My name is Leah Partridge and I am a kindergarten teacher
at O'Connor Cooperative School in the ACT.
And I teach 4- and 5-year-old children.
I'd like you to be the reporter again today.
O'Connor Cooperative School has a very strong play-based approach
and we do a lot of inquiry learning.
What can you see down there, Pete?
There's supposed to be worms down there.
When I plan for children, I think about the children's interests
and I think about their strengths and what they would like to learn about
in order to influence our play.
For example at the beginning of the year, I asked the children
things such as the children would like to learn about boats
and how boats sail and why boats don't sink.
So this week in my plan
I set up an activity for the children to design boats
and think about concepts such as sinking and floating.
Other elements that have influenced our whole term plan
have been things such as living things,
looking at how plants grow.
During the investigation this morning,
I will choose two children who I focus on their learning,
and I do that over a two-day period.
So the focus children will get the first day
where I get to spend a little bit of time with them
and we'll examine their learning
and think about where we would like to go to next.
And then during that time,
I then can set up the environment for the next day
to support that child in their development.
We did, we started the day at the flower table.
And why did we start at the flower table?
What were we experiencing and experimenting at the flower table?
To see what would happen if we put flowers in different coloured water.
But I get to explore that,
I get to spend that little bit of one-on-one time with them.
And I can really say that at the end of the day I know my children
individually on a really good level.
And I like seeing how you're practising
your lower case letters and your capital letters.
It's wonderful.
I'm also influenced by the philosophies of Reggio Emilia
and so to me, a big aspect of the learning environment
is that the environment is set up in an irresistible way,
the environment is set up really intentionally, with lots of thought.
It's a bloom.
I plan tables based on developmental areas,
so there's lots of different areas
for the children to choose to play in
and lots of different areas that I can scaffold the children's learning.
Today I gave Ava the challenge. I said, "I'm giving you a challenge."
And I said, "Can you try and write your thoughts, what you observed,
"your thoughts, down as a sentence?"
And have a look at Ava's great writing.
She thought about how to write her friend's name - Mia.
Where did you find Mia's name?
Or did you know it because she's a really good friend?
I know it because she told me lots of times.
CHILD: But I thought it was supposed to be 'Mia'.
LEAH: That's OK, though, isn't it?
It's alright if it's a little bit... if it's the wrong way round,
just because we're learning to write,
and when we learn to write, we sometimes make mistakes.
"Mia and Matilda made..."
-"A..."? -"A..."?
-"..boat." -"..a boat."
Can we hold it up so everyone can see?
Beautiful. Well done.
So we might be able to show Ava your name on the wall, Mia.
I think it looks like a person.
Like a person? Tell me about why you think it might look like a person.
LEAH: Each week I try and think about
magical moments that happen around the room,
but things that happen around the room
that show me the children's learning,
and I put that into a learning story.
It begins with a story,
and it's actually a narrative story, so it's written by me to Hugo.
For me, the next part after the story is probably the most important part -
it tells me what learning happened here.
And I like to reflect on the learning dispositions
because we know that they are important skills
that children need to have, such as problem solving skills,
being able to cooperate, being creative.
At the bottom, I write down a concept such as, "Where to next?"
And so then this is my plan for the future.
I also then try and link it to the curriculum area,
so that's another way of showing some authentic learning in the room.