Saturday at School, Community Walk

Jukka Miettunen
Pedagogical manager

Today 28.9 we had a special day at Patamäki School. Together with Parents Commitee and teachers we organised a Community Walk. 1st graders walked together with 5th graders as a godstudents. 2nd graders were with 6th graders same way. A lot of parents followed the classes learning as well the history.

Every class walked a route of 3 km in the neighbourhood to learn the history of Maikkula and Patamäki area. Neighbours, parents and grand parents had organised checkpoints by the route.

First one was the Maikkula Mansion. When arriving to the yard, the view is the same as in the 19th century: Fredrika’s House from the 1860’s at the river bank, an 18th century’s barn, stable and worker’s quarters Väentupa to the right and the main building from the 1830’s at the centre. We could imagine tarboats going down Ouluriver bringing wealth for the area. We heard stories about big salmon catches in the 1860’s- They were dazzling: even 82.000 kg!











Next checkpoint was Maikkula reserve troop barracs.
The buildings from Russian power time were still there giving visions of that time.

Next refreshing checkpoint was ground water taps where we could drink clear and cold water discussing about the water cycle. Most of the Oulu people get their drinking water from Oulu river after purification.

Next we found out where our famous Laanaoja (small river which goes thru the city) get its start. It quite near to our school.

After walking a while we stopped at old shop of Huuskonen which was very famous in 1960s. We heard stories time before big Super Markets conquered the area.

On the last checkpoint we conquered the Lion mountain and had some traditonal Finnish games with a help of two parents.

Finally it was time to get back to school and eat sausages, rolls and juice. It was so tasty!

The feedback was excellent! All participants got a huge amount of valuable information about the history of the area. The feeling of strong community and caring was present.

Thank you all for your contribution!

Silent Films with 5th grade

Jukka Miettunen
5th grade teacher

As a part of Finnish and media studies 5th graders made silent films with own mobile phones and edited it with Microsoft Movie Tool. The main focus was that the dialogue was transmitted through muted gestures, mime and title cards.The film should also contain some kind of surprise also.

21st Century Skills aimed were collaboration, creativity and use of technology.

Once again work was fun and educating. Here's one production called "Surprise Quest".

Enjoy!

Literacy Day

Mrs. Paula Vorne

2nd grade teacher

Today, the 8^th of September,  is United Nations International Literacy Day. Literacy is something that we in Finland take for granted. Every child goes to school and gets free education for minimum of nine years no matter where in Finland they live.  Schools follow their own curriculum which has to be based on the national guidelines of curriculum so the base of education is the same in every school in our country. 

We celebrated the International Literacy Day with 2nd and 6th grade students. Every student brought their favorite book to school and they read the stories to each other in small groups. 6th grades godstudents also gave feedback to the smaller students how they could improve their reading skills. 

  

More information on the themes of the International Literacy Day:

 http://www.unesco.org/new/unesco/events/prizes-and-celebrations/celebrations/international-days/literacy-day/

Oulu-Ontario seminar in Denmark

Oulu og Ontario seminar in Denmark

Mr. Jukka Miettunen

Pedagogical manager

 

On 27th-30^th of August I had an opportunity to participate in a conference in Odense and Århus in Denmark.

The participants were mostly Danish school leaders and people from administration. We were discussing about school change, ICT in education and of course comparing and changing best practices in all countries.

The Danish school system seems quite similar to Finland. Schools are well equipped and learning results are good. The will to make schools better to meet future challenges by changing teaching methods towards student centered  and co-operative methods is the hot topic among all three countries.

The use of ICT in education both in Denmark and Finland is mostly at the same level. Danish schools have more digital material available and it is in heavy use. A big help are the area learning centers which have good contact with publishers and offer teachers short in-service training and the latest information and samples of material. Also many school use BYOD (bring your own device). Denmark is ahead of our weekly use of learning technologies with the students. We Finns have a lot to do in that sector!

The other lecturer was Ms. Nancy Steinhauer from Ontario, Canada. 

Nancy Steinhauer is a principal of an inner-city elementary school in Toronto, Ontario. Ontario has had great success in the last 10 years with whole system reform. In its 4000 elementary schools, literacy scores have risen 15%. Similarly, in its 900 high schools, graduation rates have risen 14%.

Nancy's school is what's called a Model School for Inner Cities in the Toronto District School Board. As one of approximately 150 schools with students living in poverty, Nancy's school, George Webster, has committed to the Model Schools for Inner Cities program’s 5 essential principles:

1. Innovation in teaching and learning

2. Supporting the social, emotional, and physical needs of students

3. School as the heart of the community

4. Research and review of students and programs

5. Sharing best practices.

In Ontario, and in Nancy's school, the focus has been on "raising the bar" and "closing the gap." George Webster's teachers have worked collaboratively to plan meaningful units of study for their students that demand 21st century thinking. They meet regularly to examine student work and provide interventions for students who are having challenges in their learning. Their belief is that every student can learn, given enough time and support, just as every teacher can teach, given enough time and support. Parents and community members also play a large role in supporting the students' learning. At George Webster, the motto is "achieving together to build a better world."

Back to school!

Students and staff of Patamäki started their semester on Monday 12th.

After a relaxing and warm summer break we are looking forward the new challenges of the year.

Co-operation with the Microsoft PIL-program continues and we are putting a lot of effort to work started last year on co-operative learning, entrepreneurship education and ICT in education.

We welcome all the new and old readers to follow our learning journey to the future skills!

Happy Summer Break!

Today was the last day of the semester. The students got their reports and scholarships.We said farewell to our 6th graders. 

We open our school doors on 12th of August.

The staff of Patamäki wishes all warm and relaxing summer!

Building own music instruments

Building own music intstruments

Mrs. Kaisa Loponen

Music teacher grades 2-6

The areas of music teaching are among other musical innovation and playing the instrument. 5^th graders focused in these themes during the spring by building their own instruments. The 21^st Century Skills aimed to were problem solving co-operatively, creativity in constructing and playing and keeping a blog of the project. It also needed sustainability when making the instrument playable and practice with it.

They expanded their understanding about traditional instruments like piano, guitar and flute to new dimensions finding out that you can make sound and play with almost anything. If you can have an impact to volume and tune it makes the playing more diverse.

Every student made a kazoo and a drinking straw oboe. They also selected a third instrument which could be a can bass, cow whistle or an ocarina made of floorball. All the instruments were manufactured of material found from the school and Pringles tubes brought from home.

They learned to play with them and composed funny sounds like laughing fly, a ghost or balloon going empty. The work included also making a story in groups and composing a world of sound behind it.

The kazoos were made of garden pipe. There is a hole in the middle covered with plastic and when you sing in it makes a buzzing sound.

Can bass was made of Pringles tube by adding a wooden bar inside. After that they made a hole in the bottom and some thin rope. The other side of the rope was attached to the wooden bar tightly. If you push the rope with fingers you can change the tune like in real bass.

The most excited students in the project were those who are not so active in musical expression. The construction inspired also the active ones giving a challenge like playing a familiar children song with the floorball ocarina.

The students thought that this was fun and maybe we continue this with new ideas next year!