Wolf Haven International Skype

Today 5/6A and 5/6B Skyped with Wolf Haven International, we found them through Skype in the Classroom. Wolf Haven International (WHI) is an organisation in North America that works for wolf conservation to protect wolves and their habitats.

WHI is in Tenino, Washington, USA.

View Wolf Haven International in a larger map

This term our Big Idea for Challenge Based Learning is Survival. The essential question we are trying to answer is 'What Impacts upon Survival?'

Our guiding questions are-

• What is survival?
• What affects our chance of survival?
• How can we help endangered animals survive?
• What is happening to cause habitat loss?
• Why do people struggle to survive in other countries?
• What affects the survival of our natural environment? 

We participated in the Skype in order for us to find information to help us answer some of our guiding questions. We started at 9am Melbourne time, which was 4pm Tenino time, yesterday! We met Erik, who works at WHI and knows so much about wolves!

Some interesting facts we learnt were:

• A dingo is a sub-species of a wolf
• Wolves are a part of the dog family, also known as canid family
• The best way for wolves to survive is to stay in areas where their are no humans
• The prey on weaker animals in herds when they are hunting
• Only two human deaths have occurred as a result of wolves
• Wolves are hunters but they also scavenge food
• Wolves teeth are designed to tear meat a a part
• Wolves are an apex predator which means they are at the top of the food chain
• Wolves live in packs that hunt other animals

Some new and interesting vocabulary we discovered-

  

We will be presenting our work completed about this Skype soon...stay tuned! 

What do you know about wolves? 

What other endangered animals do you know about? 

Writing Poetry with Janelle Lee

Today we had a fantastic opportunity to work with a real author. We did this by using Skype to invite Janelle Lee into our classroom. Some of us remember Janelle from when she Skyped with Miss Spink's class last year.

Lately in writing, we have been investigating poetry. We have read a wide variety of poems and identified different devices poets use. When writing poetry we have experimented with onomatopoeia, alliteration, simile, metaphor and personification. We have had a go at using repeating refrains to add rhythm. We do that by counting the syllables in each line.

Today with Janelle we were challenged to write a poem about a 'journey'- this could have been any journey we have been on, physical, social or emotional. The structure of our poem had to have three stanzas, the first two were quatrains and the last a couplet.

During the Skype we 'live tweeted'- this was a great way to share what we were doing and how we were feeling.

Stay tuned for our poems when they are finished, we look forward to sharing.

Asking Questions When Reading

As readers who are actively engaged in the reading process we need to question what we have read before, during and after reading. This not only engages us in what we are reading but helps us with our comprehension. When we ask questions while reading, we are more likely to remember important information and details.

In reading, we have been learning how to generate questions throughout reading. This process has helped us to get our knowledge ready before reading, review important points, evaluate the quality, make connections and refine our predictions.

How does asking questions throughout reading help you when you are reading? 

Describe a text you are reading and tell us about some of your Before, During and After questions. 

Worm Farm

These past two terms my CBL group, The ‘Democraticz’ have been working extremely hard to come up with and complete our solution to 'Respond to an issue you want changed'. Our solution was to get two worm farms donated to our school so we can learn how to compost our “fruit” scraps into the worm farm. So we emailed and called Katie Nuthall (waste and litter officer for Craigieburn Council) to come to our school on Tuesday the 21st of May and she explained some of these things...

• What goes into the worm farm
• Worm tea
• Worm farm stories (layers)
• Worms reactions to different things
• ADAM

A- D- A- M- stands for...

A-Aliveness

D-Diversity

A-Air

M-Moisture

This acronym is the main areas to look after a worm farm and keep the worms safe and healthy in an eco friendly and a environmental way.

By Chelsea

Why do you think having a worm farm at school is important?

Do you know any interesting facts about worms?

Would you consider having a worm farm at home?

Making Connections

Reading:

Our learning intention today was to connect with the text to form a deeper understanding of what we read.
Our Success criteria was to make the following connections:
- Text to Text
- Text to Self
- Text to World
- Text to Media.

After making connections with the whole class using the text 'Full Moon Barnyard Dance' we went off and made connections with our own books that we have been reading.
Below are some of the connections we came up with.

 By Cody

 By Tiffany

 By Makeelly

 By Chelsea

By Fatat

What text are you familiar with that you can make connections with?
What types of connections do you make frequently?
Why do you think it important to make connections with a text?

CBL Reflection

Both 5/6 classes at ACPS have been working really hard to present their findings for their CBL research. The quality of work that has been produced is fantastic. Students have enjoyed researching their own questions and constructing new knowledge from their findings. The challenge solutions that have been carried out are of a very high standard! Both Mrs Cotter and myself are very proud of what all students have achieved. 

Your job now is to celebrate and reflect on all that you have achieved. Your task is to comment on this post. Describe your solution to 'Respond to an issue that you want changed'. Use the reflection prompts below to guide your thinking. Try to answer at least one prompt from each section. You are allowed to add your own thoughts as well. 

Reflection Prompts

Understanding the Challenge

• Explain the big idea, essential question, and the challenge.
• Why is this important to you and your community?
• Who does the challenge impact?

Guiding Questions/Research

• What were the most valuable guiding questions?
• What kinds of surprises did you encounter during your research?
• What resources were the most valuable?

The Solution

• Describe the process your team went through to come to your solution.
• What things did you try that didn’t seem to work?
• Why do you think your solution will make a difference?

Executing the Solution

• How did you put your solution into action?
• How did you measure its effectiveness?
• What obstacles did you face during this process?

Teamwork

• What challenges did you face working as a team?
• How did your group utilize individual talents?
• What have you learned about collaboration?

Review of Your Work

• Could you have solved this challenge differently?
• What would you do differently if you were to take on this challenge again?
• What is one thing you learned that you will never forget?

Connections

• What did you learn during this process that you didn’t know before?
• How can you apply this process and/or your solution to other similar challenges 
in the world today?
• What skills did you learn that apply to other areas of your learning?

Explaining Everything!

Over the past few days in Maths, we have been solving a range of worded problems. When solving problems we know there is a process to follow-

We have begun using the app on the iPads 'Explain Everything' as a way to work through different problems and explain how we have solved them. 

See and listen to some of your work-

By Campbell


By Chelsea

By Elysse

We are looking forward to making more videos to explain how we solve maths problems!

What did you think we did well?

Do you think we explained these problems well or do we need more practise? 

What problem solving strategies do you use when solving word problems?