Term 1 Group Projects

As mentioned in the previous post, the first term was spent doing Friday group challenges. The purpose of this was to teach the children how to work collaboratively, compromise, problem solve and take risks. It was also an opportunity to explicitly teach Room 2 how to plan effectively and reflect on their learning. An example of this was our Mexican Fiesta challenge. 


For our Mexican Fiesta Room 2 were told that their Friday challenge would be to make nachos. Each group was told that they would be given nacho chips, grated cheese, mild salsa and guacamole. They had to work out how to put the ingredients together to make nachos. In our classroom we also have a mini kitchen with a microwave and small oven, so they were able to melt the cheese if they wanted to. What would appear to be a very simple activity proved quite challenging to a classroom of 7 and 8 year old children.

Each group had to discuss in their group what they thought the best way to make nachos would be. There was a lot of debating and finally some compromising. Once they all agreed they began to work on their plans. Examples of these can be seen at the bottom of the post. The most important thing as a teacher is to step back at this point. One group came up and told me that they were going to put the grated cheese on the plate and melt it in the microwave. It would have been very easy to step in and tell them that they needed to sprinkle the cheese on their nacho chips and then melt it, but this would defeat the purpose of the group challenges. I simply asked the group what they would do with the cheese once it was melted on the plate. They gave me one of 'those' looks and told me that they would spoon it onto their nacho chips. I told them to give it a go. 

Room 2 had a lot of fun making nachos. I think it's safe to say that this was their favourite group challenge, possibly because food was involved! After making and eating the nachos each group reflecting on their learning. The group that melted the cheese on the plate decided that next time they would do it like one of the other groups and melt the cheese on top of the chips. I asked them why and they said that when the melted the cheese in the microwave it all stuck together, so it wasn't as easy to spoon onto the chips as they had thought. From observing other groups they also came to the conclusion that the cheese melted better in the mini oven than in the microwave too. Each group was able to identify what went well and what they would do differently next time. If time allows, it's also a great idea to get each group to share back with the rest of the class. Room 2 has also learnt to add more detail to their reflections. To start with when answering the question 'what went well?' they would write 'it was yum!' The response to 'what could you do differently next time to improve it?' was often nothing. We've spent a lot of time discussing what it means to reflect on our learning and why this is important. A lot of modelling and reflecting together as a class also took place in the first term. 

After spending a large portion of the first term on group challenges, we then moved on to sparking enthusiasm and ideas for independent topics. Here are some of the photos from the Mexican Fiesta challenge.