INTRODUCTION

This unit was used in a parallel Year 3 class. This class had come from a quite structured Year 2 situation, so were learning about working independently of constant teacher direction. Therefore, extending independent thinking ability was a need of all the children.

After completing an Interest Inventory of each child, I found that all children had an interest in animals, and all but one child had a pet of some kind for which they were responsible.

In the class, there were several children who display a talent in some area of the curriculum. R. was an excellent story writer, M. had an affinity for numeration, but lacked confidence in other areas, and A. had excellent concentration, recall and reasoning skills. I wrote the unit to extend these children in particular, but also S., who was a very poor reader and speller, but had a good imagination and sense of humour and wrote great stories.

I chose Bloom's Taxonomy as the curriculum development model as it was the one I felt I would be able to manage most successfully at this stage of my development. Bloom's Taxonomy enabled the participation of all students, allowed for individual differences in ability, enabled children to use talents in art, craft, poetry, writing, handwriting etc. to be utilised in completing the tasks selected and enabled individual independent and group study without constant teacher direction. Alternatively, if I felt it necessary, I could draw all children together as a group to work through a particular thinking process.

The unit worked on a contract system with each child doing 14 questions in all. Some children were expected to complete more questions from the higher levels of the Taxonomy than others but all children did something from each level.

As the Unit was written for Year 3 students who had had little exposure to the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy before, some of the activities were difficult and the children needed to be taught some pre-requisite skills. I targeted the following activities for whole class participation, where I led them through the necessary processes and skills:

a) Application 1
b) Analysis 2
c) Synthesis 3
d) Evaluation 3

The activities for the various levels of Bloom's Taxonomy and the class contract were enlarged and made into charts using different coloured cardboard instead of taxonomy names. These were displayed along with the class list of required questions (also using colours) in the interest corner for children's reference when setting up their contract.

 

OBJECTIVES

1. To improve the self-image of all children within the class.

2. To improve the ability of the children to work independently.

3. To improve the thinking abilities of the children.

4. To challenge the abilities of the talented children in the classroom.

5. To expose children to traditional Australian literature.

6. To encourage children to think sympathetically about the Australian bush.

7. To make children aware of the many facets of the Australian bush.

8. To encourage children to form attitudes and opinions which will enable them to be actively involved in the conservation of our country's natural resources.

9. To teach the children, as a group, the steps involved in Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation.

 

INITIAL INPUT INTEREST RAISING

1. Read Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs.

2. Create an interest corner - fill it with books on Snugglepot and Cuddlepie which the children bring in, leaflets and papers from National Parks and Wildlife about native trees, shrubs and animals, National Parks, etc.

3. Collect samples of seed pods i.e.: kurrajong, gumnuts, banksias (legally!) and display them.

4. Ask a National Parks and Wildlife Officer to come and talk to the children about conservation, National Parks, animal and plant life etc.

5. Visit Thalgarrah Field Studies Centre to look at native plants and insects.

 

POSSIBLE AUDIENCES FOR PRODUCTS

Local minister, parents, other classes, newspapers, classmates. This will be decided by the children as they choose the questions to be answered.

 

TEACHING/LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR THE WHOLE CLASS

Application 1:

Classify the characters in the story by plants and animals, or good and bad.

1. Discuss the characters in the book:

a) Name some of the characters.

b) Which characters did you feel were almost the same? How?

c) Can you suggest any ways we could decide which characters were almost the same, and which characters were very different?

d) In your books answer the question Application 1.

 

Analysis 2:

What are some of the problems of the native plants and animals in the Australian Bush?

1. Discuss the problems faced by some of the plants and animals in the story, ie: traps, land clearing etc.

2. List any other problems that have been discussed recently on the news or in newspapers.

3. Choose one of the above problems and find out as much as you can about it. Use the library, newspapers, radio and TV news, ask Mum and Dad, ask at your local National Parks and Wildlife Centre, and try the Wilderness Shop. Write me at least half a page to tell me what you found out.

 

Synthesis 3:

What would happen to our environment if we didn't take care of our native plants and animals?

1. Discuss: Are plants and animals an important part of our environment? Why?

2. Choose one plant and animal and list the things they do to help the environment.

3. Write down all the problems for our environment you can think of that would occur if we didn't take care of our native plants and animals.

 

Evaluation 3:

Debate - It is/isn't important to take care of our native plants and animals because:

1. Watch a debate from an older grade.

2. Discuss the tasks of each speaker in the team.

3. Discuss the information each team presented. (Was it true? Exaggerated?)

4. What was the purpose of the debate? Did it succeed? Why?

5. Select teams and allow children to prepare their own arguments for their team.

6. Present the debate to the remainder of the class.

7. Discuss end result - complete Product Evaluation form.

 

CONTRACT CHOICES

1. Knowledge

1. Make a time line of events for the book of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

2. Who was it that helped get Snugglepot and Cuddlepie off 'The Snag'?

3. Describe what happened at the Dance.

4. What happened after Cuddlepie entered the Fish Sauce Shop?

 

2. Comprehension

1. Choose a favourite part of the story and re-tell it in your own words.

2. List the main characters of the story.

3. Pick a part of the story you enjoyed and make a picture plate to illustrate it.

4. What differences were there between Mr Lizard and the Bad Banksia Men?

5. Choose three of your favourite characters from the story and write a description of each. Illustrate your work.

 

3. Application

1. Classify the characters in the story by plants and animals, or good and bad.

2. Make up a board game for the first, second or third books of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

3. Make a diorama to illustrate an important event in the story.

4. Construct a model of The Snag/Park Bench/Mrs Fantail's Next.

5. Make an acrostic poem about Snugglepot and Cuddlepie or the Bad Banksia Men, or another character of your choice.

 

4. Analysis

1. What was the underlying theme of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie?

2. What are some of the problems of native plants and animals in the Australian bush?

3. Prepare a report on two of the flowering plants, and two animals mentioned in the story.

4. Explain what must have happened to cause Possum to be caught in a trap.

5. How did 'Snugglepot and Cuddlepie' affect your feelings about Australian plants and animals?

 

5. Synthesis

1. Design a home for Winky Jerboa.

2. Imagine you had to do a dance to entertain the Koalas, what would you do? Make up and perform your dance.

3. What would happen to our environment if we didn't take care of our native plants and animals.

4. Write a puppet show or play about rescuing Ragged Blossom from the Black Hole.

5. Can you develop a proposal which would encourage man to take care of the native plants and animals of Australia?

6. Create some pictures using burnt sticks as Cuddlepie did.

7. Advertise Mrs Bear's Party.

 

6. Evaluation

1. Do you think the ideas May Gibbs had about native plants and animals were good or bad? Why?

2. Debate whether it is important to look after our native plants and animals.

3. Recommend some other Australian native animals that could be included in a Snugglepot and Cuddlepie book. Explain why.

4. Choose a character you didn't like, and make suggestions as to how to improve it.

 

EVALUATION

End products are important in that they enable the teacher to evaluate the use of thinking processes, and their effectiveness in completing tasks. These end products were evaluated using a Product Evaluation format.

 

The Contract Self-Evaluation form assisted with evaluating study skills and attitude formation.

The presentation of the whole study for checking by the teacher, and general teacher/pupil discussion and conference helped evaluate the use of thinking skills, and whether these were appropriate or inappropriate.

Objectives 1 & 4

Teacher conference:

1. How do you feel about your work in this Unit?

2. Where do you think you could improve?

3. Do you feel the rest of the class enjoyed your end product? Why?

A student self-evaluation form.

 

Objective 2

Teacher observation:

Observing whether child remains on task, and moves from one task to the next without teacher direction.

Child shows initiative in finding information to answer questions.

 

Objective 3

Marking the presentation of the Unit of work subjectively - considering how thoroughly it was done.

 

Objectives 5, 6, 7 & 8

Teacher designed questionnaire.

 

RESOURCES

The resources listed below were from the school library and were the basis of our research and information finding tasks.

Books - Fiction

Gibbs, May (1982) The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. Angus and Robertson Publishers. Sydney. (2 copies)

Gibbs, May (1983) Snugglepot and Cuddlepie Find Ragged Blossom. Young Australia Series.

Gibbs, May (1983) Snugglepot and Cuddlepie on Board the Snag. Young Australia Series.

Books - Non Fiction

Blomberg, A.M. (1981) What Wildflower is That ? Landsdowne Press, Sydney.

Crome, F. (1982) Rainforests. Methuen, Sydney. (Others in the Series: - Coasts, Eucalyptus Forests, Rainforest, City & Suburb.)

Churchett, G. (1989) Our Green Wilderness. Jacaranda Press, Gladesville.

Fairley, A. (1981) Rainforests. Hodder & Stoughton. Sydney. (The Australian Environment Series). Others in the Series: Alpine Regions, Coral Reefs, Deserts, Swamps & Estuaries.)

Morcombe, M. & Morcombe, I. (1974) Flora and Fauna of Australia. Australian Universities Press, Sydney.

There are quite a number of books in the library listed in the catalogue under the following subject headings and Dewey Numbers.

Conservation 333.7; Environment & Habitat 574.5; Trees/Flowers 582.; Wildflowers 582.12; Birds 598.2; Mammals 599; Frogs & Toads 597.8; Snakes 597.96.

 

Also available:

Australian/New Zealand Encyclopaedia (3 sets); The Australian Encyclopaedia.

 

REFERENCES

Dalton, J. & Smith D. (1987) Extending Children's Special Abilities. Strategies for Primary Classrooms. Ministry of Education, Victoria, p.27.

Lacey, K. (1986) Learning contracts and units based on Bloom's Taxonomy, TalentEd, 15, 16-23.

NSW Government Department of Education (1983) The Education of Children with Special Talents. Support Document Four. Curriculum and Teaching. NSW Govt., Sydney, p.21.

 

APPENDIX 1: CONTRACT SELF-EVALUATION

Name: ...............................................................................................................

Topic: ................................................................................................................

1. Did you complete your contract by the due date?

2. Did you complete the contract without wasting any time?

3. How might you better organise your time next contract?

4. Describe the best part of your contract.

5. Describe what you would like to do to improve your work.

6. Three things I learnt were:

7. Ask a friend to tell you:

(a) the best part of your work and why they choose that part.
(b) one way in which you might improve your work.

 

APPENDIX 2: CLASS CONTRACT

All children will do 14 questions.

1. All children will do 2 questions from Sections 1 & 2 (white), and all the Group Activities.

2. Check the class list to see how many questions from the other section you need to do.

3. Write your questions on your contract sheet.

4. Work through the activities in any order you like.

5. Do not begin a new activity until you have completed the previous one.

6. Choose one of the activities from the Red, Yellow or Blue Sections to be your major product.

7. Report to ......................................................................... on each progress date.

8. Request an earlier appointment by

Beginning Date: .......................................................

Ending Date: .............................................................

 

APPENDIX 3: INDIVIDUAL CONTRACT

1. Do 4 questions in the White Section, and all group questions.

2. Write down the other questions which you plan to complete. (See Class List for Guidelines).

Red

Blue

Yellow

Green

Mark your major end product with an asterisk.

©TalentEd is located at the School of Curriculum Studies, University of New England, Armidale, Australia.

This page updated: 23 January 2006 Webmaker: Howard Smith. hsmith4@une.edu.au