Immersion - Inquiry - Inventions - Origami Sailboats

Making the waxed sailboats and sailing them against another Country was a great way of exciting the class. Afterwards we had to think about suitable modifications as some boats caught the wind and others didn't, and some sunk while others sailed to otherside. Great fun anyway!

A Hero in the home...

After all our visitors to share their ideas about what a hero is, the children realised that a hero is someone that impacts on your life.
A touching report .......

My Hero report
This term for inquiry we have been researching heroes and the qualities they display, wether they're life savers or just ordinary people with extraordinary hearts.I have selected you (my mum) as my hero because you display these qualities: Understanding, patience, hugs and kisses, listening, teaching, gentleness, providing, kindness, respectfulness, courage, humbleness, thoughtfulness, truthfulness, believing, and forgiving.I interviewed a few people that are close to you and this is what they said: You show the virtue of love to many people in your life, thats because besides being a mother of two, you are a wife, a daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, aunty, and a friend. You are always kind to the people that you meet and the people that surround you and you never think bad of anyone.You show determination by never giving up despite how hard things get. If you get a knock back or a rejection, you just bounce back up, ready for the next opportunity that comes your way. I admire you for your true bravery and gutsy determination, and the way you portray this is by always trying again, and always having a wonderful attitude.You are a role model to me and I thank-you for that. You are always there for me when I am down and always help me through any situation. Thank-you for everything, and mostly, thank-you for being my hero.
For my mum,By Sarah

Welcome back you lovely room 4 kids

I hope you all had a great holiday

Welcome also to Miss Tong who is going to be teaching in our room for 3 weeks. Aren’t you so lucky to have two teachers helping you to learn.

In our inquiry time this term, we are learning about inventors and inventions. For the next couple of weeks the children will be immersed in knowledge about this topic. Already they have a little knowledge about what they think inventors do.

In the photos the children know that they have to design or plan something first before they can be inventors.

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The children have now reflected on their designs and their finished products [thank you cards ] and have interesting thoughts on why they changed their original designs. I wonder if inventors have to change their designs to make them finish with a better product???? [ This is ? is on our Wonder Wall ]


The trip to see Mr Sketcher at Cheltenham Wrought Iron was another way of immersing the kids in the process of what an inventor does to make a product that he can sell to the public.

The power of the ACTION!

An inquiry is so much more than a research project.
The words the Trevor Bonds said still stick in my mind - it we end inquiry at a sharing or communicating stage then it is just a glorified research assignment.
The use of the task was key to our action this inquiry. Children knew right from the start, that there was going to be a consequence of their inquiry, something was going to have to happen and they had control over it.
It was great to see the children thinking carefully about how they could celebrate their local heroes - rather than a thank you afternoon tea, the children decided that it would become more of a treasure to the hero to have something concrete presented to them. As an action the children wrote a report as to why that particular person was a hero and created a certificate of appreciation or them. Not the most ideal, and they would have liked to create something further, but we simply ran out of time.
However, our heroes had no idea that this was happening, they were posted to the heroes and they recieved a nice surprise in the mail. Some heroes were quite shocked that the children held them in such high regard and we quick to minimise their actions and shine the light onto others.
Children found it quite difficult to use the information they got from their interviews, to convert it to information in a report was qute tricky for some, this will become a major teaching focus next term, not only for inquiry but also literacy.
Children received phone calls, heroes came into our last school assembly to thank them and official letters of thanks were received. This all made the action so powerful for the children, it made them realise that their learning meant something to someone, they were really chuffed. This in turn has made the children more motivated about shairng their learning and ideas.
Inquiry is simply getting more exciting as we move along our journey.

To follow is a sample of a report sent to one of our local heroes.

Our Hero – Mr Dear
This term for our inquiry we had to research what it means to be a hero and the qualities that heroes display.

I have selected you as my hero because you have shown
· Commitment
· Courage
· Bravery
· Loyalty
· Helpfulness
· Participation
· Caring
· Determination

We interviewed a few people about you and this is what they had to say…….
· You have to have determination when putting out a fire
· You have to use courage when you go into a burning building
· You have to be on call all hours of the day
· They have to do their best to save people from danger
· You have to have determination and courage to go into a burning building and save people in danger
· You have to use self management being on call and to be ready on time
· You have to sacrifice your time to save others

Thank you Mr Dear for being the best you can be and saving peoples lives and showing all of those heroic qualities.

Thank you