Personal Writing

Every week we have two personal writing sessions. Genevieve and I each describe the genre that we will be modelling on Monday and the children choose which group they want to be a part of. They go to the same teacher and group on Tuesday when the focus is on editing. Children are free to choose what genre they write and are expected to edit their own work before conferencing.

We have a writing area full of tools such as:

Inspirational images and photos of the children on the Merri Creek, in Project Time etc.

Word pockets and useful word lists

Writers' Toolbox with dictionaries

Sentence Stems (sentence starters)

Last Monday during sharing time we asked children what genres of writing there are. We then took a survey of what genres they had written.

Yesterday we repeated the activity, adding a few more genres that they had thought of.

We are very proud of our writers in Prep. Children are encouraged to publish selected pieces of writing that they have edited and conferenced. We have a special section in our writing for such pieces of writing.

Come in and read some our published books!

Goldilocks

We are working towards the children running their own book clubs with a focus on critical literacy.

After reading the book, we discussed whether or not we believe that Goldilocks is a criminal or not. We then took a vote.

We held a debate to convince the undecided. The children who voted yes sat on one side, the children who voted no sat on the other side, and the children who voted ‘unsure’ were the audience.
(Speakers alternating from each side, for and against.)

• Goldilocks IS a criminal because she broke into the house.
• She’s not a criminal because she didn’t break the bed.
• But she broke the chair.
• I don’t think she’s a criminal because she’s a kid. 
• I think she’s a criminal because when she was a young kid, she was still bad because when she was a little bit older she still was bad. She has gone into someone’s house without even asking.
• She’s not a criminal because she just went into the bed.
• It wasn’t her house. She went into the bed and she broke the chair and she ate the porridge.
• If she was a kid, she wouldn’t be bad ‘cause kids don’t do naughty things. 
• I think she’s a criminal because she could’ve waited for the people, the bears, to come back to the house to go into the house and ask if she could go in the house and go if she could do that.

To my surprise, the ‘against’ team convinced more people!

Merri Creek

Thursday 6th September.

We have recently extended the boundaries, for both the space that we can explore, and the types of activities that we can do. We agreed that climbing trees is ok, as long as we don't go higher than Nerida's head, and only use branches that are thicker than our wrists. 

A group of children were extremely concerned about rubbish floating in the water, so we also extended our boundary a little to the edge of the creek, as long as a teacher is present.

The children were combined their fascination with building (and any kind of large stick) and a concern for safety and made a 'hand rail' leading from the top of the hill to the edge of the bank, so that they knew they would be able to climb up again. The children also tried making a bridge across the creek, but were unable to find a stick long enough. 

Once we go there, it took quite a while to 'fish' for the polystyrene foam floating up and down the water. This was complicated by the fact that the foam kept changing direction, floating one way and then another. The children decided this was because of the currents and the wind.

After retrieving the rubbish, we tried measuring the depth of the creek, using sticks that we found along the bank and in the water. This was difficult, because many of the sticks were already wet, and so didn't show the point that they had been dipped to. Others were drier and so clearer to see, and we made some approximate measurements using these. 

The children are also becoming increasingly fascinated by small details that they find on the plants. Here are a few of their observations:

It feels like soap

It feels like white chocolate to me.

It feels like a kind of silkish, soapish, um...

And it smells weird. 

More patterns! It might be worms 

I know this is wood worm because of the holes 

Why are there all these scratches?

It might be possums or squirrels.

It must be possums because squirrels live in England. 

This plant has been eaten. I think it's caterpillars because they eat the leaves. 

They are also becoming very keen photographers, it's fascinating to see the things that they observe. Here are a few of the photos of which they are most proud:

Look, it's got purple! 

Thank you to Michelle, Mia, Katie and Jeremy who came along with us this week. Thank you also to the little brothers and sisters who came along with the big kids.

Philosophy - “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein

We have been looking at The Giving Tree over the past couple of weeks both for philosophy and for our inquiry into survival. Here are some responses to the book:

That’s a sad story, because the boy killed the tree.

Why did it keep saying that the tree was happy?

• The tree was offering.
• The tree changed her mind. He chopped down her stump and then she was just a stump and she wasn’t happy.
• The tree was happy even though it was cut down because she wanted the boy to live, that’s why she was happy.

Also as part of philosophy and our inquiry into survival, we are exploring and reflecting upon our rights and responsibilities and the rights of nature. I was amazed at the children’s understanding of our rights in our first discussion of what our rights are (apart from talking about our right to learn and our right to feel safe).

What are our rights?

• We have the right to play
• We have the right to build houses
• We have the right to run
• We have the right to eat and drink
• We have the right to sleep
• We have the right to a home
• We have the right to have pets.
• I think us and trees and nature have the same amount of rights
• I think people have the right to do anything
• We have the right not to kill nature
• We don’t have the right to starve people
• We don’t have the right to kill nature
• We have the right to eat
• We have the right to build cubby houses in trees

Discussion about one child’s claimed right – Do we have the right to have pets?

• Human beings have the right to have pets ‘cause people need guide dogs to guide them ‘cause they might be blind.
• Same as child x because I have a cat at home; because if you get bored you can play with them.
• We have the right to hold pets but only if you ask the owner. You can’t take them from someone else.
• I don’t agree - I don’t have a pet.
• You have the right to get pets from the pet shop because they sell them and it’s all right to get them.
• We have the right to have pets because I have (several animals) and my mum bought them with her own money... they were saved by people. They were sick or something. I think that we have the right to have pets because if we don’t they might get sick or die.

Do we have the right to keep birds in cages?

• I think we have the right to keep birds in cages if the windows or doors are open.
• We don’t have the right to keep them in cages because then they can’t fly around and they don’t have fresh air.
• We do have the right to keep birds in cages because some cages are only metal squares and they can get fresh air and still fly around a bit.
• I think we don’t have the right to keep birds in cages ‘cause if they’re in cages they don’t have much room. 
• If we keep birds in cages, and we forget to give them water or food, then they’ll die (thus, we are making them dependent on us for their survival).
• We can keep birds in cages if they are endangered because then we can protect them and keep them safe. 

We then spoke briefly about protected breeding programs and then releasing them back into the wild.

What are our responsibilities if we do keep pets?

• We have to give them drinks, food, and names because, like for rabbits, they need this little bottle that has a tube, and if we don’t let them have any of that, food or drinks or names, they’ll die.
• You can have pets because they need help from humans, like food. Our responsibility is to give them food and water.

Survival Inquiry

How do you know it’s living?

Recently the group that has been inquiring into survival spent a session out in the yard. We explored the living things in our school environment and reflected upon their threats to survival and survival strategies. Children worked in pairs to choose a place for their hula hoop and examine all of the living things within it.

A plant - ‘cause it needs water and sun.

Plants - because they have roots and roots are like the legs and the petals are like the arms but if you chop the stem, off they die.

Grass - because it grows.

Shadows - ‘cause they move

Maths Investigation - Ramp It Up

We started our maths investigation by brainstorming the different ways that toy cars can move. We discussed the forces involved, particularly push and pull forces.

The challenge was then given: how far can you get your toy car to move using a ramp? Children were able to choose their car and whether to work alone, in a pair or a small group of three. We used blackboards as the ramps.

There was lots of rich learning – lots of children used rulers without prompting, children hypothesising, testing, observing and drawing conclusions about the gradient (they talked about ‘steepness’) of the ramp and the types of forces.

Next time we will share our discoveries from last time by watching videos and photos, and explore the variables involved and how we are measuring in a consistent and fair way.

Kitchen Garden - potatoes!

Recently we had some time with Margaret and Kathy in the kitchen garden. As we were lucky enough to have them for both the morning and second block of the day, children could choose to do Kitchen Garden or Project Time for either or both of these sessions.

In the first session, we prepared roast potatoes. We cleaned the potatoes, picked rosemary, parsley and sage, peeled garlic and then mixed these through the parboiled potatoes and drizzled them with olive oil. In between all of this, we read “The Potato People” by Pamela Allen.













After recess, we admired and learned about the work that was done at the working bee, like the frog pond and plants. We also sowed some seeds and watered our plants on the terrace.






While we were eating our big lunch, Margaret and Kathy passed around trays of delicious roast potatoes. Yum!