Learning Integrated

Room 9 has been looking at ways to integrate their learning. We discovered that our literacy time can easily be integrated into our inquiry learning.

The Starbursts reading group read a story called 'Nikau - the Coldest Palm in the World', School Journal, Part 3, Number 2, 2000.

Before we read the story our group had to brainstorm all the things we knew about plants. Mrs Isaacson gave us a graphic organiser called a KWL -

K stands for: what do we know?
W stands for: what do we want to know? and
L stands for: what have we learnt?

I know lots about plants Alick

I wanted to know everything about plants Oscar

Wonder how many plants there are? Eva

Then we brainstormed some words that related to plants. These words were recorded in our group modelling book. Our group read the story and added other keywords to our initial brainstorm.

We relooked at the words we had first brainstormed. Through our inquiry studies, Room 9 has been looking at things that move. Our main focus for this has been water.

We had put water down as a keyword in our brainstorm. The Starbursts group discussed how plants get water, why they need water and how much water do they need?

I know that the roots on a plant help to get water out of the ground Bella

Our follow up task, was to plant our own plants and watch how they grew. Mrs Isaacson gave us some flower seeds to plant and our student teacher Cassidy helped us to pot them.

Putting on gloves meant we could touch the soil. We filled up little containers with soil, made a hole for the flower seed and then covered it up with more soil.

So that we would remember which flower was ours, we wrote our names on a plastic tag and stuck it in the soil next to our plant. We then watered our flowers and put them in a sunny spot in the classroom.