The Sunroom 8s & 9s
Sunroom
We are so very glad to be sharing some of our thinking and learning in the Sunroom with you all, from the gorgeous surroundings of Arlington in 2021!
What do we value at Arlington?
(leveraging our classroom agreement)
The children considered what spaces and or objects were of importance or value to them here at Arlington, as a way of exploring the concept of ‘value’. They produced art works and expressed their thinking in relation to this concept. We also introduced the notion of being ‘custodians’ of our place or object and the group recorded the behaviours that would be entailed in such a role. This process later helped inform the children’s thinking around what we value as a community of friends and learners, including behaviours that are so important to a harmonious
Community when developing our Sunroom Essential Agreement.
‘Give Peace a Chance’
We are exploring our current unit of inquiry, “The efforts to maintain peace and resolve conflict can help humans live harmoniously”, through the conceptual lens of ‘perspective’. This unit falls under the transdisciplinary theme of Sharing the Planet: An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and with other living things; communities and the relationships within and between them; access to equal
opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.
As a group, the children considered the following questions:
“What spaces are shared at Arlington?”
“Who uses the space?”
The children then asked various ‘users’ of a given space the following question:
“What problems exist for you because this is a shared space?”
Maths - Number Sense, Vertical Addition
So far this term in maths we have focused on using concrete materials to develop number sense. The children have enjoyed consolidating their number facts knowledge through card games and have been learning and practising setting out addition sums using the vertical method. They have used place value boards to create the addition sums using MAB blocks and then transferred this into a written sum in their maths books. To complete these addition sums, children have drawn on various strategies such as their knowledge of ‘friends of ten’ (i.e 8 + 2 or 3 + 7), doubles facts ( i.e 6 + 6 = 12) and near doubles facts (i.e 5 + 6 = 11, because 5 + 5 = 10).
Lockdown Maths Investigation
The children shared the approach they used in this task during the brief lockdown.
“What unit of measure did you choose to use?”
“Was it easy/hard to use?
The questioning was designed to lead us into a discussion around formal and informal units of measure, as well as establish an understanding of the need for a universally accepted unit and language of measurement.
In order to explore the question in the classroom, the problem solving strategy of ‘making a model’ was modelled!
The children then used the strategy of ‘do a drawing’ to support their thinking and application of the skills required to answer a similar but simpler problem to the original lockdown task.
Michael Price and Sophie Dall'Ava
8s & 9s classroom teachers
sophia.dall'ava@preshil.vic.edu.au michael.price@preshil.vic.edu.au