History Hunt - Project Based Learning Hook Lesson for Year 6.

This year, I'm teaching year 6. I'm lucky because I've taught many of my students since they were in year 4, so I know them really well and we have established strong, meaningful relationships which means I can better cater for the strengths and needs of each of them. I'm also very lucky because I work at an epic school, with awesome staff, open learning spaces and wonderful students. Not to harp on, but what makes me even luckier is that this year I'm team teaching the whole grade with an awesome teaching partner with whom I share a mutually respectful relationship.

Anyway, I mention in my bio that I like doing epic things, and in my introductory post that I'm passionate about project-based learning (PBL). So I thought I'd share the hook lesson, or entry event, that I coordinated this week to launch my wonderful class' new history project.

For those of you who don't know, a hook lesson, or entry event in PBL is an engaging activity designed for students to have fun and get 'hooked' into the topic they're about to be inquiring into.

In the Stage 3 (year 6) NSW History Syllabus for the Australian Curriculum, one of the key inquiry questions is, "How did Australian society change throughout the twentieth century?" That's the question my class is looking at right now. So rather than introduce the topic by standing in front of the class and drone through a list of significant historic events, I decided we'd go outside and have fun.

Here's what we did.

I went to the website for the National Museum of Australia and found a timeline of Australian history between 1900 and 2000. I chose one significant event from each decade and made a page for each including an image and a description of the event. After making theses pages, I printed them out on card and placed the image in one clear container and the description in another. I also printed out a piece of card with the year which corresponded to each event.

I then went and hid each container in one of four locations around the school. There were 20 containers in total, so five in each area.

When the students came back in from recess, I explained that they would be going on a scavenger hunt to locate the boxes. They teamed up in groups of 3, and each group was give a number between one and four which corresponded to each of the areas in the playground. Each group was then responsible for locating just one box before going to sit under the covered outdoor learning area to read the text, view their image, and discuss.

After discussing what they had found, students were told that the text and images needed to be matched together, like a massive outdoor mix and match game. Students had to find the group which had the box containing the image or text that matched their box and then sit together in a circle to discuss their event.

I then raced back inside and laid out the years for each event in a long timeline which spanned the length of the classroom floor before explaining to the students that they would now have to work with their groups to locate the year in which they thought their event took place and to sit down next to it.

After doing this, we had a class discussion and moved students to the correctly corresponding year along their timeline. A human timeline!

Of course, we'll be teaching the students more explicitly and in-depth about these events as the term continues. They'll also need to inquire into their own event in groups before making a skit about it to contribute to a class episode of 'Horrible Histories'. However, as I said at the beginning, hook lessons are designed to engage students with the content in a fun an interesting way at the beginning of a project.

I think this one worked wonderfully.

Thanks for reading.

:-) @(* O *)@ =]