Prep Bulletin
A snapshot into Investigations
Learning Experience Overview:
Investigations fosters a student-focused learning environment that promotes curiosity and provides your child with the opportunity to develop skills such as: Thinking critically and creatively, speaking clearly, posing questions, developing a rich vocabulary, collaborating and making connections to the real world.
"Childhood is filled with natural wonder and curiosity. The Learning environment must
reflect a classroom and outdoor space that inspires a sense of wanting to investigate,
to find out more and to explore"
- Kathy Walker
During Investigations, students explore a range of activities that are created based on their interests. Our spaces include: sensory experiences, construction, maths, reading, writing, visual art, role play, science, health and physical education, drama and dance.
Whole:
Focus: Spelling
At the beginning of each session, we have a short focus where the students explore a specific concept. This week, we used the ‘Linger Finger’ strategy to notice digraphs (sh, ch, ph, th) on our Investigations display. The teacher prompted the students to think about:
- Where do you see the digraph?
- Where is it in the word?
- If it is /th/, is it making a hard or soft sound?
- What sound does the digraph make?
Focus Children
Three Focus Children speak to the class at the beginning of the session informing their peers and teacher of why they chose their item and their investigation intentions. Students use the anchor chart below to guide their presentation and support them in giving context to their ideas. The teacher provides some prompting through questioning to determine what the children are interested in and then how this can be transferred into a real life scenario.
Reporter and Photographer:
In each session there is also a Reporter and Photographer. The teacher allocates a task to two children per session. The role that each child is given to fulfil their role is specific to the Big Idea, personal interests or a learning need and alternates between a mathematics, literacy or wellbeing intention. Below is an example of this week’s Reporter and Photographer tasks and students’ work samples:
Reporter and Photographer roles are engaging, intentional, fun and special for each child. The key intentions of both roles during Investigations for children include:
• Facilitating children’s social engagement and interactions with their peers (particularly with those who they may not normally associate with)
• Extending thinking and problem solving skills in relation to finding evidence and examples of Investigations linked to current learning intentions in literacy and numeracy etc.
• Providing additional opportunities to extend an individual child’s skills in literacy and numeracy
• Including aspects of technology as a tool for reporting and recording
• Personalising the role in order to scaffold and extend each child’s skill and interests
• Providing opportunities for building self esteem and resilience
Example of photographer: Take pictures of digraphs.
Example of reporter:
Small:
Students select an Investigations area that they want to explore. Each area is filled with a learning intention, interesting words and materials that relate to the chosen theme. These provocations are carefully selected by the teachers to encourage exploration, curiosity and questioning. Each area also fosters important skills such as collaboration, communication and social skills. Displayed in these areas are 'I am' statements which will reflect occupations in the real world that people do and statements that promote the skills and dispositions we want our students to develop.
For example:
As an engineer, I will problem solve, plan, design, draw, persist, take risks....
As a botanist, I will observe, explore, draw...
As an author I will plan, imagine, communicate, express, think of my audience, stretch out words, use punctuation...
During Investigation sessions, the teacher spends one on one time with the Focus Children, scaffolding their learning and supporting them to discover different methods of finding information about their chosen topic. The teacher asks lots of open-ended questions to encourage the child to think more deeply about their interests. The focus is on the process, rather than the outcome.
Example of focus children work:
Whole:
The Focus Children share what they have learnt and discovered with the rest of the class, practising how to express their ideas in a structured way. They also articulate any challenges they encountered and how these were overcome. This sharing time emphasises important speaking skills such as articulating ideas clearly, using appropriate vocabulary and maintaining eye contact with their audience.
What you can do now to continue the learning at home from this experience:
- Ask your child about their Investigations this week (What area did you find most interesting? What have you discovered? Where do you want to go next?)
- Promote curiosity in your child through asking open-ended questions
- Encourage your child to check their Investigations roster regularly to stay organised
- Discuss with your child what they would like to share
- Use the ‘5 W’s’ anchor chart to practise giving context to ideas
- Read the reflection sent home with your child and discuss their glow (one thing they do well) and their grow (one area for improvement) when they are FC
Alyssa, Ruby and Julian
Prep Team
Alyssa.Thermos@education.vic.gov.au