Discovery Time

As the term draws to a close we reviewed the term's worth of Discovery Time. As a teacher I like to try new things and felt that Discovery Time was worth the effort in time and preparation.

I based our learning in Discovery Time on a workshop I attended while presenting a couple of workshops at the Cutting Edge Conference at the Mana Education Centre during the April Holidays 2010. 

The workshop was presented by Gay Hay and Brenda Martin who wrote the book Discovery Time about the philosophy and ideas of how to implement it in a classroom setting.

As I started our journey I blogged about it on my Edublog here.

Here is what the children thought.

PLUS.....
  • Everyone can get involved.
  • It's very creative- it's our favourite school day.
  • We can learn from mistakes and keep on learning.
  • You are the boss of your self and you can be creative.
  • We look forward to it every week.
  • We can tidy up on time, without a hassle.
  • There is a good choice of things to do.
  • We can improve ourselves- at the beginning I would loose things and now I almost don’t.
  • We are working together now and sharing more.
  • I like all the activities!!!!!
  • I like the bubble blowing because you do exciting experiments to see how you can blow even bigger bubbles.
  • Kids got on with it and we didn’t make a big fuss.
  • Making the Discovery models is really hard.
  • There is always something interesting to do and there is a good choice. I like to build stuff that we don’t get to do at home
  • I like to put the Lego robot together because I am good at doing it.
  • It is a good way to practice managing ourselves.
  • We always get along with each other.
  • I like the colourful, creative things that we do.
  • I focus more on the stuff that I am doing now than when we started.
  • I like Discoverying new things!
MINUS.....
  • Sometimes we don’t get other school things done.
  • It is expensive to buy extra things for the class to use.
  • It takes loads of time, resources and money.
  • Some of the things we didn’t get to finish in the time we had.
  • Some times things get a bit messy.
  • I get paint on myself.
  • We are not so keen on doing the reading and blogging options during Discovery because we can do that at home any way.
Here is our Discovery Time Journey...

http://moturoa.blogspot.com/2010/04/discovery-time.html

Click on the link to see three videos of our first Discovery Time- making ANZAC biscuits, Kin-x construction and the Robotics Kit.


http://moturoa.blogspot.com/2010/04/discovery-time-photos.html

Click in the link to see photos of the bubble making, baking, digital photography and connecting with the blog.


http://moturoa.blogspot.com/2010/04/discovery-time-2.html

Click on the link to see the additions  of carpentry and playdough. Children are managing themselves brilliantly.


http://moturoa.blogspot.com/2010/05/discovery-time-3.html

This time you will see Harriet in action with my Wacom tablet- using a pen to draw with on the computer instead of a mouse, making craft cards for Mother's Day, 3D salt dough sculptures, Keegan blowing a massive bubble and a video of the Robotics kit backing into a parking spot.


http://moturoa.blogspot.com/2010/05/discovery-time-4.html


http://moturoa.blogspot.com/2010/05/discovery-time-5.html

In this session we added in painting- on an easel, we painted our salt dough sculptures and the boys practised their guitar.


http://moturoa.blogspot.com/2010/06/discovery-time-6.html

This link will take you to card craft and origami paper folding. Marshall and Summer show their shoebox rocky shore dioramas and a video of the robot following a line.


http://moturoa.blogspot.com/2010/06/discovery-time-7.html

In this link you see the beginning of our Discovery model making- tricky work cutting, folding and gluing.


http://moturoa.blogspot.com/p/discovery-time.html 
 

http://moturoa.blogspot.com/2010/06/discovery.html

This link shares one of the finished Discovery Time Models.


I have found the whole term's Discovery Time to be very rewarding for both the children and myself. Our focus throughout has always been Managing Self and Problem Solving. Children now have a much better understanding of what those concepts mean in a real context.

Allanah K
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