I’m delighted to share this resource created by the fabulous year two teaching team at Hillcrest Normal School: Catherine Blewden, Jordyn Lye, Ashley Patterson, Anna Harrison, and Tina ter Ellen. The planning was inspired by other home learning adventures “Dog Squad”, and “Troll Hunters”. The teachers originally designed the resource for use during home learning in Lockdown, but found it worked equally well back in the classroom.
Teachers worked so hard to craft this adventure, particularly Catherine who did the research and Jordyn who created the slides. It was inspiring to see the effort and care the teachers put in to the process, and to see how obsessed children and teachers alike became with the life story and achievements of NZ science legend Joan Wiffen! This is just the kind of local content we need more of in our classrooms, I reckon…
The team have generously made their planning available to others through this website. Links to the first two episodes are given below, with an overview of the rest of the unit. Please email Viv if you’re interested in accessing more. It’s freely available for individual teachers who wish to use / adapt it.
I understand Catherine and the team have moved on to writing a new adventure based on Antarctic exploration. Good luck – and we look forward to hearing how that one goes…