Week Ending:

15/7/16

Selected characteristics and definitions

Agentic ensuring that
children have voice in their
learning. Their ideas and
interests initiate, support and
extend learning possibilities in
order to build on their real-world
understandings and
experiences.

Language rich and dialogic

ensuring that learning occurs in
environments where rich
language is modelled and
employed by both children and
educators. Meaningful
dialogues between children, as
well as between children and
educators, are created to
support thinking, learning,
engagement and imagination.

Language rich and dialogic

ensuring that learning occurs in
environments where rich
language is modelled and
employed by both children and
educators. Meaningful
dialogues between children, as
well as between children and
educators, are created to
support thinking, learning,
engagement and imagination.

Narrative acknowledging the

important role that personal,
written, oral and digital stories
play in all our lives. They
support both the production and
comprehension of narratives
through active processes,
especially play.

Significant moment of
classroom practice
*teacher action *use of
characteristic *learner
response *work
sample relating to this
moment
*spontaneous decision
making

My class wanted to turn our

classroom into a rainforest
and requested that we have
a waterfall in their
rainforest. I bought fabric.

I decided we should think of

words to describe a
waterfall in relationship to
our own waterfall. We
watched waterfalls on You
Tube. We looked at
waterfalls in books. We
listened to the sound of
waterfalls during our
relaxation time and
imagined them within our
minds. We discussed what a
waterfall is. We
brainstormed words. I chose
fonts and colours to match
the descriptive words and
printed and laminated
these.

I attached the words to our

waterfall and we talked
about them.

We wrote about our

waterfall, including chosen
words that were displayed
(including the word
waterfall) One of my more
reluctant writers wrote
without hesitation and with
enthusiasm. He particularly
enjoyed writing the words in
the same font as the ones
on the waterfall.

They decided where and

how to create their waterfall
in their rainforest.

The children were overly

Reflections and
excited and happy about
commentary
the inclusion of the
*What does the
waterfall in our classroom
moment show? *How
something that they had
does it inform my
decided they wanted. They
planning? *How does it started talking about other
inform my
things that they could have.
understanding?

Our topic for Science this

term is On the Move. I
decided that I would teach
the children about the
movement of water in a
waterfall in relationship to
key aspects of this unit. I
also decided that we would
build our own waterfalls.
Examples of questions to
ask the
children: What materials
would we need? What are
we trying to do? How will
we know our waterfall
constructions are
successful? Normally, within
our unit, we set up ramps to
test various objects to see
which ones move more
effectively down the ramp..
We discuss the reasons for
this. The construction of
waterfalls would be a
wonderful way of
introducing the idea of
objects moving in a
downward motion. The
children may even come up
with trialling ramps and the
movement of various
objects themselves through
careful questioning. They
may like to see if certain
objects move down their
waterfall more easily than
others etc.

The children could read the

words on the waterfall
they remembered which
ones they came up with
themselves and they
commented on the fonts
matching the word
meanings.

My reluctant writer enjoyed

using different words and
different styles of writing.
He enjoyed the safety of
copying these words. He
particularly likes our
waterfall also!

Related progression
points

Achievement Standard: Use appropriate interaction skills to listen and respond to others in a familiar environment
Language *Language for interaction ACELA1428 ACELA1429
Literacy *Interacting with others ACELY1646 ACELY1784
Achievement Standard: When writing, students use familiar words and phrases and images to convey ideas
Language *Expressing and developing ideas Literacy *Creating texts

Key learnings emerging in relation to these significant moments, reflections, commentaries

I think I needed to state more clearly to the children the reason for putting the words on the waterfall. They were happy to use these but
I should have been more explicit about the beauty of words and how they make a narrative much more effective and powerful in
relationship to a reader. I did explain about how these words give us a clearer picture of what a waterfall actually looks like but needed to
include an extra step explaining the reason for such words in narratives. I will explain this in order for them to learn the reason for
including them within their own writing.