Obstacle Course

As part of our athletics morning on Tuesday, we had to do an obstacle course. 

Part of it was easy as we have done some of these things many times. 

Other parts of it were challenging for some of us. 

The climbing wall was a real challenge - it was high, steep and we have to use both our hands and feet to pull us over the top. 

We had to use our Growth Mindset to overcome our fears!

Do we need rules for games?

In Autahi this term, we have been exploring about ways that we play as part of our inquiry learning.
Over the last two weeks we have been using a mixture of our imaginations and some ingenuity to help us create some games.
We had to use common equipment and think about what we need to know to play.
First we tried playing with no rules. It was fun for some people but many didn't know what to do or how to play. So we tried thinking of rules and instructions to see if that would help. More people were able to join in and have fun when we had a few rules. We came to the conclusion that sometimes playing just to play is really fun but when there are lots of people then we need some instructions and rules to help us.

Check us out enjoying the games we came up with.

Discovery Time

Discovery time in Autahi

During Discovery time in Autahi children are doing a mixture of things.  They are learning through play in which they make up games and play with their classmates, create pieces of art, build, construct, get physical and so much more.  This is an opportunity where children get to explore the room, their interests and guide their own learning.  They can choose from some provocations that are set out--some connected to our Inquiry focus others curriculum areas--or alternatively they can choose to play games, make, do puzzles, play music and explore.  At times we provide "brain challenges" where children are encouraged to try something that is practise towards some of our goals. 

Here was one of our provocations this week: It was a PE challenge.  In pairs children worked together to time for one minute while their buddy counted how many jumps, claps, toe touches and squats they could do.  

The learning here:

Measurement of time

Forward counting

PE and Health-- gross motor skills and fitness

Perseverance, Teamwork and Collaboration

Here was a brain challenge: how many different numbers can we build using the pipe cleaners and beads? Some children explored teen numbers, making tens and some more, others found different ways to make 10 and others explored how many beads could fit on a pipe cleaner.

The learning: Number Sense

Forward counting

Facts to 10

Teen Numbers

  

Literacy Play: These guys were having some fun with the magnetic words.  They were seeing how many they could read and were writing silly nonsensical sentences!

The Learning: Practise reading High Frequency Words

Sentence composition

Teamwork and Collaboration

Imagination: We have some pictures out to spark our imaginations and these guys decided to create their own pictures and stories about a dragon!

The Learning:

Creative thinking

Exploring the arts through drawing

Literacy links--writing 

  

Games and Puzzles: Some of us explored a new game we have, called Guess Who.  We have to put the masks on and ask questions to get clues about who our characters are.

The Learning: 

Asking questions

Taking turns

Active Listening

Team work

That's just a snip-it of the types of things we have going on in Autahi.  Our discovery time provides opportunity for following passions, trying new things, consolidation of concepts, working with others.  It also creates learner agency as children are able to choose their challenge, their passions, their direction.  Stay tuned to find out way more about our learning through play and exploration journey!

Further Taking Action and Positive Health

As further Taking Action from our Healthy Minds, Healthy Bodies inquiry we took a class walk last Thursday.  Before we set off we talked about the benefits of our walk and why we were doing it.  We were doing it to try and stay fit because through our inquiry we learned about our bodies and what they need to stay healthy.  Exercise was a big thing we uncovered.  We also found out that it makes us feel good too.  It helps us to concentrate and get our energy out.  

Our body inquiry fitted in perfectly to Positive Health--one of the domains of the Positive Education framework. 

"Positive Health--The Positive Health domain focuses on supporting students and staff to develop sustainable habits for optimal physical and psychological health. With the inextricable link between physical and psychological health, we know that practising mindfulness and resilience techniques will promote greater health outcomes. Mindfulness and resilience are also supported by the quest to help students to develop broader healthy behaviours in terms of exercise, nutrition, and sleep." Geelong Grammar School Positive Education Model 

Before embarking on our walk we discussed our mindset and how the uphill part would be hard.  We talked about what we might say in those hard moments. There were lots of, "This is hard, but I won't give up," "My body is getting stronger," and "I CAN do it!"

This is a visual we have in the class that we often check in on to make sure we're in the right frame of mind to begin something.  At times we catch ourselves thinking like the bottom of the steps, but every time we practise saying things closer to the top we get motivated to do it.  This helped us on our walk.  

We are planning to keep up the outdoors and the exercise and are hoping for more trips to the beach in the next few weeks! Thanks to all the parents who came to help!

This was the route we walked and the distance (it's in miles, but it's about 1.4 k).  There was very little complaining and along the way we stopped to check out our amazing view, taking a moment to have gratitude for where we live and we listened to the birds and spotted herbs.

Taking Action!

We have been hard at work on our inquiry into the body, its many parts and systems, how they work and what we can do for our bodies and minds.  We've learned all about bones and skeletons, our muscles, our digestive system, our lungs and breathing, our hearts and circulatory system and our brain--how it works, the many parts and growth mindset.  We have been exploring the power of our bodies as well as what they need.  After many weeks of going through our inquiry stages, we are at the stage of celebrating our learning by taking action and sharing what we have found out.

 As mentioned above we learned a lot about our body and the different parts.  What we realised along the way is that we play a big part in our bodies and our well-being.  We can do heaps to look after ourselves.  Some of the ideas the children came up with were that to stay healthy and happy we should eat healthy food, do plenty of exercise, drink lots of water, get rest and have fun. For our taking action children created their own healthy eating plans, exercise plans or persuasive posters about what they thought was important.  The class was buzzing with excitement and they were all busy creating. 

Creating fitness plans based on exercises we learned in class

The children had to choose which exercises they would do each day and how many reps they would do of each.  They had to write the numbers in.  This was a really good exercise for thinking about how much a number actually is because some people decided they would do 2,000 sit-ups and after trying 5 realised their plan may not be realistic!

 

Creating healthy eating plans and adding foods we are going to try to eat more of

 Creating persuasive posters about ways to get fit and what to eat

"Get Fit. Run as fast as you can!" "Eat Healthy Food!"

"Do Flips to Stay Fit!"

We used pictures and words from books about eating right, staying active and our muscles to get some of our own ideas.

 

And then some of us started to put our plans into action and we got on to doing our exercises.  This was really helpful in seeing if we had been realistic about our goals. 

 We also have begun sharing these plans in videos on Seesaw.  Help us stick to our plans at home! Let's do exercise together and eat lots of healthy food!

 

Football Friday

 On Fridays this term we have football lessons.  Last Friday was our first one.  We warmed up with different games.  We had to follow the leader and move like a certain animal.  Here we were crawling like tigers.

Then we played a warm up game called "Truck and Trailer" where we had to try to dribble the ball and follow our buddies.

After all of our warming up we had a game.  One team had bibs and one team wore shirts.  We had to use the skills we practised to play a game.  We tried to keep the ball out of our own goal and get it into the other goal.  We couldn't use our hands and we had to try to kick, pass, and roll the ball with our feet.  

Please help me be prepared for Friday Football by reminding me to wear suitable shoes!