Moving Out of the Comfort Zone

I run Adventure Learning throughout the whole year, so at times I come across children who pick the same type of projects each time e.g. a child who created a frog habitat last time and the following time wants to learn about turtles. If that's what they're really passionate about then obviously I support them. On the other hand sometimes it's good to encourage children to branch out and to work beyond their comfort zone. 

I've continued to take note of the types of projects and questions children have come up with over the years. In my personal experience they have always fallen into one of these four categories - a community project, something the child wants to discover or further explore, an innovative or creative topic or around nature. 

At the end of each term we have a celebration afternoon (see my other post for further information). In a nutshell it is a sharing afternoon where family and other classes are invited to come along to see the children's adventure learning projects. This year, I want to also include an awards ceremony at the end of the celebration afternoon. During this the children will earn a badge and certificate for their completed project. The colour of the badge will depend on the type of Adventure Learning project they have completed. No category is of a higher status than the other. They're all equal. If a child earns all four coloured badges they will then receive a gold badge. This doesn't mean that if they chose a discovery topic last time, that they can't do another one. It's simply a small incentive to give something new a go and another tool that children can use to support their planning during Adventure Learning. 

It will be the first time that I've tried this, this year so am interested to see what impact it has on Adventure Learning.

My Own Adventure Learning Project

Last year I decided to put myself in one of my learner's shoes and have a go at completing my own Adventure Learning project. This is something I should have blogged about at the time, as it was so beneficial. 

I did this for two reasons

1. To enable myself to learn alongside my students. 

2. To help me begin to design an inquiry process (model) for children to work through when participating in Adventure Learning, or to work out whether I needed one at all. 

We live in a rural area and for some time now I have been contemplating buying a few chickens so that we could have our own free range eggs. I knew that I had very little knowledge about chickens and how to look after them, let alone how to go about building a chicken house. If you know me, you'll know that I'm the last person who is likely to pick up a skill saw or fire a nail gun. Not to mention that maths also isn't my strength. However; I'm forever telling my kids to take a risk with their learning and give something new a go so I felt it was time that I did the same. Luckily my partner is a builder so I knew I had an 'expert' available to help me out a bit. 

To start with I decided that I needed to record what I already did know about chickens. It really wasn't a lot. I knew they needed a house and run; I also knew that I didn't want a rooster squawking out like a strangled cat at 6.00 am. That was about it! My next step should have been to work out how I would build a chicken house and run. It wasn't... I jumped straight on Trade Me and started searching for chickens. It wasn't long before I was emailing a lady about a couple of cute Frizzle chickens I had come across. So now I bought chickens that would be ready to pick up in a couple of weeks, but still had no chicken house. It was one way to get motivated! I was on holiday at the time so it wasn't as bad as it sounds. 

I started pinning different concept ideas on Pinterest, spoke to my dad (who is a farmer and previously had chickens) and a friend from work who has several shaver hens. I soon worked out that I wanted a chicken run that was big enough to walk into, but still had no idea of actual measurements. This was where my partner Paul came in. He has his uses. We made it 2.4 m cubed. We also had a brand new dog kennel sitting in the garage that had never been used so decided to use that for the chicken house. We ended up putting a perch and nesting box in, but other than that didn't have to do too much. 

Next stop was ITM. For anyone overseas it's a trade shop full of building materials. It's safe to say that I felt completely out of my comfort zone. Half the time I swear they were speaking in another language. We came away with a van full of timber, some hinges and a lot of chicken wire. Over the duration of building the chicken run I learnt how to use the nail gun, skill saw, how to hang a door and ensure things were level and square. I was constantly writing down odd words e.g. flush (yeah, you can all have a laugh) with a rough definition next to the word. I was continuously reflecting and I can honestly say it was a new learning experience for me.

It gave me a genuine insight into how a learner in my class feels and the process they work through. Although each group has their own adventure and path, I still feel that there are some common stages they work through - exploring, planning, learning, creating, reflecting, sharing and digging deeper. The model continues to be a work in progress. It's something that I've played around with for the past four years, but feel that I'm getting a better understanding of what may need to be a part of it. The plan will be to simplify the ideas I currently have around the process and to make it more kid friendly.

Now to think of what my next Adventure Learning project will be.

The Launch of the Adventure Learning Facebook Page

For a while now I've been thinking about how I can inspire other teachers to get their kids involved in Adventure Learning. Adventure Learning is something that I've been passionate about for a long time now. Over the past year I've regularly blogged and tweeted to share my own experiences and ideas. While I'm sure this has been of some use to others, it has been flawed in the respect that it's only my ideas that are being shared. 

I've created the Adventure Learning Facebook page to provide teachers with a place to share ideas and make connections with other like-minded teachers across NZ. 

You can find the Facebook page by clicking this link http://goo.gl/AD8Qkp