Week 7 - OPEN DAYS

Thanks everyone for a great couple of days. We had a wonderful time sharing with you some of our regular ODC experiences. It was lovely to see so many parents and grandparents. Thanks to the teachers who took time out of their busy day to come visit too. Here are some pictures celebrating our day.














Critical thinking; using a venn diagram to compare a human brain to a computer










4X4 challenge - The Helium Stick Challenge. As a group lower the stick to the ground. Each person must keep their index fingers on the stick at all times other wise you had to start again. The stick had a mysterious way of floating up in the air! this challenge was way harder than everyone thought it was going to be.









Rehearsing our Shakespeare play with Michael in the lovely winter sun!

Week 6

We welcomed a guest visitor this week; Julia Parker. Julia is a Neurodevelopmental Therapist. Julia assesses developmental milestones of 0 - 5 year olds, identify's strength and problem areas and then provides advice and treatment to help them reach their milestones. Julia works with premature babies (born before 32 weeks) and children with Cerebral Palsy, Downs Syndrome, Spina Bifida, Autism and unspecified developmental delay.
She began by running through how the brain develops in neutro and then explained the different developmental stages for babies and toddlers. She discussed, amongst other things, the importance of crawling (balance, working left and right side of brain) and why babies cry when you leave the room (They think you won't come back!) She then ran through the Bailey 111 Assessment test, which is the test she performs on her patients to see where their area of need is. I am pleased to say everyone at The ODC passed!!!





Betty made something very special for the Tuesday Class.....tzungtzu, in celebration of the Dragon Boat Festival that happens on the 5 th day of the 5th month....on the Chinese calendar.

Most people gave it a try. I did and thought it was delicious! This tasty dish consists of rice dumplings with meat and peanuts. It is then wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed.

















NO Jacqui on Wedne sday, so out came the chess boards!!!

Wednesday's Shakespeare group read through their with scenes from MacBeth, ready for recording next week!

Week 5

Goodness me, we have been busy!! I guess as the old saying goes....time flys when you're having fun.
At The ODC we are always busy, and we always seem to run out of time in the day. The last few weeks have been no acception. We celebrated Bring - a - Buddy Day in Week 4. We have in the past celebrated this time during Term 4, but I believe it is much more beneficial having it earlier. Makes sense really; I'm not sure why we haven't done it earlier before? Unfortunately there are no pictures to share of our Bring - a - Buddy Day, as I don't have permission from our visitor's parents! Will add this to the permission slip for next year.










Yeah!! We finally got our brain models completed!! We had to use plastercine and reference books to identify the different areas of the brain. We then needed to explain the different functions. We used 'language of the Discipline'( Depth and Complexity Icon) to complete this activity.
In Week 5, we moved away from the anatomy of the brain and investigated how our brains actually work.
Did you know the human brain has 10 billion neurons (this many: 10,000,000,000)Each of these neurons has between 1,000 and 10,000 connections with other neurons, making up to 10 trillion neuron connections possible (this many: 10,000,000,000,000) .
Our first task was to sketch a neuron and label its parts using these words; dendrite, axon, soma and nucleus. We then had to investigate the 4 different types of neurons; Sensory Neurons, Interneurons, Motoneurons and Pyrimidal Cells (receptors) and find out their functions.









Investigating neurons.......

Our final task was to investigate brain waves.....alpha, beta, theta and delta.










This term, as part of our Affective Curriculum, we are talking about what it means to be gifted. We have talked about the fact that there is no one definition on what it means to be gifted, but there are many academics out there who spend their lives studying, researching and then teaching others about it. Over the last few weeks we have been unpacking Joesph Renzulli's 3 Ringed Model.....see above. Renzulli considers three factors important for the development of gifted behaviour: Above average ability, creativity, and task commitment.

Within the above average abilities Renzulli makes a difference between general abilities (like processing information, integrating experiences, and abstract thinking) and specific abilities (like the capacity to acquire knowledge, perform in an activity).

By creativity Renzulli understands the fluency, flexibility, and originality of thought, an openness to experience, sensitivity to stimulations, and a willingness to take risks.

Under task commitment he understands motivation turned into action (like perseverance, endurance, hard work, but also self-confidence, perceptiveness and a special fascination with a special subject). Renzulli argues that without task commitment high achievement is simply not possible.

Only if characteristics from all three rings work together can high achievement or gifted behaviour be witnessed.

Taken from: http://www.gigers.com/matthias/gifted/three_rings.html

Unpacking Renzulli's 3-Ringed Model.

After unpacking Renzulli, we had to identify what fell in the center of the rings and how we showed it.