Let’s celebrate!
What is Harmony Day? (ClickView, 2018)
The Australian Curriculum indicates things to be taught at school for becoming confident, creative and active and informed citizens from foundation
to year 10 student (ACARA, 2016b). All
Australian schools are required to follow the Australian curriculum to deliver
lessons. This lesson sequence and scope
is managed by the Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2016a).
Links to the
curriculum: Year 3 content description (ACARA, 2016a)
Our big question
was ‘Why do we celebrate Harmony Day?’
Through
discussion, my students came up with the idea that we need to understand that we
are all different and to respect that diversity. We all have equal rights to live a fully
human life regardless of race, culture or religion (Gilbert & Hoepper, 2014). We must respect diversity and we should treat
other people as we want other people to treat us. Last week, my students and I invited
guest speakers who were migrants and they shared their life experiences. They taught the class a children’s song in
Chinese, how to fold Origami (Japanese) and to say hello in Bahasa (Indonesia). We enjoyed learning about multiple cultures
and it was interesting to know different values and perspectives. For example, Japanese people have KFC on
Christmas day, as a special treat.
Our learning
outcome is to reach beyond the surface knowledge. Therefore, this is our turn to demonstrate our
lessons to you! We are so excited to
invite parents/carers and family to celebrate Harmony Day together, and we look forwared to you involvement. .
The students will
give several presentations on what they have learnt through this unit of
work. There are going to show their
learning in multiple ways such as role play, verbal presentation, singing a
song in different language or making a poster.
We will provide some multicultural activities as well.
This unit of work is
aimed at students being active citizens applying their learning, and also encouraging
students to use their personal and social capability to work as a team. They will also develop critical and creative thinking
to plan their project and to develop intercultural understanding to find the
task, ‘Why do we celebrate Harmony Day?’.
Each group chooses how to demonstrate their understanding. We would appreciate it if you can come and
join the day. It would be a good opportunity to show you what we are doing in
the class and students would find your presence a motivating factor.
(Australian Government, 2018)
Everybody belongs!
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA].
(2016a, December 14). The Australian Curriculum: Humanities and Social
Science (Version 8.3). Retrieved from
file:///C:/Users/customer/Downloads/AustralianCurriculum%20(1).pdf
(2016a, December 14). The Australian Curriculum: Humanities and Social
Science (Version 8.3). Retrieved from
file:///C:/Users/customer/Downloads/AustralianCurriculum%20(1).pdf
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA].
(2016b, December 14). The Australian curriculum: An overview for parents.
Retrieved from http://docs.acara.edu.au/resources/The_Australian_Curriculum_
an_overview_for_parents.pdf
(2016b, December 14). The Australian curriculum: An overview for parents.
Retrieved from http://docs.acara.edu.au/resources/The_Australian_Curriculum_
an_overview_for_parents.pdf
Australian Government (2018a). Harmony Day: About.
Retrieved from
https://www.harmony.gov.au/about/
Australian
Government (2018b). Harmony Day [Logo]. Retrieved from
Australian
Government (2018c). Harmony Day: Poster Retrieved from
ClickView. (2018, March 13). What is Harmony Day? [video podcast]. Retrieved from
Department of Immigration and Citizenship. (2012). Australian Citizenship: Our common
Bond. Belconnen, ACT: National Communications Branch of the Department of
Immigration and Citizenship.
Doyle, A. (2017, August 16). Bee heaven tribe: Activities to teach and discuss diversity
[Picture]. Retrieved from https://www.beehaventribe.com/diversity
geography, economics and citizenship in the Australian curriculum (5th ed.). South
Melbourne, VIC: Cengage Learning Australia.
ReplyDeleteHi Mina,
What a fun and interesting topic to explore! Your opening paragraph introduces Harmony Day and gives parents some background information about the topic. You have included a video explaining Harmony Day at the bottom of your blog, however I suggest moving it to underneath your first paragraph so that parents can watch it to get some more background information.
You have clearly developed your blog with parents in mind. You have included lots of parent friendly language, making your blog engaging and easy to read for parents/carers. I particularly like that you have included a poster inviting parents/carers to the school for Harmony Day, which is a great way to get them involved in their child’s learning.
You have planned some excellent ways for students to explore different culture, including brining in a range of guest speakers from different cultural backgrounds. You have made clear links to the History Curriculum and included relevant content descriptors. I encourage you to also include relevant Civics and Citizenship content descriptors so that parents are more aware of what students are learning in that subject area.
I recommend that you include references under the images and videos that you have included, not just in the reference list. Also, the layout of some of your references is a bit off, probably due to the formatting of Google Blogger, so I suggest that you go back and try and fix this.
You have really kept the students in mind when writing this blog and planning the unit of work. I think that students would find this unit fun and interesting and parents would enjoy reading your blog. Great work!
Thank you very much for your advice. I totally forgot about referencing until you mentioned it. Receiving peer feed backs made me nervous, but it was not too bad with your kindness. I agree with you, so I fixed my blog that you recommended. Thank you very much for your support!
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