Research project introduced at OSHC

We have recently updated our homework plan and introduced an OSHC research project to the weekly schedule. In week 6 we started researching native Australian animals. Each year level had the task of finding out what animals are actually native to Australia and sharing facts about each of them.

We saw children working collaboratively in big groups, small groups, individually and in pairs. Educators reported that it was great to see the children put all their efforts into this research project. Children were excited to know that we were continuing to work on the research project over the coming weeks.

We learned some really great facts about many native Australian animals. The top three were kangaroos, dingoes and koalas. Some children chose to write down their facts, while others chose to make a slide show and present this to the group. We also saw some children making a collage of all the different native Australian animals and some took screen shots on their iPads to send them to the OSHC iPads and we spoke about them as a group.

By giving the children the opportunity to work individually or collaboratively on this project, we were able to promote the children’s agency and allow them to build on either their sense of independence or interpersonal skills. While we all worked on the same project, the students were able to use a range of resources and technologies to find the information, giving children the opportunity to express themselves in a medium that is most suitable to them.