Tuesday, 9 November, 2021 - 10:45
What’s the Problem?
Firstly, let’s be clear, reading, writing, maths… essential. There are Grade 3’s that haven’t spent a full year in school since Foundation, Foundation students that cannot hold a pen, and secondary students that have scarcely entered a secondary school building.
But past this, self-isolation and a lack of engagement means that many children are either too anxious to learn or disinterested and unmotivated with education.
Hearing daily reports of my friends’ children’s having daily meltdowns and knowing that child psychologists are fully booked until March next year, is all the evidence we need. But how do we focus on all of this AND their academic learning in 7 weeks!
What’s the solution?
Self-regulation, growth mindset and creativity are just SO important right now. We need to help children connect with others, practice their interpersonal skills and reminding them that learning is fun and creative.
Does this mean that we push the essential academic skills aside? No. We need to lead with creativity and innovation. Provide creative cross curricular opportunities and provide practical and real-life problems where children can apply these skills and see their importance and benefit first hand.
Science is my favourite way to do this. Through science we can take an holistic approach to the curriculum, considering every element of the child’s needs. Science encourages problem solving, collaboration and creativity. But it is of course regarded as one of the most academic and essential subjects too!
Give me some ideas!
Here’s a practical example of what I mean when I talk about merging subjects. Take a science lesson and group the children to encourage problem solving, sharing and communication. Now it is collaborative. Introduce measurements and theories (Maths) and follow a key writing structure, introducing new words and writing up the observations, results and discoveries along the way (Writing).
To perform the experiments, children must follow a procedure (Reading and Comprehension) …and this is only the core subjects that I’m linking here, the list goes on. But most importantly, these lessons are fun! Kids feel inspired again, they laugh, build confidence, become creative and work within a team.
But where to start with so little time?
Keep it simple! Start by writing down all the key topics or interpersonal skills that you need your children to focus on. From here consider topics that encourage some of the more obvious subjects, before planning additional tasks to extend and diversify the learning areas.
Of course, your cross curricular approach doesn’t have to be Science. But if that’s the road that you would like to go down, here are some links to some free Science resource ideas. All ours have curriculum links included and have been created to empower educators with some tools to get started.
Whichever way you go, just keep the learning fun and collaborative. We have a generation of children that are craving real life interactive experiences. A generation that need to understand their emotions and how to regulate them if they are going to make it in the real world.
Resources to Download: https://www.supremeincursions.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Resources.-Science-Bonus-Pack..pdf
Source: Supreme Incursions www.supremeincursions.com.au