Imagining Aberdeen – Page 4 – Imagining Aberdeen

I am like…

To help children think about themselves as learners they have been introduced to some learning characters who have different learning characteristics.

‘I’m like Robert. When I am at football and I’m losing I try and do my best and keep going. Also when I run the daily mail I keep on running even though I am tired. I’m not so reflective or good at planning.’

Kacper

‘I chose Rebecca because I like making plans and being careful about my jobs. When I am doing my writing I check.’

Shannon

‘I’m like Ruby because I love to go to the library. I just feel like her. I ask a lot of questions about different stuff if I don’t understand, I think and I think. If I still don’t know I ask the teacher. I’m a bit like all the characters but mostly Ruby.’

Diana

‘Ryan because I like relationships. I like learning with other people – like maths games. I’m not like Rebecca as I’m not reflective. I like to go for stuff, not plan.’

Julia

Learning characters on Tour!

The Learning characters made it to their forth and final stop today at Tullos Primary School. Once again we went on an adventure to find out which learning character we are most like and who we would like to become more like.

Some of us struggled to pick just one character as we felt we shared a lot of similar characteristics with multiple characters.

‘I’m like Ruby and Rebecca because I think about everything and I talk to the teacher a lot.’

Caitlyn

Rhianna decided she would like to be more like Ryan.

‘I’d like to get better at learning with people.’

Others of us thought really hard about what we did or could do to help with our learning.

‘I go home [at lunch] and come back and calm down at my house and rest and make my brain all better. [Then] I feel nice and fresh,’

Jack

As you can see the class had already made snitches with the 4 different learning characteristics on them and this helped us when we were discussing who we were like.

A visit to Union Terrace Gardens

Manor Park and Bramble Brae Imagineers have been walking around Union Terrace Gardens looking at the art, thinking about what’s good and bad and how to change the gardens. It’s part of the City Centre plans for Aberdeen.

‘We like the mural but not the mess and stuff lying about. We will write a report when we see the plans for the Union Terrace Gardens in December.’

Bramble Brae Imagineers

Learning characters at Riverbank

We were looking at different types of learning today at Riverbank and learned 4 new ways of learning. Each learning style is attached to a character. We have Robert who is resilient. Rebecca who is reflective. Ryan who likes relationships and Ruby who is resourceful. We asked each of the children to choose a character who they could relate to and spoke about what we had in common with each of the characters as well as looking at our differences. We also had a think about which characteristics we would like to work on.

Sean identified with Ryan because: ‘he’s good at encouraging people!’

Keela felt she was most like Ryan because: ‘I like having relationships with my friends. I think it helps me learn because Tyler showed me something I was good at and I never knew I was good at it until I tried it.’

Nico wanted to become more like Ryan as he felt this would make him a better learner: ‘I want to get better at working with people as it’s hard to work on my own.’

Samantha wanted ‘to be more like Robert so I can challenge myself.’

Dennis even thought of a way to improve: ‘I want to get better at handwriting by doing more practice.’

Celebrating Children and Young People

For Aberdeen City Council’s Celebration of Children and Young People, Imagineers ask staff and visitors at Marischal College what they can do to make their vision of Aberdeen as a healthy, happy and safe place happen.

I was asking people if they would like a tour of the mural. Many people said ‘No, I am too busy’ or ‘I have a meeting’ but the people who did it liked it!

Leo

‘We were giving tours of the mural. Telling grown ups about how the inside of the bubble is how the Imagineers imagine Aberdeen to be. Before we started talking to the grown ups we felt nervous but excited. We were really happy giving tours.’

Aidan, Mikey, Ralfs and Gabrielle.

‘We were asking what can you do to make the ideas in the mural happen? We decorated cards and then asked grown ups to write down their ideas. The tree looked amazing and colourful – an Imagineer Christmas tree. We hope the adults do what they said they would.’

Sean-Paul, Katie and Keira.

Here are the commitments that the adults made to helping make the Imagineers vision happen:

Be more friendly to others. Keep the streets clean. Make sure everyone picks up their litter. Never be mean to children. Love the city. Try hard. Smile more. Invest in our children. Be helpful to people. Make children happy. Invest in the environment by building more parks, playgrounds and better buildings. Love everybody all of the time. Listen to children’s views. Care for our children. Be supportive. Encourage creativity in everything we do. Tell children they are great! Recycle and look after my grand-daughter.

Bramble Brae meets our learning team!

Today in Bramble Brae we met 4 new learning characters. Each character has different learning attributes which we may already possess or might like to work on.

‘I’ve learnt that different people have different characters and you can see which one you got and maybe take the advice written.’

Kate

Cameron felt he was most like Robert ‘because I love a challenge and am quite resilient.’

As well as identifying attributes we already have we highlighted some which we would like to work on.

‘I need to work on being independent so people don’t distract me.’

Marcin

Distraction was a key theme which came up in the majority of groups and the need to learn how to manage such distractions. Our groups came up with a number of suggestions of how we could best tackle this issue.

‘Ignore them or go and sit somewhere else [and] it’s good not to listen [to them].’

Rhiannon and Scott

Imagineer Toolbox

The Imagineers have been developing qualities like being respectful, helpful, confident, a good listener, team player and fun.

‘In my box I have lots of tools like a saw, a hammer and a spanner. On them I have written what I need to be an Imagineer – to be respectful, kind, friendly and brave.’

Aidan

‘The tool I need to work on more is being able to compromise.’

Leo

‘Gabrielle helped me chose a tool that is a quality I have a lot of. We chose hard-working.’

Keira

Learning Selfies at Tullos

Children need learning to be fun and have important people around them to help them be good learners.

‘My mum, my nana, my friends and my community are important to me. I like to play with my friends. I like to go swimming. I like art. I learned to talk when I was a baby. I learned how to run when I was two. I want to learn more art, to cook and to bake cookies. I’d like to learn how to be a model or artist.’

Laura-Jane

‘In my life I have learned my when my cousin’s birthday is, how to sing and how to take care of a baby. I love playing football, going to after-school club, going on holiday and to my mum’s, reading and look after my brothers. I’d like to go outside to learn about nature and drawing. I’d like to learn how to do gymnastics.’

Skye

Learning Selfies at Manor Park

Children need people in their lives to help them learn. They need to be able to reflect on what they have learned and learn things that they like to do.

‘These people are important to me: my mum and my brothers, my teacher. Miss Lindi who is my basketball coach. My friends including Daniel, Matas, John, Caitlin L and Zoe. I’d like to learn different languages, art, parkour, backflips, to do a 360 on my bike and sing.’

Kristers

‘I have learned to draw, dance and do maths. I like to dance, play, watch TV, do gymnastics, draw, sing, go on my phone and annoy my brothers. My mum, dad, brothers and grandma are important to me. I would like to learn how to speak, how to skate and how to do crabs.’

Nicole

‘My mum, dad, John, Pat, two cousins, uncle, myself, auntie, teachers and PSAs are important to me. I have learned all the timetables. I like to play Xbox, got to the skatepark, go out with my friends, do art, break at school and to watch youtube. I would like to learn how to fly and how to do the spine at the skate park.’

Barty

Learning selfies at Riverbank

At Riverbank today we were finishing off our second week of learning selfies. We thought about why learning can be important and that it doesn’t always take place in school.

Charlotte said: ‘I have learnt to think forward to what your job will be in the future.’

We also looked at how learning starts from a very young age, as babies and children learn new skills such as crawling and talking. This made us think about the people who helped us learn these skills.

‘I have learnt to respect your family.’ Leona.

‘Treat others how you would want to be treated.’ Shelley.