Exploring Learning Environments

This morning we have been exploring great learning environments, leading into the vision we are creating this week for our own classroom.

We have been sharing stories about positive and negative learning experiences we have had in the past. This year we have at least one child from each of the senior syndicate classes last year, so we can listen to lots of experiences.

We imagined a classroom where lots of great learning is taking place. What would we see? What would we hear? What would the teacher be doing?

With these questions in mind, we worked in groups to come up with ideas. Many ideas were later shared with the whole group, some of which were peacefully debated. The noise level was one of these. Should a classroom be a very quiet place, or does discussion help us in our learning?

A great session sharing opinions and experiences…

City Development Inquiry

Beauty, Fun, Play and Adventure is our theme for this term.

After completing some personal interest projects, the whole class undertook a new inquiry about making Christchurch beautiful. Following the Canterbury earthquakes, the Christchurch City Council has a number of significant projects they are currently working on. We researched modern buildings, created our own designs and then built 3D models of real buildings that people are working on in our city. 

Today we are proud to have our work on display in our school art exhibition. We left a comment box and have received some great feedback from visitors. 

Check out some photos we took along the way…

Parachutes

Check out some footage of the testing phase of our recent parachutes inquiry...



This project allowed us to revisit the skills needed to manage our own inquiries, which will be very important going into our theme for this term, when we will be designing our own projects relating to our talents and interests. The big question is "How can I express myself?".

We are showing great planning, research and self-management skills. It is amazing to see how far we have come and we are looking forward to directing our own expression projects.