The students are avid readers, and since this session was planned to be a simple catchup and brainstorming session (to start the term off), we let them read. We followed this up with a quick chat about what they were reading (similar to that activity in a previous session, where they had to recall words from their readings and turn them into new stories).

We let the students choose between two main activities; planning/designing for the creative cubbies from last term (with the intention of upgrading the design and finding ways forward to add more), or brainstorming things they know about board games. The second activity is preparing for the change in plans we had for this term - initially the students were going to be developing a mini-series, but we decided to shift that to board game design around the themes of flooding and bushfires.

It was valuable taking the time to upgrade the creative cubbies (now evolved into the Creative Communities) so that it looks better from the outside window, but also the students are now more aware of what to add to it, and it’s starting to grow into something really cool! We let them add new things as part of the reflection activity for today.

With the newly designed Creative Communities weekly reflection, the students will be adding a range of new things to it each week. For this week, they added various small animal habitats. As part of our discussions during the session, relating to places animals live and the natural structures required, we decided to follow that up with the students designing/drawing their own little animal habitats, and writing the creative habit they used on their drawing.

We decided to shift from mini-series to board game project because we would need more time to work on their film conventions/fundamental knowledge, a judgement made based on the quality of their films/adverts/promos from the Creative Election activity. There is a loose plan to include a filming/advertising component at the end of this board game project, where they have to create a short advert promoting their finished game.

They are VERY excited about making a board game (which makes me equally as excited), but are a little too eager to dive into coming up with design ideas rather than take the time to plan things out. Standard stuff, really. Next week will definitely be all about researching board games and doing early planning, but nothing too in-depth just yet.

Having shifted to a board game design project, a lot of the prep for these sessions will be already done, as I’ve got powerpoints and plans that I use in other work. We’re planning to engage parents and wider community during the development process by asking them to bring in spare cardboard boxes. The students will use these to construct their prototype games.

Kirsti is doing a callout to parents for spare cardboard boxes, for use with the students’ board game prototypes.

While the mini-series idea would have been better for showcasing at an assembly, the new board game idea will provide extra engagement beyond the assembly, by bringing parents and wider community members down to play the games with the students.