Kids' Health and Fitness

Learning Quest > New Things - New Ways News > Teacher's Notes > Learning Quest Parts

Introduction

This stage explains details of the NEW WAYS NEWS Learning Quest. It is setting the scene for what the students will be doing and what the focus of the Learning Quest is.

In this Learning Quest, students will become a member of a journalist team and will create the first ever, ‘NEW WAYS News’.

The main focus of the Quest is for students to:

Spread the word about New Ways!

New Things

The New Things section of the Learning Quest gives an opportunity for students to first do some research and investigation about new physical activity and food.

This is where the concept of a New Things Learning Log is also explained. The Learning Log is to help individuals keep a record of their thoughts, ideas and learning. We have suggested two ways of developing the learning log.

1. Using the computer and the template that has been provided for student to use. Students can use drawing tools to create images, insert digital images or scan pictures to support their log. As the learning log is electronic this also allows students to email their learning log to you and perhaps their parents.

2. The other way is to use a book as a Learning Log. This could make it easier for students to stick pictures and drawings in. Encourage them to also take their book home to share their learning with their parents.

This section may help students later when they are investigating the latest stories and crazes on new food and activity to report on because it will give them some initial ideas. Students could use a thesaurus to look up other words to refine their ideas about what is meant by the word ‘craze’. They could ask their parents to identify a craze or fad from their youth. So, wherever possible, encourage students to write down ideas and new things they find out in their Learning Logs.

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New Ways to Sport

As well as being active, organised sport through its many different roles can provide great opportunities for students to socialise and learn a diverse range of new skills. There are lots of new ways of being involved in sport and physical activity!

Sport education or SEPEP (Sport Education in the Physical Education program) provides opportunities for students to have a more meaningful sporting experience by learning to plan, implement and play in their own sporting competition. For a more comprehensive sport education experience a copy of SEPEP can be obtained from:

http://www.ausport.gov.au/pubcat

Most sports have their own SEPEP program available with all the information and tips you will need to consider. The Australian Sport Commission’s sport directory provides contacts to national and state sporting organisations. Contact sporting organisations and ask for a copy of their SEPEP program.

http://www.ausport.gov.au/info/sportdirectory

The four square challenge is designed as an introductory Sport Education experience to provide students with the opportunity to be involved in the process and some of the tasks involved in administrating a sporting competition. The suggested format has been structured to help students gain confidence with the program whilst encouraging students to become more involved and have greater ownership of their sport experience.

IMPORTANTLY teachers must facilitate and teach this process, always maintaining safety, control and constant supervision of the class. Click here for safety info.

Team Four Square Instructions

Assist the class to:

		Learn how to play the game
		Decide on specific rules and scoring
		Organise into mixed ability teams of 3 or 4 and name each team
		Develop any specific safety rules
		Develop a round robin and ladder
		Organise equipment and playing surface
		Implement the challenge. (This might happen over a few sessions or weeks, depending on how many games can be safely played in one session.)

During the implementation of the challenge, continually discuss with students the importance of fair play and providing supportive encouragement to team members.

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New Ways with Food

In the New Ways with Food stage, students will be working in small groups and sharing as a class. Remember to encourage students to reflect in their Learning Logs. Students will be exploring the different roles and responsibilities to do with food and food preparation. Some of the roles may include: the growers, manufacturers, cooks, kitchen hands, menu planner, supervisor or any other jobs required to ensure that we have a range of food and new ways to try foods.

Students will also have the opportunity to create a simple menu using a variety of items. You may like to change these to other healthy options but get groups to explore and be creative in their planning and what they create.

It is suggested to use the following items:

		Banana
		Orange
		Sultanas
		Milk
		Toothpicks

With the idea that students may develop a food and/or drink.

Time is limited so it is suggested that only one (1) lesson to be given for preparation and planning and one (1) lesson to create and evaluate.

During the process of planning, creating menus, preparing food, serving each group member must take on at least two (2) different roles.

During this task it is important that you also discuss kitchen hygiene and safety in preparing food.

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News … News

In News … News, students will investigate what the purpose of news is and also find out about news and what a junior journalist does.

The key messages the news agency want to get across to their readers is clearly stated in this section. It is important to make sure students come back to visit these messages to make sure their story reflect them. The key messages are:

		The importance of exploring new foods and new ways to be involved in physical activity
		To encourage and give ideas of new foods and new ways to get involved with physical activities

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My Job

In this stage of the Learning Quest students will be investigating how to write an article and including the information they have collected for their article to write their own news story for the ‘New Things News’. The story does not have to be real, it can be a creative story, however the main ideas must fit the ‘New Things News’ messages.

Encourage students to write a plan. The plan should include: What is the main idea, what is the title, what are the key points, quotes? You can use the article plan to help your students through this process. A template has been provided as a support for you and your students.

Also encourage students to visit the website below to help them with the writing of their article.

Support in writing an article:

http://english.unitecnology.ac.nz/resources/units/paperprod/structure.html

Make sure you discuss with students the importance of the article being their own work and not plagiarised from others. Revise or teach the students the use of quotation marks when using intellectual property of others. Also encourage students to clearly record the source of their information.

It is important during this section to allow time for sharing of the draft articles and that each article should be reflected upon twice.

Students should reflect upon:

		What do they like about the articles?
		What could be improved?
		Anything missing?
		Any modifications needed?

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News Time

This is where a single individual article becomes a part of the whole news.
As a class, students will need to work together to plan out how the first ever news will come together.

You will help students to pull all the articles together to develop a newspaper or a newsletter depending on how much time you have. You may find that there may be further work to do. Have students split into smaller groups and work further on articles, stories, information, photos or graphics to fill the spaces.

If time is limited we suggest that you may like to develop a special edition for the school newsletter. You could even invite the person who puts this together to speak to the class.

The class will need to work as an editing team to put together the final touches on the ‘New Ways News’.

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What Have I Discovered (Evaluation)

This is the evaluation stage and it is an opportunity for both the teacher and students to reflect on the learning from the NEW WAY NEWS Learning Quest. If only part of the Learning Quest was completed, then the assessment rubric will need to be altered to suit your class.

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