Team Magma have been having a lot of fun exploring old fashioned toys and learning how to play games from their parents era.
During the unit of inquiry, “Pastimes and toys tell us a lot about how kids’ lives have changed over time” the students brought olden day toys and games into class. After some time was spent observing and playing these games the students made comparisons between these toys and games and the ones they use today.
The students discussed how pastimes have changed over time and explored possible reasons for this. Some of the ideas included changes in technology, materials and space available to play outside. One of the challenges during the unit of inquiry involved the students designing their own ‘modern version’ of an old fashioned toy using recycled materials. There were some very creative and original ideas and they enjoyed sharing their games with other class members.
The approaches to learning that we focused on were viewing and listening and formulating questions. The students enjoyed viewing some of the old television shows and listening to audio stories that used to play on the radio. In order to gather information about the olden days the children conducted interviews with their parents and presented their findings in venn diagrams.
The students had a lot of fun and hopscotch, knuckle bones, elastics and string games experienced a brief surge in popularity!