As a follow up to the last post on home learning. This week I had some amazing responses from the children to the idea of fairness.
This child has used a simple comparison between his perspective and his mother’s perspective. I love how the child is learning from his mother and that the learning conversations are continuing at home. What is brilliant about this particular piece is that it starts off with small everyday concerns about having extra homework through to big problems facing society such as deforestation and access to clean water. I am going to borrow his idea and provoke the children into thinking beyond their own circle of concern.
This child has made connections to this concept through two books. She made a connection between August the central character in Wonder, a previous class read aloud and Melody, the lead character from Out of My Mind the novel she is reading with with her group as well the concept at hand. She is able to understand that being fair doesn’t necessarily mean being equal and has looked at children with disabilities to help her explain this concept. Major ideas for a Year 4 (grade 3) child.
A couple of takeaways:
Strong books in class – particularly read alouds – will sustain inquiry long after the book has finished.
A good provocation will offer more opportunities for the child to learn. The child who looked at disabilities could easily turn her log into a action research, looking around the school from the perspective of a disability. The child concerned about a lack of clean water could think about things from the perspective of the governments in countries where dirty water is a problem.
Good home learning will inform planning of future learning engagements in class.
Teaching the Teacher 