MI Morning

Our Team decided that a great way to introduce and reinforce the Multiple Intelligences in our rooms would be to have an MI morning. We split our classes into four so the children could complete the activities in different year levelled groups and each teacher had two Multiple Intelligences to design activities for.

My two were Interpersonal Intelligence/Group Smart and Naturalistic Intelligence/Nature Smart.
As an Interpersonal activity, the children had to work in pairs, sitting back to back. Each child had a piece of paper and a pencil. They took turns to draw a picture (using basic shapes), then explain the picture as accurately as possible so their buddy could recreate it on their own paper. This was very interesting; the students quickly realised that in order for this to work, they would need to communicate very clearly with their buddy - especially where Year 5 and 6 students were paired with Year 2s.
For Naturalistic, we went outside to do some cloud watching and then had some discussions in garden areas around the school. Conversations about how and why leaves change colour and how intricate spider's webs are, tied in perfectly with our 'Out of the Ordinary' theme; it made the students realise that things we see daily and may consider 'ordinary' could in fact be extraordinary.

Once the children had engaged in all eight Multiple Intelligences activities, my class and I discussed what they had done in each room they visited. We did some Bus Stopping around our room, recording our ideas then got together again as a class. I had the students decide which two activities were their favourites and then got them to discuss in pairs why they liked these two best. We also talked about the ones we didn't like as much and why - more interesting discussion!
I then introduced the concept of Multiple Intelligences and showed the children cards illustrating all eight. Together we talked about which activity matched each card (they had not previously been told) and matched them up. This prompted comments such as "Oh, I liked that one because maths is my favourite things at school and I like numbers!"

I had wanted to introduce Multiple Intelligences to my class but was initially concerned about the children feeling labelled by the "Smarts" and not fully understanding what these meant. The MI morning provided a perfect opportunity to introduce them and gave context to a seemingly difficult concept for Year 2 students. We refer to them in class regularly now and the children have gained a deeper understanding of themselves as learners. All round success!

Inquiry Learning -

Wow we have finished all our testing, room 3 children have made huge improvements in reading, writing and maths we are very proud of them. Although we are worried about a few that aren't moving we are getting in more parent support and trying to allow more time in class for these children to get better with their reading and maths strategies.

Our dionosaur immersion is underway and is working well, the children are building a lot of prior knowledge to the topic and discussing what they know and questioning the unknown. They have also started on knowledge and comprehension tasks to do with the topic in our learning centre.

Our next little focus on thinking is the multiple intelligences and finding out about their strengths and weaknesses so they can then begin to understand why they think the way they do and why they might not be as good at some things. We look forward to our pod day this Monday with full immersion into Multiple intelligences. We will then move into what we know and then do the test to see what they are strong and weak in. This I'm sure will be no surprises.

Pod game sessions and workshops on how to play lunch time games has been beneficial. Children have come up with their own games to to share with others. I enjoyed watching their teaching abilities and the fun that they have. The gear is being used a lot too.

A busy start but wow!