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.