Inquiry+Learning+Examples+Term+Four

An example of Inquiry Learning in a year 3/4 Class

Stage 1 Activate: Our Inquiry Topic:  “Let's Celebrate”  Our key concepts for this unit are: Culture, Heritage, Customs and Traditions. Like our first inquiry unit, we started with a "Hook-In" Day. The children were told about 5 activities which would occur on the day and got to choose the 3 that they most wanted to do. They then rotated around the 3 different activities which introduced them to the three different concepts. This was a very successful day and the children were really 'buzzing' about the activities at the end.

As a staff, we had talked about the need to spend more time on the Activate stage so that children were provided with lots of learning opportunities to develop their understanding of the key concepts before they were asked to formulate a rich question. During the next 3 - 4 weeks, the children participated in the following activities to develop key concept knowledge: Learning Experiences:  **__A Kiwi Birthday__** – children participate in a kiwi birthday and then go and ask other children at the school what their birthday experiences are like. Record responses and compare and contrast to a New Zealand birthday celebration.


 * __Watch u-tube video -__** Mumu: a cultural celebration. Consider how this is an example of culture / heritage / customs and traditions and the role of this in celebrations.


 * __Ag Day celebrations__** – completing ag day task of cross stitch. Looking at ag day over time – possibly ordering photos on a timeline. Visit by a child who has raised a lamb to talk about what is involved. Interviewing someone about ag day in the past.


 * __Matadors.__** A look at the 60 minute documentary about Matadors. Discuss and share what it means in terms of culture / heritage / customs / traditions. Provide children with discussion points related to bull-fighting e.g: Some people think it is cruel for the bulls, what do you think? Children discuss and share ideas.


 * __Visiting Speaker__** - Mrs James from Italy to come in and talk to children about celebrations in Italy – what are the similarities and differences between celebrations in Italy and New Zealand.

**__Visiting Speaker__** - Charlotte from Sweden to come in and talk to children about celebrations in Sweden – what are the similarities and differences between celebrations in Sweden and New Zealand.

Stage 2 Wonder: The next step was to get the children to formulate rich questions which they would like answered. We used Kipling's 7 servants and Bloom's Taxonomy as a guide to help us to do this. The children came up with the following questions:

//**Why do we celebrate Guy Fawkes?**// //**Why do we celebrate Christmas?**// //**Why do we celebrate Easter?**// //**Why do we celebrate Halloween?**//

From these questions, the students then identified the key words in their questions and then came up with subsidiary questions they would need to answer, to enable them to answer the rich question.

SQ 1: //**What is the origin of Guy Fawkes?**// SQ 2: //**How did it come to New Zealand?**// SQ 3: //**Why do people feel it is important to celebrate?**// SQ 4: //**What people / cultures celebrate Guy Fawkes?**// SQ 5: //**Does everyone celebrate Guy Fawkes?**// SQ 6: //**How do people celebrate Guy Fawkes? – what are the traditions? – are they different in different cultures?**//

Stage 3 Explore: Subsidiary Question 1: What is the origin of the tradition?  1. Children identified key words in their first subsidiary question.  2. Using texts provided, children surfed the text to see if it addressed their subsidiary question. Next, they slurped the information using highlighters and then summarised the information into note form.  3. The third step was for the children to validate the information – how / where? Library books / encyclopedias / internet / people sources. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;"> 4. The children evaluated whether this information helped to answer their subsidiary question.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">The work done in stages 1 - 4 above, was recorded and kept as a profile sample for parents to see how the children were able to gather, sort and summarise information from a variety of sources.

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