My Journey as an Inquiry teacher

Monday, 13 February 2017

Annual camp to Waters' Edge camp site

We went further into our inquiry of forces and motion by getting into some problem solving.

We tried to find different ways to solve this problem.

We went on to define and explain what the new words we learnt meant to us.

We moved on to experiment to understand what Newton was trying to explain through his laws of Motion. Learning about who was Isaac Newton

Understanding 1st law of Motion

Understanding 2nd law of Motion

Understanding 3rd law of Motion

We played a Kahoot Quiz to review what we had been learning ......

Click on the link below to play the quiz - https://play.kahoot.it/#/k/9b07a123-3472-4c6c-a188-917297af26c0

Brainstorming the reasons for why motion stops....

Experimenting to understand what friction is....
We ran our cars on different surfaces to see what effect it has on the motion of the car
The surfaces we chose were -
Soapy surface
Corrugated paper
Sandy surface
Smooth surface
Muddy surface
Wet surface

To further understand the connection between height surface and speed we went to the lab and experimented using ramps and different surfaces.

Stay tuned to see how we use this learning to identify forces in our day to day lives.

In Language, we continued to learn about biographies. We took up researching about famous inventors and scientists.

Gathering/Sorting information about the inventor we chose.....

Writing the first draft of our biography....

In Math, we continued to work with multiplication and strengthening our times tables

Highlights of our trip to Takve

Our Campsite

Day 1
Our campers at the station all excited and ready to set off on their 4 day camping trip.

Arriving at the camp site

Settling into our tents

Orientation time

Post lunch we had to wash our dishes at camp. We were put into teams and had to wash on rotational basis. Mummies we are so ready to help you at home now!!!!

Our first adventure activity of the trip - Zip lining over the hills

Watch us zip past toward the lake -

Relaxing in the evening with a game of nine pins with coke bottles

Day 2
Day 2 began with a game of Patax. This game required us to be quick and agile.
Roaring to go .....up and early...

After a quick game of Patax and some scrumptious breakfast it was time to test our balancing skills on the Burma bridge.

After that it was time to rest......really......
Are you kidding me ???

In the evening, we set off for some kayaking and cooling off in the lake.

After the cooling off, we gathered around for a game of Dum charades, with a twist.

Time for some star gazing at night
The stars have their own stories to tell.......

Day 3
We took on wall climbing post breakfast.
Its not easy as it looks......phew!!!!

Watch how we etched up slowly and steadily......

Post that we took up trying our hands at archery.

Aim.....and shoot

After that who can resist a cool glass of lemonade...

Well at camp we have to make it ourselves

After eating food it was time to rest.......

Rest ???? What does that mean.....

Filling water balloons for the water balloon throw ball

Throw ball with a water balloon!!!!!

Looks easy doesn't it? Well.....Well.....looks are deceptive.

Some more games.....Ring the cone

The last night we ventured out to experience sleeping in tents.

But before that .....Some campfire time

Can you guess what we saying?

Day 4

Our last day of camp. We woke up early to catch the sun rising.

Time for some hiking along the lake

Finally came to an end an adventurous and awesome camp. It was time to head back. We are already awaiting the camp for next year!!!!!

Monday, 23 January 2017

A new unit with the new year

We began the year by reflecting on the past few months at school and setting a goal for the coming semester.

Unit of Inquiry

Our fourth unit of Inquiry - Forces affect the movement and shape of objects.

We have been exploring a lot of science in the past two weeks.

Tuning in

To begin the unit, we did an activity to learn about the relative location and position of objects.

We used our communication skills to instruct our partner how to build the structure that we built using positional words.

We moved on to assessing our prior knowledge on force. We went outside and tried to move the chair. We then tried to move the chair with our friends sitting on it. The difference in the effort it took made us think about push, pull, swaying, muscle power, force etc.

Working on a Venn diagram on push and pull

Provocations.....
We were given different statements on sheets and we went around in our groups.....shared our thoughts and views......lastly as a group we wrote down what we had collectively thought.

We worked at different stations. We were provided with marbles and straws. They were laid on different surfaces and we were asked to move the marble by blowing with the straw. These stations helped us to understand that force of the air we blew helped move the marbles.

Some of our discussions/discoveries......

Finding out
We began with inquiring into forces that exist in our daily lives. Gravity is the first one we took on.
We watcehd some videos and made a KWl chart to help organise our thoughts and prior knowledge on the subject.

Post that we moved on to understanding the intensity of the gravity pull. We tried different experiments to understand that the pull depends on the mass of the object.

Language
As we will be learning and exploring a lot of science laws we though of taking up studying about some famous scientists who have discovered important things to help make our lives easier and make sense of the world around us.

We began by understanding what biography is.