Amazing Asia
St Paul Apostle South
Endeavour Hills 2010
Rangoli to welcome the guests
About St. Paul Apostle South
 St. Paul Apostle South is a Catholic Primary
School in the south east of Melbourne.
 We have 265 students who represent over 50+
nationalities. Many from Asian countries.
 Our focus for 2010 was to build School
Community.
How do we build community?
 Engage with Asia Project – NALSSP
This allowed us to develop units of Inquiry Learning that would
give students a deeper understanding about Asia and its great
diversity.
We accepted that although we have a diverse number of
cultures within our school , students did not necessarily
know or understand other cultures other than their own.
What did we do?
 Principal attended a conference on Asian Studies supported by grant







from NALSSP.
Principal attends local cluster meetings to share ideas and gather
information
Staff participate in Professional Learning to understand the reasons why
students need to increase their Asian Literacy.
Level 3 developed a unit of work in Term3 – Amazing Asia.
Asian Art Show – culmination of all the learnings and a celebration of
cultures
Student Wellbeing Community Grant – developing a mosiac
representing our multicultural diversity
Story Quilt – all families create a story square to be put together to
make a quilt
Recipe book – collection of Asian recipes donated by our parents
How have we engaged with Asia?
 Level 3 Inquiry Unit – Amazing Asia
 Asian Art Show – October 2010
 Inviting parents as experts to talk to the
children about their Asian culture
 Food, music, story, art, craft
Celebrating and Creating
Celebration of our 50+ diverse cultures at St. Paul Apostle South by
–
 working in partnership with parents to produce a mosiac Mural
depicting our multicultural families
 Story Quilt Project – inviting all families to work with their
children do complete one square of cloth depicting their own
family culture. This will then be made into several wall hangings
for our new hall.
 Recipe Book – with a collection of Asian recipes donated by our
Asian families. This book will be sold to the community.
 Asian Art Show , Fashion Parade and Asian music performance
Planning the learning…
TUNING IN AND PREPARING TO FIND OUT
 What variety of activities will be used to:
 Engage all students in the topic?
 Assess prior knowledge?
 Refine further planning?
 Lead into the ‘finding out’ experience?
ACTIVITIES & RESOURCES
 Brainstorming
 Mapping-Where in the world is Asia?
 What are our wonderings?
 The Big 4 Questions.
 Picture Priorities.
 Think, Pair, Share.
 Globe Trotting Game
 My Classes
FINDING OUT
 Experiences to assist students to gather new information about the topic.


SORTING OUT

Activities to assist students to process and work with the information and ideas they have gathered about
the topic (including exploring values).

ACTIVITIES

Ask an Expert-parents, Ankita, Eithne, parents

My Classes & Internet web sites.

Snapshots of Asia

Guided reading books, Story

Interviews

Martial Arts Display

Library Visit

Bollywood dancing—Pat, Sia (2F), Other Asian Dance styles

Drama, Poetry,- Haiku,

Art-mandalas, origami for display at the Asian Art Show in October

Beijing Opera

Animals of Asia

Comparing and contrasting cultures and traditions

Mapping,Venn Diagrams, Data Charts and diagrams

Mahjong, Sudoku and other Asian games
Further planning
GOING FURTHER

Activities to challenge and extend. (These may in the form of further shared experiences, individual or
group projects, etc)
ACTIVITIES & RESOURCES

Children as Teachers – experts in the grade to teach chinese writing, speaking and counting, Korean
culture, origami paper folding.

Project – My Country!! Cn to choose an Asian country to explore, find 10 interesting facts and present
to the class – oral discussion.

Power point – cn to create a pp presentation on a second country to develop ideas on festivals.

Indian Dance – Sia (2F) to demonstrate dancing and talk about costumes and customs.
MAKING CONCLUSIONS

Activities to ‘pull it all together’, to assist students to demonstrate what they have learned and reflect on
their learning.
Planning the learning ( continued)
TAKING ACTION
 Activities to link theory to practice. To empower children to act on what they have learned and
make links to their daily lives.

ACTIVITIES & RESOURCES

BIG BOOKS / GUIDED READING
Snap shots of Asia – Malaysia, India, Philippines.
The Girl, the kite and the wind.
RIC – India – children explore Indian culture through reading, jigsaw groups, oral discussion
Asian Art Show – fashion parade, Asian music performance by extension group,




WEBSITES & VIDEOS
 SEE My classes.
 MULAN – Disney.


MUSIC – various types
Research activity (example)

Animals of Asia

In your task book write the name of the animal you are researching.
You need to find out some important facts about your animal. Find the main idea for each fact.
Write what you think it means IN YOUR OWN words.
Here are some questions to think about.
What does your animal look like?
Where does it live?
What does it eat?
Does it live with or near people? Why?
How does your animal live?
Is your animal hunted for food, medicine or another reason?
Why do you like or not like this animal?
What are some more interesting facts about this creature that you can share with the grade?











Asian Art Show
21 October 2010
Japanese Kimonos by Yr 5/6
Cherry Blossoms and Asian
Shelters by Yr 2
Asian patterns
Our own Chinese
Dragon
3D clay modelling of Asian
animals.
Mosaic works
Chinese
Coolie Hats
Housing /Shelters
across Asia
Asian Patterns
More Chinese Dragons
Silk Designs
Japanese
Kimono
Guests tried their
luck with the
Fortune Cookies!
Japanese Story
Books
Our wonderful Talented
Art Teacher – Mary
Lanera
More Dragons
Asian fashion show
Korean Dress
Chinese costume
Sri Lankan
Costume
Masters of Ceremony – two of our parents
Principal’s Welcome
Asian Dance & Musical Enrichment
Group