Tuesday 2 July 2019

Anything is Possible!



I love teaching Pre-Prep. The excitement the children bring to class every day is motivating and inspiring. The way they yell out, ‘Mr Hill!’ when I walk in the room or the eager faces that light up when they see me, always brings a smile to my face. I am lucky enough to teach two lessons a week as a specialist Design Teacher and these lessons are the highlight of my week. The ideas they have, the playfulness in their learning, and their natural wonderment at the world brings joy to my teaching. However, my favourite part about teaching Pre preps is the ‘anything is possible’ attitude they have. They are fearless!

This term the children had an idea for a project and as a learning community, we turned it from an idea to reality!

One of the youngest boys (only 3yrs old) races BMX. His Mum was showing me pictures and videos of him racing and I was telling one of the Prep Teachers about this and she made the comment, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if the kids could bring in their bikes one day?’ That’s all it took to get me started searching for that day.

On the last day of Semester 2 each year, the school holds an U8’s day - a day for the PP-2 students, teachers and parents to celebrate their learning. There are stalls for Face Painting, decorating biscuits, games and activities, music, dancing and each year level sets up an activity. My mind went straight to an U8’s bike track.

I challenged the Pre-Preps with the question, ‘Could we design and build a bike track for U8’s day?’ Needless to say, the challenge was enthusiastically accepted. We invited the little BMX rider to talk to the class about racing his bike. His Dad came with him and together they showed us their bikes and equipment and talked about how they race especially the rules and safety associated with it.

Using the Design Thinking model, I started to engage the kids in understanding what a bike track is. What does it need? How we could make it? The kids came up with lots of ideas including stop signs, traffic lights, cement to ride on, ducks, clouds and rainbows, a gate so people wouldn’t walk on the track and a lolly pop person. The kids were firmly set on making it safe. Clearly the talk from the little BMX rider and his Dad had sunk in.

One of the first challenges was to find a place to build it, so we went for a walk around the area that U8’s day is positioned to show the kids the options. Adjacent to this area is the Prep Playground. A fenced off area, with a gate that the kids decided was perfect! The next problem was how to get an aerial photo of this area so the kids could draw some ideas? Again, I challenged the kids. Once again full of imagination and fearlessness they came up with a heap of clever ideas -  ‘We could get a really tall ladder’; ‘We could climb a tree’; ‘We could stand on the Chapel roof’ or my favourite -  ‘We could get a plane to fly over and take the photo’ …and that’s exactly what we did!

We had a year 10 student (Jack) bring in his drone and take an aerial photo for us. This was very exciting for the Pre-Preps and something they all wanted to fly! We printed the picture that Jack took in A2. I cut out a lot of ‘Jig Saw like’ pieces on the laser cutter for the kids to prototype shapes and designs for the track. In hindsight this was a missed opportunity to show the kids how the laser cutter works, but we were running short on time. The kids loved prototyping with these pieces and, like all good designers, they showed their ideas to their peers and asked for feedback.

It was time to get on with the other parts for the bike track. The Pre Prep class visited the Possibility Hub for a morning and with the help of some extra teachers and some parents, the kids explored materials to build their traffic lights and their give way and stop signs. We had also decided we needed an air pump station and petrol station. It was a busy but productive and fun morning. Over the following weeks we finished the Petrol station, signs, ducks, clouds and rainbows. 

The day before U8’s day, it was time to mark out the track. We had lots of rope and used the aerial photo we had taken to shape the rope to match the picture. Again, we asked Jack if he could bring in his drone to take a look from the sky and get the design just right. When everyone was finally happy that the prototype was similar to the ropes marking the track, I asked the groundsman, Lindsey, to mark it. Lindsey showed the children his line marker and explained how he uses it and what he uses it for. We set up the signs, the petrol station, air pump, ducks, clouds, rainbows and safety signs. The track was ready!

When Under 8s day arrived I was a little overwhelmed by the volume of bikes that arrived at school. We had around 100 kids bring in their bikes, scooters and trikes. They just kept coming!

I’ve said often on this blog that I love working at a PP- 12 school, and today was another example of why that is. The older kids turned up in droves to blow up balloons, set up streamers and help out. They literally lined up to be the lolly pop person, the petrol pumper and the air pump operator. The little kids loved playing with the older kids and it was great to witness. This was an amazing exercise in a school community coming together to create something wonderful. 

By opening time, I was very grateful for the extra helpers. We had to limit the amount of riders on track so it was all hands on deck. Sometimes we had kids and parents 20 deep waiting for a turn. Parent feedback was amazing. They were telling me that their kids were calling it ‘Bike track day’. One parent told me her son was awake at 4:30am and asked her if they could go to school yet. 

This was a really fun project to bring to fruition. It was great to let the kids imagination run wild and turn that into reality.
However, the learning that went with this was authentic and meaningful. These kids were motivated, persistent in their quest to build this. Kids learnt about working with others and about the importance of sharing their ideas and the value of seeking feedback on those ideas. They problem solved in every aspect of this project. They learnt the power of collaboration and drawing on others expertise. They learnt about being flexible, agile thinkers, how to deal with ambiguity and being willing to take a risk or get something wrong. But, most importantly they learnt how powerful imagination can be.

 I said earlier I love teaching these kids. I have never felt so creative or had so many ideas. Their attitudes, imagination and creativity is rubbing off on me. Its no coincidence that I see this in them and now feel like I am re-discovering these traits in myself also. I think we can all learn something from these 4yr olds. With the right attitude -  Anything is possible! 












2 comments:

  1. Another reason I'm sorry I was born 65 years too early. I wish we'd had teachers who allowed us to use our imaginations. That is not a criticism of our teachers, simply a reflection of the times. These children are fortunate to be growing up in a time where they can learn with understanding and have the support of parents and the inspiration of teachers who clearly love what they do.

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  2. As the parent of a child in this class - this was an incredible learning experience for my child. He was excited about the thought of riding his bike at school (obviously) but more importantly our dinner table conversation was full of new learnings, new vocabulary, but he also learnt skills that we have seen transfer into other areas of his life such as collaboration with his peers and older students as well as listening and respect for others... all virtues we want out children to have. Thank you Mr Hill and staff for offering this learning opportunity.

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