With their classroom transformed by glowing lights and bright colours, our Year 2 students spent a week learning in the dark!
Glow Week is one of the immersive learning experiences Year 2 teacher, Tess Browne, creates to bring the curriculum to life. This year, the theme also connected with the class science unit on space, while everyday English and maths learning took on a distinctly glowing twist.
“Glow Week is an immersive learning experience where the kids get to experience their normal learning, but it’s all glow-in-the-dark themed. Whether we’re doing procedure writing, Maths or Science, I just want to make learning as engaging as possible.” - Miss Browne
In Maths, students explored capacity by measuring different containers using glowing water and rocks. In English, procedure writing became hands-on as students followed and wrote procedures for creations including slime and chocolate crackles. And while the colourful classroom and special activities make Glow Week exciting, our students understand that the fun has a purpose.
“I liked when we measured containers for capacity. We learned procedure writing because we were writing about the chocolate crackles and the slime. I just like how it’s still learning lessons, but it’s just in a fun way.” - Brodie
"It was fun and we got to be in the dark with white shirts we coloured with glow-in-the-dark pens. We learned about capacity and we made glow-in-the-dark slime. I liked everything in Glow Week." - Aviyah
For Miss Browne, creating memorable learning experiences is an important part of her teaching philosophy. Many of her former students now in older years still stop her to talk about the themed learning experiences they remember from Year 2.
“They link the creative experience with a concept and it just stays in their mind a lot longer. In our school, I love that I get to have creative freedom. We're learning all the Queensland curricula standards, but with our own flair. Having creative engagement in the classroom is part of my teaching philosophy of making learning as engaging and memorable as possible.” - Miss Browne
Glow Week is one of several immersive experiences and classroom transformation days Year 2 enjoys throughout the year.
And what makes all that effort worthwhile? One Year 2 student summed it up perfectly when asked why they thought they would remember what they learnt during Glow Week:
“Because it was so fun!” - Aviyah