Inquiry

 The current big questions that the neighbourhood is exploring are -

How does WHERE we live affect HOW and WHAT we play?

How does TIME affect HOW and WHAT we play?

 The students have each chosen one out of three experiences to help them explore these questions further on Friday. The three experiences are:

1. A trip to Wooranna Park Primary School to learn and share games with the students there. The students at this school come from many different backgrounds and the school environment is very different to Princes Hill. Our neighbourhood will be able to get a hands on view of how other students play, their varying cultures within their games and how that school environment affects their play.

2. An incursion from Judy McKinty who will bring some historical games and indigenous games from the Melbourne Museum. The students will be able to question and explore what materials were used to play games many years ago as well as what role the environment played in the invention of games.

3. An incursion from residents of the local Redmond Park retirement apartments who will be sharing and discussing games, rhymes and play from a few decades ago. One of the residents was even a student at Princes Hill Primary many years ago and we hope to get some insight into her memories. This experience will help to answer the student's questions about how games are passed on and how time has affected how and what we play. They may find that they still play similar things to what was in the school yard 50 years ago!




Videos about the learning that has happened in our inquiry so far...





Learning Agreements:


Below is an example of a learning agreement sheet that your child receives each week.
Learning agreements are part of the inquiry program. The year one neighbourhood is split into ten different areas during 'learning agreement time'. You can see the areas on the document below. The agreement is that during learning agreement time, your child will complete the activity assigned for the area they choose to go to. As teachers, we monitor the choices of the students and encourage them to experience different areas. The students are expected to fulful more than one area during the weeks inquiry but they do not have to go to all the areas. This is because how they are fulfilling the agreement (eg. making a stop motion film) may take longer depending on the choices of that student.

For more information on the Learning Agreements please see the 'Information' page.


Week 4 This week we have started to gather data on how we play and what we play. 'Data' is being collected using drawings, writing, photographs and stop motion animation. You can see the stop motion tab above to see these mini films made by students which show step-by-step how they play and what decisions they make when they play.  

Our inquiry has begun this week by running a rotation of three workshops. The workshops focussed on the questions: -What is play? -Where do we play? -What do we play?

 Where do we play?

Students walked around the school observing and recording where they thought play occurred in the school. A few questions arised as a result of this workshop - do year 6 students play more than preps? Do we play outside more than inside?

What is play?

The question 'what is play?' is a harder question than it seems. The students learned that in order to explain or define 'play' you can't use the word play. This led to a discussion about whether certain  activities are play (reading, writing, dancing?). We were able to make a list of what play is which will help us look at 'why do we play?' in the future weeks.




This page will be used to update you on what our neighboorhood is learning in inquiry. Our whole school inquiry is based around 'Culture'. In year one, we will be looking at culture through the concept of 'play' as this has been found to be one of the most motivating areas for younger students. As different cultures 'play' in different ways and learn through play, we will be also be inquiring into how we ourselves play and how that forms our culture.