Federation (Grade 6 Curriculum)

The recreation, equally as big

It's pretty big guys, I was surprised when I saw it in person!

Today the grade 6 students made a start on the Federation Unit. We looked at the following website and read through it together.
http://www.beenleigss.eq.edu.au/requested_sites/fed/
This child-friendly website also has excellent links to other sites.

We then did a big book sharing using the book called Australians All put out by the Curriculum Corporation and which I found hidden away in the library at 5-45 yesterday afternoon. My wonderful students took turns sharing off-the-cuff.  Each student then received some notes from the book A Children's History of Australia: Federation by David Morrissey (revered historian) as well.  Well done to TM, LS, VL, OF-W, and OF who listened so attentively and presented so well.  Students had thirty minutes reading time to digest the literature they were given and to highlight keywords which we have focused on all year. They have had time to plan their approach in their Writer's Notebook and this is tonight's focus for homework (30-40 minutes). Tomorrow they will look at their plans and they will begin their posters all about Federation. They will also be required to deliver a two minute speech to the class on the topic at the end of the unit. Plagiarism will be frowned upon! Students can use visuals and the Smart Board to aid them with their presentation, cue cards and their poster as a props, but are not to stand there just reading off their poster. This is can end up being boring delivery, try to think outside of the square. There is a display up the front of the room to help them along their way. They have also now seen the posters produced by two other  grade 5/6 classes in assembly. Meanwhile, the grade 5 girls have been working hard on their colonization posters whilst the grade 5 boys published their dustbin poetry and worked on their character studies from the film Gallipoli and continued on with the poetry terminology job.

I have suggested the grade 6 students think about the following topics when planning their posters:

What does Federation mean?

A PMI (pluses, minus and interesting) about what Federation meant for the colonies. 
(Ask your kids about the railway system or the luggage checks!)

Henry Parkes, the Father of Federation and his role in the whole process.

The Constitution/The Referendum

Edmund Barton (TM is excused from this as he did a whole historical show bag on him)

Debate over the national capital

By the way...Congratulations to all students for their behaviour and presentations in the book buddy assembly, most notably NS, GL, OF and JS.

Second lesson 
Today I tried to catch the band students up on the double lesson they missed and then all students working in pairs had to cross-correlate information to to produce a time line about Federation. Students shared their proposals and plans for their Federation posters with me and chose the card they wanted.

Working in pairs

Cross-correlating information