Thinking Like Architects

Today we had a challenge... it was to think like an architect, a builder, an interior designer! We had to learn about measuring items and then using a scale create a model that was 1 tenth of the size of the original.  In our learning today we had lots of opportunities to either jump into our learning pit or cruise our way across the easy way.  Miss Signal was impressed to see many of us jump down into the learning pit, feel nervous and climb our way out the other side with huge smiles on our faces and new knowledge and ideas! Tino pai rawa atu Tumeke 12 - Excellent Tumeke 12!

It was a VERY busy day and we all learnt a lot of new skills - some mathematical, some social!

Here's the outline of the day... We learnt...
1. About scales, who uses them and why they are important.
2. What an estimate means and how it means to take an 'educated guess' - you can't just give any number, you need to use your knowledge to inform your guess.
3. Using a ruler and a tape measure - where to start measuring from and what cm and mm means!
4. To create a scale model of the classroom using the scale 1m = 10cm or 1:10.  We had to measure doorways, windows, walls and more.
5. How to create a brief for our client (Miss Signal and Room 12) - we had to think about design considerations such as: movement, learning styles, teaching space, doorways, safety etc
6. How to measured furniture and using the same scale created pieces of furniture from a birds eye view (looking down from above).  Also about how architects use the same symbols and create symbols to represent different pieces of furniture.
7. That we need to arrange our furniture in a suitable way that we liked, as the designer, but that also met the design brief (otherwise we might not get paid!)

At the end of the day one person stayed at the plan and our clients came around to visit us and question us about our plan.  Some of us looked very nervous at this stage!  We haven't quite finished and need more time to complete our plans. 

The winning plan will be used for our real classroom layout this term!

Check out some images from today:


Thinking Like Architects

Tumeke 12's Arcade

Tumeke 12's Arcade from Amanda Signal on Vimeo.

Flashmob 2

IMG 1603 from Amanda Signal on Vimeo.

Flashmob

IMG 1128 from Amanda Signal on Vimeo.

So What?

Over the last few weeks we have been exploring the ideas of creativity and thoughtfulness.  Today we recapped our learning and shared what our big concepts and learning has been.

From here we talked about 'So What?' - how can we share our learning with those around us and show our understanding of these concepts we have been learning about.  We created a 'So What?' list of ways that we thought we could share our learning with others.

After we had created this list we used a thinking tool called a 'Decision Matrix' - it helps you to be able to make a decision on things when using some different criteria.  So on the left side Miss Signal placed all of our options and at the top we put all of our big learning ideas.  We then went through as a class and thought about how our ideas matched and fitted in with our big learning ideas.  From this we came up with 3 main ideas that we thought best matched how we could share our learning.

We then had a secret vote and decided which project we would like to be involved in.  You'll have to wait to see what we decided!

Prioritising Thoughtfulness

Miss Signal gave us a task to order these 7 things from the most thoughtful to the least thoughtful out of the list.  When we shared them with the class we found that we all had different ideas of what was the most thoughtful.

Does it sometimes depend on who the thoughtful thing is for - or is it just as important to be thoughtful to anyone on this planet?

 

In what order would you list these 7 events?

What Does it Mean to be Thoughtful?

Our next job is to investigate the idea of being 'thoughtful'.

What does it mean?

What does it look like?

What does it feel like? 

- When you are the one being thoughtful

- When you are the one getting the thoughtfulness

Does being thoughtful cost money?

Here are our examples that we could think about how we have or other people have been thoughtful.  After we wrote this list we decided what was the most thoughtful thing someone had done.  We thought about whether it had cost money or not.

What's a thoughtful experience you have had?

Leave us a comment to tell us about it - we would love to know!

What is Creativity?

From our Immersion Week we decided we would explore the ideas of creativity and thoughtful more - especially the way that we could use Creativity to be thoughtful.  Our big idea we are exploring is 'Can My Creativity benefit Others?'  Over the past 2 weeks we have been exploring the ideas of creativity and thoughtfulness.

Below are our first definitions of creativity that we shared as a class.  We then looked at what some sources, such as Dictionaries, told us about what creativity is.

We wonder - what is your definition of creativity?