Off to a Great Start

How Can We Make This Community a Place Where Learning Thrives?

By our Torrens students

To start our year, Torrens was given the question How Can We Make This Community a Place Where Learning Thrives?

Mrs Paladino discovered a plant in our classroom. It was dry and dead. The roots were broken and the leaves were falling off. The plant was not thriving. We talked about what might have happened to the plant.

Then we found a plant that was thriving and we brainstormed all the reasons why the plant might be so green and alive.

We linked this back to our learning and talked about how we can thrive as learners. This means how we can do our best learning. 

Our teachers let us in on a secret to help us thrive. It is called the 3Ss. This stands for Surroundings, Social and Self. 

- Tristan, Lila and Riley

SURROUNDINGS:

We are learning about different learning spaces in our classroom.

A cave is a place where students can sit alone in a quiet space. A cave is good if you want to be by yourself or if you need to calm down.

The watering hole is where a little group of people can work together in a small space. They learn from each other.

The campfire is a place for big communities. We mostly have one speaker at a time and we learn from the story tellers. A campfire is good for meetings.

We are learning how to choose our workspaces wisely to best help us thrive as learners.

- Annie, Ethan, Jack T and Curtis

SOCIAL:

Social is how we work together as a team, whether that team is you with a partner, in a small group or with the whole class. Social is how we learn from each other, talking and helping others as we thrive to be a great learner.

We have been exploring how to positively interact with other people, particularly those that we don't work often with.

We are learning how to make good choices about who we work with and how we communicate and treat others. This includes how to talk nicely with others and solve problems or arguments.

- Bella, Hunter and Noah

SELF:

Self is when you are telling yourself positive things to help you thrive as a learner. Self means try your best and never give up, even when things get hard. The brain is like a muscle and the more you use it the stronger it gets.

- Elena, Jack C and Mitchell