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I really liked all of the ideas on the garden creativity challenge. Ways to use this for an art project:
I like the idea of the children doing art work with stones leaves etc challenge. I think I will do it as an art lesson next year. I might start with nature mandalas, we can link it to symmetry, we can take pictures. The children could then do free art and choose something of personal interest to them; car, football field, jersey, food, makeup etc.
Natural paints- I love the idea of this; I wonder how good the product would be.
In September we will be learning about Australia and the aboriginal people. They will learn about how the Aboriginal people used natural paints much like all other indigenous tribes. I would tell the children we are going to create our own natural paints and use them to create a flower.
We would do a nature walk to collect our materials Berries, Grass, Leaves, Flowers, Dirt etc. ( I will bring in berries).
We would use mortar and pestles to grind down the different items and use some water/corn syrup to help make the colours.
They will then design their flowers and share their paints with each other.Design and make projects could be considered an art and Stem project I think.
Shelters:
Design and make a shelter for a toy, I know my classes would really enjoy this. We would look at different types of shelters. Go through wondering questions based on the pictures. The children would plan their shelter outside looking around at different natural items available to them. The children would then make their shelters, present them to the class and evaluate their shelters. H.A could try and make them water resistant.
Design a new school grounds; taken from the wellbeing resource. This would be a 3d map and the children could design a key.
Design and make a bridge/tower: the power of the triangle pdf. Starting with a cube doing sticks and marshmallows then onto a square based pyramid; then they use different materials to build one.Lesson:
Show a presentation of various famous bridges around the world/in Ireland. Show them the different pictures of the Birr Castle Demesne. Give them some background knowledge. Ask them what they notice. Tell them that repairs are still needed periodically, ask them why they think that is.
Show the children the video “A farmer builds his own bridge” 1991
Ask the children to find a picture of a famous bridge for homework and add it to a sway. Examine the photos and ask the children some of the wondering questions. Give them time to discuss with their groups.
Complete the river, book, paper investigation.
Complete the amazing triangles activity with marshmellows and sticks.
Task: Design a bridge at least 75cm in length. It must be suitable for 2 lanes of traffic (toy car size) and a pedestrian path (lego man). It must be high enough for a boat (rubber duck) to travel underneath.
Planning: Each small group will be given 2 toy cars, a lego man and a rubber duck. Children can also select materials from the shared resources (card board, plastic, card, paper etc.)
The children will make the bridge.
The children will demonstrate their bridge in action for the rest of the class.
Each group will evaluate the final product.
Seasonal biodiversity project
I think the flower insect count mixed with the pollinator plan could work very well in the senior classes as a biodiversity project.
As bees are in hibernation for a lot of the school year it would be important to start this plan in September. I think you could I would start by teaching the kids about parts of a flower and then pollination.
I would then introduce them to the pollinator plan. We would go through who the main pollinators are in Ireland and what they need to survive.
In September and October you could use this time to do flower insect counts and record what we find. This would give us time to learn about pollination and how to help the bees.
In the months where the bees are in hibernation we could be working on our plan to make our school more bees friendly. We could create the map as suggested in the plan, identify the areas that are pollinator friendly and create signs to protect the areas. We can also work on creating even small pollinator friendly areas. In March – June we could start doing our fit counts again and graph our results. Hopefully we would see some small improvements. We could then teach other classes how to build on this plan and keep the improvements going.
We started a stepping stones forest in our school on the last week of school so in time this will be a great area to use.
Integration:
Maths recording data, representing data.
English: oral language, speeches/persuasive (talking to other classes)
Science: plant and animal life, caring for the environment
Geo: The local natural environment, caring for the environment.I think I’m going to do the scavenger hunts this year. I’ve downloaded them all. I sometimes think of them as more jnr school ideas but 5th and 6th love getting out and doing 1 a month would be a lovely treat for them; I think I would put in in the wellbeing time allocation as I don’t know how to put it in a fortnightly plan for 5th/6th.
I also like the idea of doing bird feeders for design and make I think the kids would enjoy this.
This sounds lovely, it sounds like you have great interest in biodiversity which I’m sure makes the kids very enthusiastic about getting involved.
I like the lego idea too, I did a little bit of lego in 6th this year and they loved it so great to get ideas of how to use it in lessons.
Children I find can struggle with map work. I therefore think it is so critical to play a lot of games before getting the children to design their own maps.I use grid square maps with objects on them and get children to start at one spot and follow the instructions using north, south, east west; (I was suprised teaching a 6th class last year how many children didn’t know how to do this – it only took about 15 minutes to master and they really enjoyed the game). Even in 6th they love to play simple hide and seek games using maps inside the classroom as introductions to lessons. I’ll hide something record it on a map on the interactive whiteboard and a child will be selected to find it using the map, this will advance to a child leading this and next pair work.) We then can do a similar activity outside. You can give them a map to follow with missing information, this usually sparks good questions .
I make use of the school fire plan map and photocopy an a3 one for each pair. You can play several games using these; following a route to find the tresaure, orienteering and simple oral language games.Aerial photographs:
Using google maps the children can look at aerial photographs of the school. We will discuss what an aerial photograph is. Children will be given cameras to show different angle views of several objects. Discuss birds eye view and draw the school from the birds eye view.
3d maps
I think they are a cool idea. This is where the children would get a chance in 2s or threes to plan a 3d map of the field. The children in pairs would make a plan following the questions; materials? Space? Variables? Etc. Then they could go out and make it. We would do a gallery walk and could even play some games using the 3d maps.
Drawing maps
Children will then go out and map a small section of the school i.e yard and field. We will come together and compare different maps. Higher achievers in Maths could be stretched to measure the yard and do a drawing to scale. The next time they will be in charge of mapping the outside of the school. This is much harder and they can use google maps and aerial photographs to help them with their shape. Children will then design their maps and laminate it and play a treasure hunt/orienterring game with a group.I would start with the trigger as suggested in the resource: Hang a glass prism in the window. See how it forms rainbows on the walls. This would definitely interest a class. I think the kids would immediately wonder about rainbows and how they are formed which obviously will take several different lessons to understand the different concepts but I will explain the light being broken up into 7 colours lesson.
I would start with the rainbow spinner experiment as suggested. The children will enjoy how simple this experiment is and hopefully will end up understanding “not only can white light be broken up into the rainbow colours, but also that the rainbow colours can be brought together to produce white light”. I would link with maths by getting the children to draw a circle with a compass dividing 360 by 7 and get them to measure out the angles with a protractor. Children would then colour the sectors and pierce a hole in the middle,( I would use the pencil option as it seems easier). Children would record their results in their SESE copies.
Lenses:
I would do the activities as listed in the book. However I would do them as stations giving them prompt questions and a diagram to full out as they go. This would make organising resources easier and hopefully keep them engaged.
Start with the straw in water activity. Look at the straw from various angles and the children record what they notice. Hopefully they will identify the straw seems to bend at the surface of the water which is known as refraction.
Mirror writing activity for reflection. Can also do the worksheet on pg 3 of reflecting light
Give the children a convex lens and let them identify what it does up close (Magnify). Let them see what happens when they hold further away. Identify ways in which we use this lens in real life.
Investigate concave lenses. Let them do the same thing and identify what happens up close and far away.
For the final station I would give them different types of telescopes to mess around with. This is just to spark wonderings on the connection and hopefully make them interested and excited for the next lesson.
As a class we would discuss our findings and that would bring us to a new lesson in designing and making a telescope. I also love the idea of designing and making a periscope, I think this would be a lovely science week finish to the topic.I am going to improve collaboration. Here is a link to my sway https://sway.office.com/gDRQuwfspKKifVkh?ref=Link
This is an example of how I would improve Collaboration in most SESE topics.
I would start with a KWL on one note. We would then start learning about the topic and children could add to the KWL as they go. We could record whole class notes on one note. Flip grid could also be used for the kids to ask or answer discovery questions. They could complete at project at the end using on note to collect the info and sway to create the presentation.
I use literacy roles in my classroom. In the senior end because more content is expected these can be hard to manage. However by having a shared document I think this would become way more effective. Children could create their work on one note or something similar and present their information to the group. The children will be able to use these shared ideas to further understand the novels they are reading. I also would only have to view 1 notebook per group so it would make my monitoring easier.
The benefit I see in using digital formats for collaboration in group work is I feel it gives more accountability for each member of the team to contribute and ‘pull their weight’. Often when written one person gets stuck with the majority of the writing, one with the art and the rest offer advice- however now everyone can have equal involvement in a project/assignment.
Different ways I can use digital technology to enhance learning are: Using presentation platforms such as PowerPoint (or sway) with audio, picture and text to bring interest to a topic. Having a blog to allow parents to see what’s going on. Digital technology can be used to access a wider range of books (online libraries as well as paid subscriptions). Teams will help teacher collaboration of resources and ideas, one note will help with student collaboration during project work. Forms will allow me to assess the children and evaluate, record and monitor their results quickly and effectively.
We are working on Gaeilge at a school level. I have been suggesting that we need to start collaborating and sharing resources more. I think Sway could be a good starting point. The Gaeilge team could add useful links and resources for each theme onto a sway. Each resource/link would have a brief description, meaning you don’t have to waste time looking through resources you don’t need. This would be an easy way to start collaboration and teachers could continue to develop the sway by adding their own resources.
During Croke Park hours; teachers could split into year groups and use one note as a whiteboard for reflective enquiry. This is a great way to collaborate and the facilitators can combine the notes and share and use these to identify commonalities. For example if 6th class are struggling to grasp decimals and 5th class are struggling with fractions you could identify that these issues could be linked.
Gathering evidence from a variety of sources: We were mostly using Drumcondra testing as evidence. However now I can see that forms would be a great additional way of gathering evidence. You could set up tests for each class to identify specific areas that need improving also. What would be great about this is you could continue to test and evaluate more frequently to see where improvements are being made and where further work is needed. These forms are pre graded also and the data is collected for yo. This would make it so quick and easy to continually monitor, evaluate and identify.
By developing my use of technology it will allow the school to use different technologies to collaborate and gather evidence for SSE.Different ways I can use digital technology to enhance learning are: Using presentation platforms such as PowerPoint (or sway) with audio, picture and text to bring interest to a topic. Having a blog to allow parents to see what’s going on. Digital technology can be used to access a wider range of books (online libraries as well as paid subscriptions). Teams will help teacher collaboration of resources and ideas, one note will help with student collaboration during project work. Forms will allow me to assess the children and evaluate, record and monitor their results quickly and effectively.
We are working on Gaeilge at a school level. I have been suggesting that we need to start collaborating and sharing resources more. I think Sway could be a good starting point. The Gaeilge team could add useful links and resources for each theme onto a sway. Each resource/link would have a brief description, meaning you don’t have to waste time looking through resources you don’t need. This would be an easy way to start collaboration and teachers could continue to develop the sway by adding their own resources.
During Croke Park hours; teachers could split into year groups and use one note as a whiteboard for reflective enquiry. This is a great way to collaborate and the facilitators can combine the notes and share and use these to identify commonalities. For example if 6th class are struggling to grasp decimals and 5th class are struggling with fractions you could identify that these issues could be linked.
Gathering evidence from a variety of sources: We were mostly using Drumcondra testing as evidence. However now I can see that forms would be a great additional way of gathering evidence. You could set up tests for each class to identify specific areas that need improving also. What would be great about this is you could continue to test and evaluate more frequently to see where improvements are being made and where further work is needed. These forms are pre graded also and the data is collected for yo. This would make it so quick and easy to continually monitor, evaluate and identify.
By developing my use of technology it will allow the school to use different technologies to collaborate and gather evidence for SSE.This is the link to a sample intro lesson on Australia.
https://1drv.ms/o/s!Anuub25tNwYmeGFmgAqY2b2xCnw?e=FDPKL2
Consider how OneNote and OneNote Learning Tools could support and expand deeper learning opportunities for students.
Although you can use this resource to collate your resources and teach lessons, I would mainly use one note for collaboration. My classes love doing project work in groups. Children could create project work through one note and be able to see and edit each other’s work in real time. This means children could work on the project both in and out of school. By using one Note children can each take charge of a section to study and create and design a mini lesson. Children can easily share their work and collaborate together. I would then let them teach their compiled mini lessons to the class.
We could also use it as a whole class to create stories/poems adding one line each. Or using it as a KWL chart where children can add what they know, want to know and what they learned about a topic.
