Do Good Feel Good - Inquiry Term 3

 We have started back with a hiss and a roar, diving straight into our new Inquiry - Do Good Feel Good! It's really more of a question than a statement ...... as we ponder does 'doing good make us also feel good'? We have started this week with a couple of visitors. Through our Philosophy for Children sessions we've also started thinking about who we care the most about in society and why that might be.  We're looking at this Inquiry from a variety of angles leading into taking action.

This Inquiry is also backed up by the research into Positive purpose and its effect on young people. McKnight and Kashdan (2009) looked into purpose in life and found (unsurprisingly) it is important in terms of your physical health as well as your ability to cope in stressful situations and persevere. We know that learning how to lead a meaningful life is going to help our students as the grow up.

We had a go at designing our idea of Utopia. We asked, "what would our ideal world look like?" There were a number of food-based geographical features as well as plenty of mansions!

We will be revisiting this in the coming weeks.. Hmmm I wonder if these ideas will change?

Visit from the Red Cross

 Yesterday Jake from Red Cross came to talk to us about what they do and how they do it. Red Cross is a worldwide organization focused on helping refugees find new homes and fit into new countries.

Jake told us that they also do work to help with natural disasters, for example when someone's house breaks, they help them relocate.

We learnt that Red Cross is more than just helping refugees but they help with things such as, visiting people who are lonely to keep them company, helping refugees with doing everyday things such as shopping and catching a bus because sometimes their country has a different economy and that  can affect shopping experiences.

Luca and Oli

'Jake from Red Cross spoke to us about where refugees come from like places with war. He made us think about how we would feel if we had to leave our homes suddenly. Some of the refugees face a lot of challenges with learning language and also having enough money.' - Jack

“Our inquiry this term is called ‘Do Good, Feel Good?’. We are looking at  charity, altruism and social action to effect positive change.  This connects to our School’s foundation in Positive Education, really digging down around Positive Purpose”.

The Science Fair

We enjoyed celebrating our Phizzing with Physics Inquiry with the juniors. We have found new and exciting ways to share our thinking/ hard work. We shared through posters, comics, movies, essays...

What a fantastic way to end the term!

We have been really proud of some of our students who have been working on their projects from home. We managed to talk to a few online!

Positive Health at the ASB

It was great to get back to the ASB for a day of sports. We set goals around Growth Mindset and trying new things. Trying new sports is beneficial for our bodies and minds! When you learn new things, your brain grows. When you process a positive experience it enhances Positive Emotions too!

We took part in gymnastics, tchockball, turbo touch and pickeball. 

Celebrating Matariki

Nau mai Matariki, nau mai Puanga, nau mai te tau hou Māori - We welcome Matariki, we welcome Puanga and the Māori New Year.

 

Matariki / Puanga is a time for learning and storytelling and an occasion for people to come together and celebrate what has been achieved in the past year. A time for whānau being together, celebrating a new year where everyone can flourish and remembering friends and whānau we have lost over the past wee while. 

We met on the beach to see the stars and say karakia together. 

Visual Maths

During Number Talks, students develop Mathematical language and skills by engaging in each other’s strategies. When we learn Maths we develop understanding through visual models - these are mental pictures that explain a particular idea or concept. This helps all students to access the learning where they are at. A visual model can be as simple as a using the slices of a cake to represent fractions, but they can explain some pretty complex ideas in advanced Maths too.

Showing children 'quick images' and asking them how many they see is one way of developing subitising. An alternative way of developing conceptual subitising is to show children a number of dots and ask them to say how they see the number.

Number Frog and the Number Line: Most young learners are introduced to the number line at age 5 or 6. It's a valuable visual model for progressing learners from counting one by one with their fingers towards memory recall of their number facts.

Arrays: When learners first encounter multiplication they are usually introduced to Arrays. Arrays are great because they also explain why it doesn't matter which way round the numbers go in multiplication. E.G. In the case above you can see that four rows of six is the same as six rows of four - which explains why 4 x 6 is the same as 6 x 4 - otherwise known as the commutative law.

The Hundred Square/ Number Spider and Number Fly: allows learners to create patterns out of ideas in Maths.

 We can draw to help us to solve mathematical problems

Phizzing with Physics : Science Fair

 

Our students are working away at their own Inquiry projects at the moment. They have four steps to work through before we can celebrate next week. We have been learning about a famous physicist and the research they do/did. 

We are finding new and exciting ways to share our thinking/hard work. We are sharing through poster, comic, movie, essay the list goes on. 

We're looking forward to sharing our finished work next week.

"Everyone is getting closer and closer to their finished projects! The Science Fair is in only one day too, so everyone is rushing to finish their projects in time. We have had 1-2 weeks of just researching and making prototypes. For example Oli’s group is researching gravity and Einstein.Doing all this stuff with science helps us learn research skills. We hope you can watch the Science Fair online!"

- Nicolas