Discussions with Justin Muschamp

We arranged a meeting with Justin Muschamp, who is the Head of Sport for Halberg. This is an organisation for children and adults with disabilities. He gave us some ideas about how we can help. His suggestions were playing balloon tennis with the Juniors at Ferndale school. We want to organise a day where we can come in and teach the children some games. We know it is going to be harder for these children to play the games that we play. So our plan is to choose modified games- using balloons instead of tennis balls, or flyswats instead of rackets. We will have to think about challenges like making adjustments for those in a wheel chair, or those that can't talk. We might have to make communication bags so the children can show us what they are feeling. Its important to have a range of activities and be aware of all the different disabilities so we can cater for them.

Do you have any ideas of easy games we could play? Write them on the padlet below!!

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Family Support Princess Party

After our last visit to Alice Mc Donald, we knew she felt lonely. She has been unable to go to school as often because of her collapsed lung. Alice loves Princesses so we decided to hold a princess party for her. To organise this we had to make a run sheet and work out all the things that we needed. We also reflected on our experiences as a group so far.

Have your say!

After reading the Blog so far, which set of transdisciplinary skills do you think we have used the most?

Thinking Skills - Synthesis, Evaluation, Comprehension

Social Skills - Accepting Responsibility, Co-operating, Group Decision Making

Communication Skills - Listening, Speaking, Writing, Reading

Self Management Skills - Organisation, Time Management

Research Skills - Formulating Questions, Observing, Collecting Data

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We have...Ducklings!!!

  

On Tuesday we went to see Jackie from Bird Rescue. She told us a bit about the birds and what we had to do to take care of them. We needed to get some soaked cat food to feed them. Since both Harriet and Amy had cats, it was easy to get some. She also gave us a lamp, the lamp comforts them and it helps to warm them. The slightly larger duck acts like a mother duck, although it is only a week older. Some-one found him in a drain. The other four were brought in because their mum got hit by a car. Their names are Fluffy, Trouble, Quackers and Sponge (we did the naming!) But we can only tell Mother Duck and Fluffy apart from the others. We have to make sure they have a lot of food and we learnt how to pick them up safely. We will look after them until Friday.

Thinking big picture, our job is to help share Jackie's load. We also have a responsibility to spread the word and tell others what we have learnt. Please keep your cats inside at night to give the birds a chance. Drive carefully around lakes and forests and be aware! Make sure you are on alert when driving.

Click here to find out about Bird Rescue

Health and Well-being

Our group wants to raise awareness of how Mental Health can be a big problem even when it seems to be started from a small issue. To help others we wanted to start an Ultranet page called "Don't Be Scared Say it Out Loud".  We want other children to be able to log on and see that other people go through the same things as them. You have to be careful that you don't go too deep into questions, these stories are deeply personal and its a huge thing to share with the world. Thats why our page is contained within Ultranet. This ensures a safe environment for these children to share their stories. We have been reading through some documents and researching about depression and how it affects people.
We rang Stepping Stones who are an organisation that helps children and adults who deal with Mental Health. We met with Steph who is training to be a social worker. She told us that making a website was a great idea because it would boost the children's confidence. She also told us that its about raising awareness, as most adults do not realise that Mental Health has just a big an impact on children as adults.
Following this we talked to Mrs Lapthorn about our ideas and thought about Seddon, who have just gone through an Earthquake. We decided to send them a card, saying we were thinking of them. We sent an email to the Principal and asked if any of the children were willing to share their experiences with us for our webpage. We also sent a letter to Mrs Barlow, the Principal at St James in Aranui, as many of her children have been deeply affected by the earthquakes that happened in Christchurch. We are hoping these stories will help other children stay strong.

Click here to login to Ultranet and see our page. It can be found under Health and Well-being.

Ferndale School

We rang Linda from Ferndale and had a chat to the Deputy Principal. We wanted to assist the children there. Ferndale needed assistance because their gardener had a broken arm. This meant the workload in the school was getting on top of people and they really wanted a hand. We also tidied up the staffroom and chatted to the staff members. We were caring, enthusiastic and generally wanted to sit, talk and be pleasant company for the people there.

We met some of the children there and split into two groups. One group went and helped the children eat morning tea as they were unable to use their arms and could not feed themselves. We smiled and laughed with them. The other group went and taught the children there how to play word bingo. We were a little competitive but luckily they didn't mind!

  

City Mission

Today was amazing. We went to the City Mission and had a chat with Mary Woods, who works there. She showed us around the Foodbank and how it works (it wasn't like a vending machine which was news to Florry!) We have learnt about how the City Mission is run from the generosity of others. Mary challenged us to come back and organise a group of 10-15 people. She wants us to help sort the food that comes in from the public, as it has to be organised into separate family bags.

 

Our challenge is to gather a group of ten people, whether they are an adults, students or teachers and ask them to give up some of their time to assist us. Mary talked to us about the gift of time and how sometimes thats more valuable then money.

Helping Hands

Hello my name is Florencia,

For my Exhibition topic I am coordinating collecting items to donate to less fortunate families. We have been put in contact with a family who we could help. The family has two children aged 4 and 5 year. All they have is one pair of gumboots. They don’t have warm clothes or toys. They fit clothes sized 5 – 8 years old. Their mother is 23 years old she also has nothing. She fits clothes sizes 14-16.

It would be wonderful if next week you could bring any clothing or shoes you have grown out of that can fit 5-8 year old children or clothes sizes 14-16 year old, that you don’t wear anymore and are in great conditions. If you can bring an old book or a toy as well that would be perfect.

Please drop it of at Selwyn House school office 122 Merivale lane.
You would really make a difference to this family and make these children really happy.

Thank you so much
Florencia

P.S They are both girls, so girls clothing would be fantastic.

Our Working Space

Here is a snippet of what our Exhibition looks like while the groups are working independently. Some groups are making phone calls, some are researching and some are making diaries of what they need to do. Each group knows what they need to do and they make use of any time they are given to complete their tasks.

Dogwatch

Dogwatch - slideshows

My group traveled to Dogwatch which is a charity that homes dogs. It was amazing to see how many dogs they had re-homed over the years. They need help because they get all their money from donations and it costs about $200,000 a year to run. We discussed ways we could help. The best way our group can do this is by making a video of their "Dog of the Week" and posting it on websites. Dog watch needs more publicity to help them advertise. Each week there is a focus dog that they work with, describing its personality and all the information you might need to know about it. We are also going to make posters and hand them out to people at the mall. This would help find homes for the dogs. We are also going to make dog biscuits and treats.
Ella Cox

Please click here to visit the site.

Travis Wetlands

Our group is looking at the issue of native birdlife in New Zealand. We went to see John Skilton, who is a ranger at the Travis Wetlands. We found out the settlers dried up all the wetlands to build houses on top and now Travis Wetlands is the biggest one left. Because of this there is a movement to protect it and increase the size of it. To help the Pukekos we planted 22 baby flax and Manuka. The Pukeko like to nest in the top of the flax once they are big. We had to clear the grass because it can smother the plant, we then put a woolen underlay to stop the weeds growing up, then we put Bamboo through the holes in the wool. We then put a cover around the plant- if we don't the Pukekos dig the plants up and eat the roots! One time they had planted hundreds only to find them all pulled up in the morning.
We are going to go back and help John again! They have a working bee in September so we will try to encourage other people to go along.

Planting Manuka and Flax for the Pukekos on PhotoPeach

Going Further / First Steps

Exhibition Taking Action

Here are some snapshots from the groups that have made their initial points of contact.

 

Where to Next

The Elderly Group.

We have planned to go to George Manning House on Friday, we talked to Robyn Macdonald and she told us that we could come to the rest home. We will be shown around the facilities and possibly doing some crafts and paint the nails of the women in the rest home. On Friday we will have the chance to meet and discuss what we will be doing next time. We are feeling confident and nervous- we are happy to chat but singing and dancing??! -Kathleen and Meimei

Family Support Group

We are going to visit Alice Macdonald, who is the sister of a girl at our school. She has a burst lung and has been in and out of hospital . We are going to visit her at her house and help think of some interesting ways that she can do blowing competitions, as she is getting sick of doing them the same way each day. We might also chat to her Mum and see what else we can do to help. -Noah

Sick and Hurt Animals Group

Today we went to SAFE and we talked to a man called Hans Kriek, and he talked to us about how there are so many caged animals and the conditions they live in. It was really sad to find out about the conditions chickens and pigs live in so we can eat them and use their products. It is very hard to find a place where we can volunteer, he suggested a place called Dog Rescue and Bird Rescue so we will talk to them this week. We felt like we were going in loops a little so we have changed our focus and decided to focus on hurt birds. We rang Jackie Stevenson who works for Bird Rescue. She told us that we can come in and talk to her about her job and see if we can help at all. There is a possibility that we can adopt a bird and foster it while it recovers.

Mental Health Group

After talking to two Metal Health organisations we discovered that patient confidentiality issues made it difficult for us to help. Most people helping in these areas have specific qualifications. After discussing this with our teachers, Senora Ryan told us that she had a connection with 'All Right' which is  a company dealing with emotional distress now that it has been three years since the Christchurch earthquake. We also have the number for Harakeke which is a family and children institution that helps with mental wellbeing. They are nice and local so we are hoping we can call and meet with them this week.


Helping Native Animals Group

Jennifer researched some of the companies that help with native birdlife. We found a website that dealt with forestry and wildlife and we rang the Christchurch branch. We originally thought of stoat trapping, but then found out that the Travis Wetlands, which is close to us, needs volunteers. We are visiting them next week, getting dirty and getting involved. We have been told to bring spare socks and a pair of gumboots!


Assisting Children that Need Care

We have emailed the City Mission and we have organised a date to have a meeting, we want to talk about things we could do to help them. One of our ideas was to get schools involved to donate a can of food for their Food Bank as there is a need in this area at the moment. Our other option is to look at some low decile pre-schools that have been affected by the earthquake. We will call and see if there is anything we can do to help.







Working with Sick Children

First we rang up Ronald McDonald House and we organised a meeting to talk to Zucchi who works there. We discussed how we can help work with their organisation. They said we couldn't volunteer because of our age, but we could help out by doing some baking or a dinner programme. So today we baked with some help from Genevieve's mum. We had to use bright and colourful decorations to cheer them up. Our next step is to contact Kids at Heart and see if we can help there.

Action! Calling the Organisations.

We started the session with a bang today getting straight onto our topics. We called the people in charge of each organisation and talked to them about what we wanted to do and why. Although it was nerve wracking we soon found that once we explained the situation most people were keen to have some helping hands.

Unpacking our Central Idea

This morning we learnt what our central idea was-  "An awareness of the issues that affect communities can drive people to organise themselves into taking action"

We were given this, our lines of Inquiry and the Teacher Questions. In our groups we discussed what concepts, learner profiles and attitudes were most important to our group. Although a lot of the groups came up with the same ideas, some concepts and attitudes were important to specific groups depending on our topic.

We made our own 'making a difference' Exhibition plan sheets.

Jane Mahoney, Organising an Event.

We were extremely privileged today to have Jane Mahoney, who works in Events Management for events such as The Amazing Place, come to our school and talk with us. Jane told us that the most important thing to do in a crisis is to STAY CALM! She said panicking wastes time- we want to work with people that can address problems responsibly and calmly. She told us that if a plan didn't go the way we intended it is important to have a back up plan. If we get to a dead end- just step back, sleep on it and re-think it. Her advice was to have a run sheet, this helps us to stay organised. You need to have a budget- wonderful ideas have to be able to work. 
It is also important to have a task list. Stick to your tasks and make sure you know all the necessary jobs. If some-one is in charge of something, leave them to their job. It may be being done in a specific way so your intentions may not turn out as planned!
Lana and Amy.

Confirm, Extend, Perspective

Today we had a Skype interview with a Year 6 class in Adelaide also doing Exhibition. We talked about what sort of questions we would ask and thought of five that would either confirm what we already knew, extend our thinking or change our perspective.

These are the things we wanted to know...

• what is their Exhibition about?
• where are they up to in the Exhibition process?
• what have they learnt so far?
• how are they recording their information?
• how are they going to present their work?

We then spent the rest of the session organising our groups. We made choices based on what our interests were and talked about our next steps, which were to organise a central agreement for our group. 

Some of the groups topics were...

Children with illnesses

Families of children affected by illness

Trauma and mental health

Homeless animals

Hurt animals

Native wild-life

Caring for the elderly

Children's health and welfare

"The important thing is to make personal connections with the people who you meet and contact" Ella C

Narrowing our Focus.

We watched this video today called Life Vest Inside, its about how kindness can boomerang.

We have been researching today, on how we can help our community. We liked the idea that one small favour can start a chain reaction. We looked at some different websites from the ideas that our classmates jotted down on the padlet. We have found it hard to find websites that offer the opportunity to actually act rather than just donating money. We think our next step would be to contact the organisations directly and chat to people about the things we could do. 

Jennifer, Noah and Isabella.

What is Exhibition?

What is the Exhibition?

• an important event in the life of a PYP school and the students
• the culminating experience and a celebration of the journey towards developing inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who are active, compassionate lifelong learners
• an opportunity for students to exhibit their knowledge and understanding of the five essential elements of the PYP that have been developing throughout the primary years
• a collaborative process, with students designing the path of the inquiry, and taking responsibility for the process
• teachers facilitate and the students lead

Finding out where the need is.

Todays main message was don't put the cart before the horse... Don't decide what you are going to do before you find out who you are doing it for. Over the weekend we will be thinking about what issues there are in our community and who needs help. Who do we contact to get the information? We are starting to get a clear idea about what we will be doing. It will involve teamwork. Harriet B, Ella H and Kathleen.

Here is a link to some of the sites we looked at today.

 

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We also reflected on our experience with Sam Johnson and thanked him for the insights he gave us.