Term 4 inquiry

I am going to do some brainstorming before planning our term unit as after the trip to Wanganui I now know that HEAPS of work goes in BEFORE the unit starts. L has lend me a book by Kath Murdoch called Classroom connections and it has heaps of easy to follow material for each stage of an inquiry.
Iwill use her headings and read thru her stuff and come up with some of my own.
Tuning in - to find out what students already know, think and feel about the topic. This could be where I do my first assessment as this is where students share their personal experiences and ask questions about the topic.

finding out - to provide shared experiences for all students to process and reflect on and to challenge their prior knowledge and beliefs. Its also about raising more questions as well as providing new information.

sorting out - to provide students with various means of processing and presenting info and ideas from the finding out stage.
going further - to extend and challenge childrens thinking

making connections/conclusions - to assist students to make conclusions and generalisations about the topic and to assess and demonstrate students progress through providing a comparison for students between the ideas generated at the beginning of the unit and now (stage 2 of assessment?)

taking action - to assist students make links between their understandings and their experiences in the real world. To develop an action plan for the school. (SEE Topic later)

sharing,discussion and reflections - to develop skills to report to others, to provide feedback for evaluation purposes about the successful and less successful aspects of the unit

She also has great planning sheets and I need these at the moment as I tend to start with a hiss and a roar and never finish the inquiries properly.
I want this one to work.

The inquiry will come from our term 4 overview about designing a new 'system' to solve a problem at school. I am going to take it further and our unit will be on what would make the best new entrant classroom. Next blog will be after I have had a good look at the curriculum. Oh and I also want the parents to be involved in this unit- how???