Lighthouse Fives
The Lighthouse children (and teachers!) were super excited about returning to our beautiful Lighthouse classroom in Term 4. We have been busy getting reacquainted with each other and the school grounds and settling back into our routines.
During our Term 4 inquiry, the Lighthouse children will be exploring the Transdisciplinary Theme How We Express Ourselves. We will be investigating the shared Central Idea: Imagination and meaning can be shared through storytelling. The conceptual lenses we will inquire through will be Form and Perspective. The lines of inquiry we will be investigating are: Stories can be shared in various ways; Stories have meaning; What makes a story interesting?
To get our inquiry started this term, we thought about the different ways stories can be shared. Shadow puppets, puppets, movies, plays, books, mimes, dancing and words were some of the methods we thought of.
After our mind mapping, we decided that we would like to explore telling stories using puppets. We decided we should each make our own puppets and we also decided on what success criteria we would follow when making our puppets. The success criteria we decided on was: the puppet must be an original creation (not a copy of another character), it must have a handle and it can't be longer than 3 paddle pop sticks. After we finished making our puppets we chose a partner and worked collaboratively on making a backdrop (setting) that we could use when performing our puppet show. Next we worked together to come up with a story that our puppets could act out. We had to think about how our story would start and finish as well as what problems might occur during the story. Last of all, we acted out our stories for the class and we offered positive feedback for our classmates after each performance.
Next we will explore the oral story telling method, perhaps the oldest method of storytelling in the world. We will explore our First Nations stories and investigate the meanings behind some of these amazing stories.
Since returning to school, the children have done a great job watering and caring for our native plants garden in The Pines. It is looking fantastic and should be very well established before the really hot weather arrives.
During maths time, we have continued exploring different methods we can use in order to add and subtract numbers, such as mental strategies, number lines and counters. We will also be carrying out surveys and collecting data relating to our Unit of Inquiry. We will be surveying others to find out the most popular ways to listen to stories and also what are the features of stories that make them interesting.
This term we will once again be joined by Melissa, as she carries out her final teaching practice. We are lucky to have another enthusiastic professional in the room helping us with our learning!
We are all looking forward to a fantastic final term here in the Lighthouse.
Clinton Morgan
Fives Classroom Teacher