TERM 3 - Treasure Concept

 TREASURE

This term we are looking at things that people treasure, noting that different people treasure different things, and not everything that we treasure costs money.

MEMORY

We started with a simple memory game - how many objects on a tray can you remember? We talked about different strategies people had used - some used repetition, some created a rhyme or song to help them remember things, some looked at objects that go together, some saved a picture in their head, some counted the objects so they could track how many they had remembered etc. It was very interesting chatting about varying strategies - great for children to see that there are many ways and to see others who might have the same strategies as them.

We looked at using mnemonics, chunking, song, looking for patterns etc with some other memory challenges. Did you know that most adults can store between 5 and 9 objects in their short term memory. So it is often difficult to remember a long phone number, but if we use 'chunking' (grouping numbers together) then we can often remember more. 

We looked at how the brain works - encoding, consolidating, and retrieving information.

Then we read a great picture book called 'Wilfred Gordon Macdonald Partridge' - about a little boy who helps and old lady find her memories. This is a great conversation starter - it talks about how some memories are happy, some are sad, some are from long ago, some make you laugh etc. We thought about why memories might be seen as treasure. 

GOLD

We acted out the Greek myth of King Midas and the golden touch, then talked about what the moral of the story might be. 

We looked at where gold comes from and the history of gold mining, and gold mining in NZ today. We also looked at how gold was important in Ancient Egypt - looking a little at Tutankhamun.

MEDALS, AWARDS, AND SUCCESS

We looked at the Commonwealth games and how people are successful. We thought about other things people get medals and awards for, and how else we might know we are successful at something. Children brainstormed things that might help make people successful (eg people to support them - parents, friends, coach; having the right equipment; have a drive and interest to do something; health; luck; skills; knowledge etc)

We looked at the 'success iceberg' and saw that behind success are many things that we don't often see.