ACfE In Action

Tuesday 9^th October 2007

At the beginning of this project the children chose the topics that they would like to study. When Jennifer and I compared their choices with the “original plan for the topic” we discovered that nobody had chosen to study rationing. There was therefore going to be a big gap in their learning if this was not covered. An afternoon of rationing activities was therefore planned for today and the children decided that to be successful they needed to find out what rationing was, why rationing took place, what was rationed and how much of each food and clothes people were allowed. Jennifer and I then shared the planning of 5 different activities and organised an “experiential learning” afternoon. The children learnt to sew in the “make do and mend” activity, they weighed out weekly rations for butter, jam, sugar and meat and discovered how much food you were allowed.  They learnt how to set the table in another activity, they played an interactive game on the computer discovering what rationing was, what was rationed and why.  Finally they took part in a shopping/problem solving game with clothing coupons to buy their annual allowance. They were using literacy and numeracy skills across the curriculum, using technology for learning, working in teams and solving problems within a relevant context. These children have proved that they are successful learners and effective contributors, I just hope they return home tonight offering to set the table for dinner and offering to sew any buttons that are needing done! These are hopefully skills that will be with these children for life.