with that"

What if they replace only some parts of your body? (Teacher Question)

"You’re still a robot, I think you’d call yourself a human robot"

"You should call yourself a Roson (robot person)"

Can robots have a mind? (Teacher Q)

"maybe they do have a mind, maybe they took a brain out of a dead person."

(disagree, shake head) "because, if a person’s dead how would you break the skull to get inside?"

"They could have wires for a pretend brain"

Are they thinking? (Teacher Q)

"You’re thinking now, you’re thinking now!"

"No, because they don’t have any brain."

"Yes, cos’ of the electric cord in their head, all curly around inside them and going into their brain."

"Wires make robots think and brains make us think."

"I don’t understand what the difference is."

"I know there is a difference but I don’t know what the difference is."

Earthquakes

The earthquake on Tuesday night was a pretty thrilling event for the children, (despite the fact that many of them managed to sleep through it!). We have been talking about earthquakes a lot in our learning community, and we have read some information together to try to understand what happened. The children are absolutely bursting with ideas and questions about earthquakes, volcanoes and the structure of the earth.

Things that we think we know about earthquakes and the earth:

• When there are lots of volcanoes in the same place, it can make the earth crack and then the volcanoes explode and it can cause an earthquake.
• Water gets really hot in the ground and the earth goes into this sort of shape/and then the water turns into lava and then it explodes.
• Volcanoes under the sea can make a big wave called a tidal wave which makes a humungus flood. 
• But it’s dangerous to swim in floods. 
• When the plates go together sometimes they stick and they make a really big earthquake. 
• Every 100 years volcanoes happen in Australia. 
• When you look into a volcano and if you feel it shaking, you better get away quickly. 
• When there’s a big earthquake that makes a flood. 
• If there’s a huge volcano under the sea and it explodes it can cause a huge wave and if it goes onto land it will cause a huge flood.
• If you climb up the volcano and if you found a big hole then you have to get away from it because that hole is very, very deep and there’s fire coming from there.

Our questions about earthquakes:

• Why was there an earthquake in Melbourne?
• How/Why is the pressure so strong? How strong is the air that’s pushing up and causing the plates to move? 
• How can a crack be underground? 
• How far down are the cracks? 
• When did the earth form? 
• How can an earthquake tip a car over? 
• Where did the earth come from? 
• How do the plates move together? 
• Why aren’t there any volcanoes in Australia? 
• How do earthquakes happen?

Machines

“This is the translator. It translates music into English.”
-- during project time in the Science area.

Inquiry into Measurement

Some snapshots from our Inquiry into Measurement...

16th May – Maths Menu

One option was measuring large squiggly lines and spirals with chains, wool, measuring tapes or anything else. Several children started joining all of the chains together and running outside to measure the school.

17th May

Measuring meeting to plan what and how we are going to measure. First I showed the children the video of them yesterday (excited but chaotic).

• So, we could try and count it, maybe. And, or maybe we could use a lot of rulers so we can measure it. And if we count then it would be easier. Maybe we should be quieter.
• I think we should just measure Bicicletta, and if the chain runs out we could use rulers. 
• I think I could count up to 676 before, so I can count each chain so I know how long it is. 
• We can just look we make a bit longer because it’s a bit tiny. We make it longer longer, longer than snakes. 
• You could try measuring from the front door to Bicicletta’s door where you usually come in (entrance to school, Glenda’s gate).

A child from 1/2/3 who was watching the children yesterday shared with us his strategy for counting the number of links in the chain. Then we can measure something as n-chains long.

• We can measure Bicicletta by measuring from the castle area to the other end.
• You actually could, everyone could hold one bit of the chain and then we join it and then we could count it (as we make it). 
• We could bring some rope or anything to make it longer.  
• Child from 1/2/3: You could also count the rope by inches, like 100 chains and 10 inches of rope is how long our classroom is. 

31st May 

By this point, I had proposed to children that they start by measuring the purple slide in the Colourfuls, working in teams and comparing results and strategies. Today we watched videos from yesterday’s measurement of the slide.

What did they do differently?

• Child B’s doing it in the middle of the slide and Child A’s doing it on the side of the slide.
• Child B: And he was leaving spaces. 
• When Child A did it he put spaces in the middle and Child B did it like this, without any spaces. When Child A did it it’s not measuring because there are gaps so it won’t tell you how long the slide is. Child B did it properly. 
• She went on the side of the slide, but she was meant to go in the middle.

Why do you think Child A & B got different results?

• ‘Cause she slipped.
• Because slide is steep. She measured with one hand and that’s not big enough for to measure. You need a bigger one. I don’t know. 
• Because Child B slipped a bit and ‘cause she was in the middle and when she accidently went to the slide she might have slipped a few numbers. 
• Because Child A did gaps and Child B didn’t.

Child A & B come up here – I’d like to look at your hands. Why would I want to look at their hands?

• To see whose hands are bigger.
• I was going to say that. Just to see if someone’s hands are bigger, they could have got bigger hands, the smaller would make a bigger number, and the bigger hands would make a smaller number.  
• I was going to say what child C said because child A’s hands are bigger then he would get a smaller number, and if child B’s hands are smaller she will get a bigger number. 
• Child A did it in a better way because if you measure it with your feet and you hold on that makes you not slip and slide. 
• When she counted 10, she went back to 30 when she was actually meant to say 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109. 
• She got a few gaps when she was counting the chain. 

13th June - Maths menu

Children still running the chain down the slide and counting by ones, getting a different result each time. I guided the children to keep the length of chain that runs from the start to end of the slide and take it inside, keeping it separately from the rest of the chains. This way, we can try some different strategies inside.

14th June - the next day in Project Time

Introducing the chain as another option in Project Time.

What are some other strategies? Counting by ones wasn’t working.

• We could count by tens.
• Or fives! 
• Child D: I can count to 100. I think what I could do is… I could get the chains into colours so I can… so I just thinked about that.

What would you do to make it easier to count?

• Child D: Count the colours. (He then proceeded to count the number of yellow links – 17. Wrote 17 on board when prompted).

What would you need to do next?

• Child D: Count the greens… 19.
• I think he could actually count the colours but you make chains that are one colour, like lots of chains that are one colour, so then you know… 
• If you counted the colours, what you could do is you could go, 6, 1, 3, 5, like count them, like put them in any number. Skip a number. Like 5, 2.

Genevieve modelled skip counting by 2s using the number line. We then discussed the importance of the systematic nature of skip counting.

In small groups, we recorded our thinking about measurement with the following thinking routine: What do we measure? How do we measure? Why do we measure? Further questions and wonderings. Some of these are displayed here for your viewing. We then came together to create a document that combined all of the groups’ thinking, which is displayed here for you to look at.

We haven’t yet finished our inquiry into movement – this is just where we are up to!

“Window” by Jeannie Baker

What did you notice in this book that had something to do with survival? 

• Trees. Well, there was trees in that book, and trees, well, they need to breathe as well. They don’t need air like us, they need water like us, but they don’t need anything to eat, they just need water and soil. Trees need sap. And instead of their blood being red, their blood is clear.

What happened to the trees? 

• There became more and more.
• No, more and more houses were coming and more trees were gone.

How does getting rid of trees affect other things? 

• More stuff can fit in there, like houses, because trees take up lots of room.
• You can get a new house and then a new footpath and then a new road. 
• If we cut down trees, squirrels, birds and wood peckers wouldn’t have anywhere to lay their nest. 
• You’ll get less paper ‘cause it comes from trees and then you wouldn’t be able to draw plants. 
• If we chop down trees then birds won’t be able to lay their eggs there. 
• If we cut down trees, it’s not good because then if squirrels want to climb trees and birds want to have their nests there, how will they? 
• If we cut down trees, it’s killing nature. And nature is the most special thing in the world. Everything is nature. We are nature. Plants are nature. Trees are nature. 
• Kids can’t have cubbies in trees. 
• Well, even if we keep cutting down trees… all sorts of animals or reptiles wouldn’t be able to live in them.  
• When we were walking to my ballet, we saw a tree house. You wouldn’t be able to make tree houses.  
• If you chop trees, um, we can’t smell them. 
• If you cut down all the trees, you won’t be able to breathe and you’ll die.

So we need the trees to survive! 

• It cleans; if you breathe, it goes out from your house into a tree and the trees cleans your air.
• When I was walking to school, I saw a bird’s nest and some little eggs in there. They will break and the babies won’t survive (if we chop the tree down). 
• If you cut down trees and they can grow fruit, then we won’t be able to grow fruit and nothing would be able to live in them if we grow trees. 
• If you cut down trees, well, nothing can grow and then when you buy everything from the supermarket, the supermarket won’t be able to get anything and you when you finish all of the food in your house then you’ll die ‘cause there’ll be no air. 
• If we chop down trees and there are leaves on them, then animals wouldn’t have anything to eat. 
• If people cut down trees with leaves on them, then animals won’t be able to make their nests. 
• I once saved a parrot from a tree because the tree was about to be cut down a parrot’s nest was in it and the parrot was in it. 
• If you don’t cut down trees, you won’t have any paper to draw on. 

So should we cut down trees or not?

• Sometimes. 
• Well, it’s good to draw pictures for if your mum or dad are hurt or sick. 
• Trees clean the air. I know one reason why we don’t have steam trains anymore – they make the air dirty. Where the trains went past, there were lots of trees so the dirty air didn’t really get past.

Tidying up on last day of Term 2 - helpers wanted

Friday 29th June is the last day of school for Term 2.

Could we please pretty please have parent helpers to help:

• clean up and sort out the atelier (it’s a huge job and we’re desperate for some help),
• sorting out the castle/imaginative play (we have a back stage area which needs to be sorted out and labeled, and excess items in the castle to be stored back stage) 
• take dress ups and smocks home to wash, 
• sort maths equipment, 
• sharpen pencils, 
• watering the plants on the terrace and feeding them some fertilizer (in the trunk) 
• and just generally helping to tidy. 

This would be a major help for the teachers and will help to continue to provide an orderly, clean and safe environment for the children.

Also note: early dismissal for children at 2:30pm.

End of Term Picnic and Amy’s Farewell

On Thursday 28 June, from 9:30 am - 1:00 pm Prep Bicicletta and Triciclo will be joining forces and walking to Fleming Park to celebrate the end of term and farewell Amy. All families are invited to join. You can join us for the whole time or meet us at the park. Bring along a picnic rug and any safe games to play at the park, such as skipping ropes and grip ball. If you wish to take your child straight to or from the park please let your teacher know. You will need to sign an early leave form if you wish for them to leave early.

Children will be taking their own bags and will need:

• Play lunch and lunch. (This is not a picnic where children are sharing food)
• Warm clothes and sensible shoes.
• Things to play with at the park (such as balls, frisbees, skipping ropes, clearly marked with your name).
• Water bottle.
• A book, colouring pencils, activity books or anything for down time at the park.

Best day ever for teachers at BEPS!

We had no idea that you were planning a morning tea for us yesterday (Thursday 14th). What a wonderful surprise it was to find a staffroom laid out with a morning tea fit for the Queen - and an army! We were all so grateful to receive your positive feedback, acknowledgement and support in the form of words and sugar. You are a talented group of home bakers and a very kind and generous community. Genevieve and I feel really lucky to be spending the year with you and your children. Thanks again, a thousand times over.

Learning spaces in Bicicletta

If you haven't had the opportunity to visit Bicicletta recently and have a look around, please enjoy this virtual tour of our learning spaces... 

Entry. This doorway leads out to The Terrace.

Entry from the door near "the Pit" - take home readers and a display of our family photos.

The Science area - currently on display are a number of machines, donated by families, which are support our Inquiry project into movement.

Blocks on the light table and a comfy ottoman.

Reading area.

Reading area.

The Atelier.

View towards the dramatic play area. Lunch trolley and display of children's work in the foreground. On the wall behind, children's movement drawings are on display.

Dramatic play area.

Writing area.

A popular place for children to work on writing skills.

Philosophy

Philosophy in Prep is all about developing basic thinking skills. The first and most important skill that we started with this year was questioning, and we spent a bit of time sorting out the difference between an question and a statement.

Some of the first questions that we came up with were:

• Why do volcanoes blow up?

• Why does petrol make cars go?

• Why do textas have ink?

• How do clocks tell the time?

• How do cars move?

• How do computers work on the plane?

• How do humans work?

• Who am I?

After exploring questions for a while, we have now started on our Community of Inquiry.  We follow a model based on the Philosophy for Children (P4C) framework that uses picture storybooks as stimulus to inspire children's curiosity.  

One of our first inquiries was based around The Bunyip of Berkley's Creek.  After reading the story together, the children came up with some questions that the book provoked. These included:

• Who looks like me?

• What do Bunyips look like?

• What do I look like?

• Why are Bunyips black?

• Why is the Bunyip sad?

• Do Bunyips exist?

We voted on 'Why is the Bunyip Sad?' as our question to explore. Here are a few of the things that we came up with in discussion:

"It didn’t have any friends"

"Because no one liked him, they thought he was ugly"

"Because it wanted another one"

"It didn’t know what it was"

o   How do you know what you are?

"You’re a person because you have 2 arms and legs"

"Bunyips don’t exist

o   How do you know bunyips don’t exist?

"You can’t see any"

"If they’re invisible they can’t exist"

·        So if something is invisible does that mean it doesn’t exist?

"I don’t know but I think [so]"

After some discussion a few children started to disagree about whether or not the bunyip was real, and how they knew they were right.  How do you know?  is one of the most important questions we use.  Here are a couple of the children's descriptions of how they know about the world.

"It’s in your head and your eyes and comes down to your mouth"

"That’s right, your brain tells you everything"

Environment Day

Well done to all of us for caring for the environment by not turning on any heaters all day!

The weather was particularly bad, but it was the teachers who seemed to find it the most challenging – the kids were fine in their lovely woollen knits! 

Well done and thank you to Chris who spoke at assembly on Monday – you were great! 

Thank you also to Peta and Libby who ran an interactive Magic Compost show on Tuesday with all of the Preps throughout the morning. It was a lot of fun, as you can see from the photos. We feel so lucky to have such supportive, creative and involved parents in our community. 

 

In support of the environment, we now share with you the messages that we received at school and encourage you to take them on board:

• eat locally grown food that is in season, 
• grow your own food as much as possible, 
• start a compost heap (build the layers like lasagne) or worm farm if you haven’t already, and 
• layer up and wear wool instead of turning on the heater.

Donations of jars - no more needed

Dear families. Thank you so much for your donations of jars – we now have plenty and need no more. Thank you!