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. 

We went with an active warmup in the outdoor/undercover space, with elements of cumulative rules and patterns - i forget what the activity is usually called, but it's that thing where the participants get into a circle, then one by one, going around the circle, the participants have to perform an action, but add a new action, developing a sequence that grows after each subsequent participant adds their action.

The kids had a lot of fun with this, some of them coming up with quite the formidable dance routine! The activity was intended as a simple exercise in rules, patterns, and collaboration. Somewhat preparing them for thinking about game mechanics and rules for their board game project.

We started our board game design project officially today, with the first step: research! I set the students up with some very basic introductory concepts to board game design, then posed the question; what is fun? I like to ask this question in the context of game design, because, of course, games are meant to be fun! So to start our research off, I set the students up with my game, Bin Off. I asked them to consider what elements they enjoyed, and what they didn’t, by way of getting them to think about what they can include in their game that might be fun.

Aside from them enjoying playing the game, they got really into specifying the points during the game where they had fun, and where they didn’t. Beyond that, they also came up with ways that they could have more fun, if certain additions or adjustments were made.

Pulling out the scrap paper from last week’s reflection activity, the students were tasked with writing a creative habit and drawing an animal on these small bits of scrap paper, then sticking their creations to the Creative Community wall. One idea behind this was that, last week they drew habitats for animals, so this week they do the animals. Additionally, the aim is to ensure they continue to use the same collection of scrap paper for the remainder of the creative schools program, so that they learn to draw smaller and more concise designs, rather than use entire pages (this will also help us fit all their drawings onto the Creative Community wall!).

We’re a little concerned that the games we’ll get from the students may be too similar - too many card based games, or monopoly clones. To that end, I will plan out a few template games, which use some other games (not monopoly, UNO, or… snakes and ladders) as reference material for their design.

The students are still very excited to make their game. We’re eager to keep them on a structured planning path, to ensure they don’t go overboard with mechanics design, and end up with a completely broken game. 

My design philosophy around making games requires plenty of research; playing games. So the students will be ‘tasked’ with playing lots of games between now and the time I next come in! Although, we have asked them to continue considering what is fun about the games they play, and the things they do in other parts of life too. Understanding what they enjoy helps them incorporate that into their board games they’ll be making!

Those cardboard boxes will be coming in from parents over the next few weeks, but we’re trying not to ask them too early - partly because the classroom doesn’t have that much storage space, but also because we want the students to continue planning properly before they dive into cooking up half-baked prototypes.

We’re looking at having our Creative Schools showcase on the 4th of September, where we invite parents and wider community into the class to see the board games the students have developed. In time for this showcase, we’re hoping the students will be able to create some ‘How to Play’ videos of their games, teaching new players about the rules, but without too much input from the students themselves (as in, the students should be able to setup the video in front of the new players, and very few extra rules need to be mentioned).

Shape Spotting 

In pairs

Do a visual scan of the room. Point out rectangles, squares, and triangles you can see. Estimation some of the perimeters of the shapes.

E.g.

• Height of a window

• Distance across the room

• Width of a chair

Compare your estimations with your partner, are they similar or different? 

What are you basing your assumptions on?

What unit did you choose to describe the perimeters with? 

Kinaesthetic measuring

In groups of three:

1. Each person is take a step and measure the length of your natural stride what a tape measure (do not exaggerate it)

2. Choose ONE from square, rectangle, triangle

3. Tape out a shape on the floor, it can be larger or smaller than your stride 

4. Walk along the lines of the shape and use your stride distance to estimate the perimeter of the shape

5. Measure the actual perimeter dimensions with a tape measure and calculate - how good was your estimation using your stride? 

6. Each person should perform the task, with help from the group 🙂

We verbally did the reflection since we were in the library today and will add our coloured sand to the class next time. We verbally identified collaboration, inquisitiveness and imagination as the habits we used 🙂

Using the bigger space of the library, it was good to have the space but Jasmine and I had to move around more which took a little time, and moving the class to a new location took 10 minutes. If the new location is routine and kids know ahead of time it shortcuts this. Today was the first time and we have one other session planned in the library so will be shortcut next time.

Jasmine randomised the group choice by writing a number 1-6 on their hands. Worked well and they got to choose pairs for the warmup then didn’t complain for the groups for the main activity.

They seemed to like the comparison of their estimated measurements. Varied widely from 1m difference to nothing!

Breaking it down into steps and coming together made them more productive. Had 3 new students to the class.  

We are trying to do more specific curriculum stuff this term. We have planned out most of the sessions already, with a focus on creating digital assets and moving image animations using Canva.

Jasmine randomised the group choice by writing a number 1-6 on their hands as they worked on. Worked well and they got to choose pairs for the warmup then didn’t complain about the groups for the main activity! We will try to do this for future group work too.

Nothing for next week.

School facebook 

Compass (intranet) to raise awareness with families 

Andrea and Jasmine to share photos with each other via google drive 

Scissors- Fabric- Button (Paper, scissors, rock) 

We made a circle, and together came up with our own whole body moves for the new scissors, fabric and button. Followed by a discussion about why each object beats the other in our version.

Split into two teams, with 10 hula hoops between them. Then they had to hop into the hoops, once the opponent is reached they stop and have a scissors, fabric, button battle, and the winner continues forwards whilst the other goes to the back of their line. A team scores a point for every person that crosses and we were all cheering our teams on as they battled. 

Where do our clothes come from? 

Split into groups around a hula hoop filled with clothes and some buttons on the side. The students were asked to research the tags, where the clothes in front of them came from. 

There was a big world map on the floor, and students then put a button on the country that each item came from, we ended up with this button data that we all gathered around to discuss. 

We had a discussion about why we thought the clothes came from those countries. They were first asked in their groups to have an initial think and see what they already knew. It was amazing to see their depth of knowledge already! And also see how Jennie so beautifully lead them through this investigation. 

In another lesson this week the students will look again at tags and research the materials involved in the making of the clothes, and start to think about processed or natural materials. 

Then we finished off our hungry caterpillar overalls for book week, they are going to look fabulous. 

We will be sticking in a photo of these discussion remnants in this weeks reflection journals. 

It was such a beautiful lesson today, I left feeling incredibly inspired by the students' bravery in potentially “not getting the answer right” and giving it a go. Also incredibly inspired by Jennie and her skills as a teacher, not only how she runs the classroom, but also how she challenges them to be responsible and brave and creative learners. 

Engaging them; Tactile, and also the investigative nature in tasks. 

Next lesson we will be looking at weaving, and how the materials are entwined together. Tennis rackets will become looms as we make fish/ underwater creatures out of recycled textile strips and cardboard. 

Tanya- needs to make a prototype, cut more strips

Jennie- has sourced the cardboard, to get the balls for the eyes

It was great to have Stephanie the assessor with us today and to hear her initial positive feedback. 

Market stall has been approved by subi markets! Yay!

Groups of 6

1. You will each be given a number between 1 and 4 (for 24 students) or 1 and 5 (for 25-30 students)

2. Without using your hands or voices, find your group and sit together

3. Create a 6 word environmental statement to bring awareness to human impact on biomes

4. Each person must say one word

5. You have 3 minutes

1. Split your groups into 3 people (speaker 1,3,5 and 2,4,6)

2. Discuss in your group ways to feed the world population as it increases and is unable to keep up with the current food sources. Come up with 3 options - 3 minutes

3. Create an elevator/sales pitch for something we don’t currently consume as food (a non food item). 

• Why should we consume this as food

• Benefits to humans

• Benefits to the environment

• How is a solution to reducing human impact on the planet?

1. Each person must present part of the pitch

Each group has a challenge

1. Use a post it note throughout the session to provide a specific example of how your group could increase their use of each creative habit

2. One habit per post it. Refrain from copying examples directly from the poster. 

Successes

• Removing the option of getting into groups without hands or mouths resulting in lots of foot stamping

• While I was setting up, Fiona had them get themselves in order of age without words and also put them into groups using the counting method for the first time

• We are having to doing much less administration and thinking with

• The time restriction on activities is enabling them to think quickly and be more direct and concise in their responses.

• Transition from Creative to Teacher

• Improving at listening to each other when they are presenting

Challenges

• Putting them into groups of the correct number quickly proved very challenging for both Fiona and myself but it also gave us lots of practice, usually at getting it wrong! It also meant that the groups were totally random and ended up being made up of non friendship groups. 

Students are extremely good now at getting into groups without worrying about who they are with. They are less worried about sharing ideas with the whole class. Today, every person provided an answer and they also all stood up (in their elevator) to present their pitch. Their creative thinking (imagination) is increasing and we are now pushing the critical thinking of ideas as they begin to stretch beyond the first response, implementing persistence and being inquisitive. They are also responding to this in their reflections which is increasing awareness of the creative habits and how they are being utilised both individually and in groups. We particularly liked their ideas today for how they could continue to feed the increasing population including genetically engineering cows to be 50% bigger, cannibalism, cutting down serving sizes, charging a tax on leftovers and developing a machine to preserve food and make food last longer 

‘Eat plastic as we already have microplastics in the body, it will reduce pollution and provide a Barbie doll look’ … student group response

1. Groups of 3 based on states and territories - WA, NT, SA, TAS, VIC, NSW, ACT, QLD

2. Each group will be given one of the ten Australian deserts. Can you work out where on the map it will need to go

DESERTS

1. What are the features of a desert?

2. How many deserts are in Australia and where do you think they are?

3. What plants might you find in the desert and why? Choose from the selection on the table

4. Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBKc7Kv1e_o&msockid=3431123c764611f093848197df2de624

5. What animals might you find and why?

Create your own desert animal - snake, lizard, bilby, skink, dingo, red kangaroo, thorny devil, dusky hopping mouse using the wire, paper and masking tape. What does it need to survive?

What creative habits would your animal need to survive in the desert?

Successes

• Working in their pairs of one good reader and another who is good at looking. This was reasonably effective at grouping based on skills, allowing one person to read out loud about their desert location and the other to find it on the map

• Most students used persistence and discipline in making their desert creature even though in some instances, it took them a few times to get the hang of obtaining the shape they were after using the wire.

• Engagement in the making activity

• Working together to guess the states and cities around Australia

• Including words for the more advanced students and images for those who can’t read

Challenges

• There are still the very quiet students (usually those with lower levels of literacy and understanding) who require much more assistance with both instructions and participation. They will usually come to an adult in the hope that they will take over rather than implement persistence by trying a second or third time. 

• ‘This is good enough’ …student

• Not listening (or possibly unable to listen) to instructions

• Most students opted to copy the example demonstrated rather than create a different creature, except for a few who made snakes

The disparity in the academic and comprehension levels within the class can result in different levels of engagement. Some will put a lot of effort in and in some cases, like today, create two creatures, whereas others have a go and then give up or take it to an adult in the hope that they will do it for them. If sessions are simplified, this can help however it can also result in the brighter and more outspoken students finishing and being disruptive with materials and around the classroom requiring more adult attention which takes it away from the quieter students who also need help. The sessions, like today, where there is more creativity and hands on making is having better participation results overall however there also seems to be a difference between where they were at the end of last term, and where they are currently in regards to creative habits and class cohesion. This may also be because they have moved classrooms, the classroom next door sometimes requires staff assistance particularly if there is a relief teacher and there are a couple of student changes meaning we have new students who are not yet familiar with using creative habits. 

Revisit creative habits - warm up, attention during the session

Allow more time for reflection at the end and possibly change this from the flowers

Have activities for early finishers