For term 3-4 I was in the InnovatED group, chickens. Our purpose was to help take care of the chickens and incorporate them into this junior school curriculum. But setting that up would be a challenge. I with my sub group made back stories and names for the chickens so they would be more appealing to the little kids. We then had to email teachers and ask them if they were okay with this, along with the head of junior school to get their permission to do this. Setting up interviews was also one of the many things we had to do so that the teachers of the classes knew what we were doing. In week 1 term 4 we were able to finally be able to teach the junior school classes pre-primary and yr. 1 about the chickens.
Brainstorming what to talk about was the easiest of the entire 4 weeks, with me being in charge of teaching the kids about how they eat and drink. We headed off to the first class. Managing the kids when students or teachers were talking was a struggle, with them wriggling around and trying to talk to us about their favourite colours. But Mr J gave us some advice beforehand, and we handled the situation well. With the next few lessons after the process got easier since we had to do it a lot, even though there were some frustrating moments we got through it.
These 6 weeks really taught me and improved a lot of my skills, some really important ones that I realised I had to improve on was patience and confidence. Since the kids would always try and ramble on and do things that they weren’t supposed to do, for example, drawing instead of writing on the See, Think, Wonder. I had to not get annoyed and tell them nicely to listen to the person talking or do the task they were supposed to. My confidence also had to be improved on, standing in front of pre-primary kids and yr. 1s who were very honest was a bit intimidating. Over the next few lessons, I got more comfortable with them and ended up gaining some confidence.
These lessons with the kids helped me a lot with not just patients and confidence, I also had fun talking with them and teaching them about the chickens. The chickens were also really fun to interactive with and I’m very grateful we were able to have them. Overall, it was a good experience and a good opportunity, and I would happily do it again.
pictures of one of the chickens