Charlie on a Trip - Norway

I have a group of 17 pupils in the 1st grade and most of them were 5 years old when we started this work. The most important focus this fall was to teach them the rules of the school and the classroom and to teach them to read and write.

Our C was ‘Collaboration’.

Besides that I, as a teacher, have been more aware of and focused on all the C’s during my teaching, I made the kids aware of which soft skills we need (in addition to reading/writing ) to develop as grown up human beings. We worked most with collaboration. The pupils got lots of small tasks where they knew they had to work together to make the goal.

The overall reactions of the pupils were that they loved the tasks! They could also tell me if the collaboration went well/bad and why. They are not so developed yet that they can make deep reflections about it.

I will give some examples what we have worked with.

1. We talked about soft skills (used Fullans icons) and specially collaboration. We tore the word collaboration down in small definitions that they pupils understood.

2. “Charlie on a trip”
   Charlie is the teddy bear of the class. Every week he can join 1 pupil at home. But some weeks Charlie is just in the classroom and makes trips on his own in the afternoon.
   Then I put some things in his little travel case when the kids are at home. The next day, we ‘discover’ that Charlie and his suitcase have moved place.
   The first time I did this, I put a little soap, a towel, a swimming suit and swimming glasses in the suitcase. We did the following:

   • The students gather in a circle (like we do every day). They notice that Charlie isn’t in the right place. That means that we must investigate what has happened.

   • We unpack the suitcase and take a good look at the items in it together. We must find out where Charlie has been. No one is allowed to shout out if they already think they know where Charlie has been.

   • The pupils go and sit in pairs. They must talk together and agree on where Charlie was on his trip.

   • Each little group has a bit of paper. On the left side of the paper, the students draw or/and write where Charlie has been. On the right side, they must write or/and draw why exactly they think that.
     Then they sign the ‘hypotheses’ with their names.

   • The students prepare a little presentation and present it to the class. I can tell you: Charlie has been on the most amazing trips. I thought it was obvious that it was the swimming pool, but no! Here are some of the examples of where he has been:

• The swimming pool in town

• The swimming pool in the neighbouring towns

• Swimming trip in the river

• Swimming trip in Africa with the crocodiles

• Helped the lifeguards on a boat (they knew because there was no ticket of the

  swimming pool in the suitcase)
  We spent 1 hour to investigate and draw/write and another half a lesson for the presentation.

  I did the same exercise later, but then I filled the suitcase with an empty little bottle of soda, an empty popcorn box, a cinema ticket, and an empty sweets bag. Charlie went to the movies!