Units of Inquiry

Skill development in service to Inquiry

For each of the Units of Inquiry described for our Primary children, it becomes clear just how inquiry learning gives purpose to curriculum. For the Lighthouse Keepers, narrative text is in service to helping their friend Matilda; for the Lofties, data gathering and data representation is in service to understanding and exploring materials; for the Sunroomers, persuasive text becomes an imperative as they consider the Sovereign State of Arlington; and for the Peppercorns, script writing and the features of scripts and stage directions are in service to the long running tradition of conceiving a Play for the younger children. 

Lighthouse Keepers

The Lighthouse Keepers current unit of Inquiry is ‘How We Express Ourselves’ and will culminate in a self-devised play. To get there, they have been reading the Roald Dahl book, Matilda, and this story is driving their conceptual play world. As they read, the children began to get a sense of the world that Matilda lives in. Then Matilda sent the children a letter explained that her brother had torn up her library card so she could no longer borrow books to take home. She asked the Lighthouse Keepers if they could make some books for her to read until she could borrow books again. The children took care to carefully plan their stories and sent them to her. She returned the books with a letter thanking the children. 

The class had a special visitor, Charlotte Jowett, who is a professional storyteller. She came to help the Lighthouse Keepers design and perform their very own play. She first read them ‘Where the Wild Things Are.’ She gave the children beautiful fabrics which they could use for costumes. Then the children helped her play the story by playing the characters, the setting and the props. Charlotte created a plan of the play to show the class how they can create their own. 

The children then created their own story about a princess with a zoo in her castle. She forgot to lock the gate when she went on a holiday, and all of the animals escaped! When she returned, she searched for the creatures, but they didn’t want to be found. She decided to make pancakes to lure them back, and their scent filled the air. The animals followed the yummy smells back to the castle. A ninja guard then shut the door behind them. The princess made an agreement with the animals that they could go on adventures while she was on holidays so they could see the world. 

Now that the Lighthouse Keepers understand the process of making a play, they’ve formed small groups to create their own. They have offered to perform their plays to Matilda. They know she loves stories so thought that she would enjoy their performances.

Loft Room

In the Loft Room, students have been studying, observing and learning about artefacts and cultural items that are foundational to understanding Aboriginal culture in Australia. These items are challenging their developing awareness of living lightly on the planet, and in balance with our surroundings. Boorun's Canoe is a story of cultural pride and the continuation of knowledge that has been carried from time immemorial. It shares a the unbreakable link of Victorian Aboriginal Culture, Community, Country and Identity. Boorun's Canoe is significant, not only for the Mullett family's role in the evolving cultural practices of Aboriginal Victoria, but it also reveals the strength and vitality of Victorian Aboriginal Culture as it is lived and practiced today. It is a tangible connection to the past and to the present; reminding us that the voices of our Ancestors can still be heard.

Through exploring artefacts, the Loft Room Maths inquiry has taken off. The children went on a hunt around the school grounds looking for a range of materials and objects both natural and human made. Students were given a recording chart that set out a table with 6 different types of materials to look out for, which included: Metal, Paper, Fabric, Wood, Plastic, and Glass. There were excellent conversations had around the categories of material and which objects fit these. After the materials hunt, the children did a final count of the categories and their tally marks and spent time discussing as a group observations and patterns that emerged. This has led into the mathematics of visual representation of quantity through graphs. 

Sunroom

Persuasive argument and politics go together like toast and Vegemite, so the Sunroomers are discovering. They are continuing their unit considering if Preshil should become a country, under the theme "Where We Are In Place And Time"

Wrestling with different political systems, preferential voting and the necessary elements for a society - overseen by a government or otherwise - has driven this inquiry. Through discussion and building of collective understanding the children are preparing to launch into an exploration of the workings, trappings of a liberated and independent state. With freedom comes great responsibility. 

As they delve into the structure of Persuasive arguments, and the shape these take when captured in text, they are doing so to persuade the reader that their priorities for the burgeoning nation of Sovereign State of Arlington are the correct ones. 

For those foolhardy enough to throw their hat in the ring and seek election as a politician, campaign speeches are one way of honing persuasive argument. Backing up your arguments with facts and examples, crafting a conclusion that wraps up the main points, and ensuring that the reader is well and truly persuaded is essential. 

Peppercorns

The Peppercorn's camp experience on Yorta Yorta Country, framed their Unit of Inquiry into how past and enduring civilisations continue to shape our world. 

However, for the Peppercorns this term, the skill in focus is necessary to service the tradition of Playmaking. The children are exploring script writing as a text form, and learning about, and working on, character profiles, stage directions,  and dialogue. Because the process of Playmaking is richly collaborative, the review and edit of these elements is implicit, and within that the skills of giving and receiving feedback are also nurtured and developed. 

While sworn to secrecy, the Play will be a a tale of triumph, with many vignettes woven together through imagination and a touch of surrealism. Plays are a creative and social enterprise born from imaginative play. Playmaking has endured because it encapsulates what we believe about the children’s voice, their right to be self-directed. It reflects our trust in their ideas, their attempts and their courage, and it celebrates their effort.