Heroes Inquiry

I began the term introducing our Heroes topic. As a class we brainstormed the difference between a super hero and a real life hero. We then made a list of of these heroes which children then chose their own hero to research. 

I got a great variety with the majority of boys choosing super heroes and girls real life heroes.

We then moved to deciding on some questions that we would like to find out about our superhero - I made several compulsory questions that all children must answer. 

• What is a hero?
• Why are they your hero?
• What qualities does a hero have?
• What makes your hero special?
• How does your hero make a difference?
• Describe the looks of your hero.

• How did you choose your hero?

We talked about 'good' questions we should be asking and I used SOLO taxonomy to help model this.

Once all children had developed their questions we then moved into researching. The students in my class are quite computer literate but I wanted to ensure all children were given the same access. We did some learning around how we can research and good websites. We also discussed that everything read online can not always be believed. Some students decided they wanted to email their questions to a company or expert so we had an opt in mini lesson on constructing and sending emails - it was fabulous when some of these people replied to the questions. 

As the information was developed we then moved into publishing and the different tools we can use to publish and the requirements when publishing.

• An answer in detail to all questions
• A title and author
• Pictures, hand drawn or printed
• Correct punctuation
• Correct spelling
• Neat writing

As children decided on how they would present we had mini opt in lessons on how to use the different tools the main ones were slides and posters. For our next inquiry I would like to delve in some new tools. Below are some finished presentations.

To reflect on our inquiry journey I had the kids reflect on their learning using the thinking hats. They also reflected on whether they hit the brief of the task and I gave personalised feedback on this.

We then began having some discussions in class on how we take some of our heroes values to do some good in our community. The class decided they would like to do some baking and then donate it to the community. In the upcoming weeks children will be deciding on recipes baking them and donating them.