Humanities and social sciences / Foundation / Inquiry and skills / Questioning

Curriculum content descriptions

Pose questions about past and present objects, people, places and events (ACHASSI001)

Elaborations
  • posing questions about family and places having explored sources relating to their own life (for example, sources such as family interviews, photographs, stories, film, classmates’ paintings, excursions to places)
  • inquiring about the lives, places and events of family members and inquiring about their own history (for example, asking the questions ‘How old was I?’ ‘Where was I?’ and ‘What was I doing?’ in response to family photographs)
  • posing questions about artefacts of the past (for example, ‘Is it old or new?’, ‘What was it used for?’) and representations of places (for example, ‘Where is this place?’, ‘What does this show?’ and ‘What is that?’)
  • asking questions about the place they are in after being encouraged to observe it using different senses
General capabilities
  • Literacy Literacy
  • Critical and creative thinking Critical and creative thinking
ScOT terms

Historical inquiry,  Research questions,  Observations (Data),  Human settlements

Assessment

Foundation/Prep history assessment - Exploring my family history

This is an assessment package that uses the Foundation Australian Curriculum history achievement standard to gather evidence about how well students have demonstrated what they know, what they understand and what they can do in relation to the topic 'Personal and Family Histories'. Children investigate their family history ...

Video

For the Juniors: Candles, cards and carols: Christmas in 1983

How do people celebrate Christmas now? This clip shows some of the ways Christmas was celebrated in 1983. People sent cards, gave presents and sang carols. Have things changed?

Online

Weather: what is weather? - activity

This is a Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) student worksheet about weather. The worksheet includes an aim, an introduction explaining what weather is and a series of questions about weather for students to respond to using pictures and words. Some of the questions are about what sort of clothes the students would wear and games ...

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Holiday Souvenirs

Use this lesson plan to kick start the creation of an exhibition of objects collected from home about holidays past and present.

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Artefact chat: Foundation

This sequence of activities establishes the concepts of artefacts, and oral history through prior knowledge and experience, personal interests and the familiar. Students then generalise about what an artefact is and practise how to describe an artefact and think creatively about it. Students also learn about interview grammar, ...

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Past, present and future on the farm

In this resource, students learn about technologies that have changed over time and how these changes have helped farmers. Students will have the opportunity to consider how their own school-based technology might solve a problem. This lesson is part of a sequence of lessons that can be used with this age-group of students. ...

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Make a Museum of Memory and Myth

This lesson plan is inspired by the People's Museum of Memory and Myth made in 2017. The work was created by artist in residence Hans K Clausen with the support of the local community. The curated collection of objects are displayed in glass fronted boxes and evoke memories of childhood. You can replicate the process the ...

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What are places like?

This learning sequence includes a student workbook where students learn to identify the important features of the place they live. Students will learn to draw a map of this place and show the important things by drawing pictures. You can adapt this sequence to suit your students or school.

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People and Places

Through this geographical inquiry process, students will examine a range of places at the national scale, the reasons people visit places, and factors affecting peoples’ access to places. Students will also analyse their personal connections to places they visit.

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My family and other families

This learning sequence provides students with the opportunity to learn about their own history and that of their family. As participants in their own history, students build on their knowledge and understanding of how the past is different to the present. The learning sequence includes two inquiries: my family, and other ...

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Talking Time: an exploration of time - how we change over time

This integrated lesson sequence that explores the concept and language of time and then moves to using sources and artefacts to show their own personal history. Students will share personal artefacts and those shared from their families to explore concepts of time, history and change.

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Little history: Toys and games

This unit of work uses toys and games to provide opportunities for students to explore concepts of change and continuity by making comparisons of the toys children have played with over time. Structured around a series of inquiry questions students can use images from the museum collection to create a timeline of toys. ...

Interactive

The Orb

The Orb is a collection of multimedia learning resources about Tasmanian Aboriginal histories and cultures. It explores the interconnections between people, Country, culture, identity, and the living community. The multimedia resources have between three and five sections in which Tasmanian Aboriginal people share their ...

Interactive

Indigenous weather knowledge

An interactive map of traditional weather and climate knowledge that has been developed and passed down through countless generations by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The site provides descriptions of the sixteen seasonal calendars used by First Nations peoples across Australia.

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Work sample Foundation Year: Familiar places

This work sample demonstrates evidence of student learning in relation to aspects of the achievement standards for Foundation Year English. The primary purpose for the work sample is to demonstrate the standard, so the focus is on what is evident in the sample not how it was created. The sample is an authentic representation ...

Video

An olden day toilet

In the olden days, there were no toilets inside the house. Why do you think that was? Instead there was a "potty" for the children and a commode chair for the parents. Would you be brave enough to help empty the potty in the morning? How did people in the olden days wash their hands if there was no tap? Buckingham House ...

Interactive

Environmental and Zoo Education Centres – primary school resources

A collection of digital resources for primary school teachers and students to support teaching and learning from home, with a particular focus on geography, science and history. The resources were developed by Department of Education teachers from 25 Environmental and Zoo Education Centres in NSW and include Google Sites, ...

Online

People live in places. Important places - Homes

This sequence of five activities focuses on places. Students investigate their own home as an introduction to the concept of place. The inquiry can be expanded to include other places students belong to, why they are important and how they care for them. These activities use photographic resources from The State Library ...

Video

Ironing clothes in the olden days

How do your parents get all the wrinkles out of your clothes? Do you sometimes see your parents using an iron? In the olden days there was no electricity, so the iron had to be heated up on a fire. In this video, Buckingham House volunteer Jeannie Green shows us some old-fashioned irons and explains how people used them. ...

Video

What is a meat safe?

Before fridges were invented, people used meat safes to keep their food cool. But what is a meat safe? Watch this clip to find out! What was the meat safe made out of? How was it designed to keep bugs out? And how did the meat safe actually keep food cool? Think about the way we keep food cool today. How do the fridges ...