The Concept Box - Session 3

Text: The Patience of Trees (Once upon an If, by Peter Worley, page 118-122).

During the free speech section of the comprehension stage of 'The Concept Box,' the children talked about freedom to do things. River - a statement was made about the river not being able to choose when to do things - Is this freedom?

During concept fishing, these words were brainstormed regarding the story:

Control
Weather
Determination
Freedom
Unfair
Happiness
Jealous
Wisdom
Mather-nature
Believing
Possibilities
Problems
Wishing
Movement
Gust
Friendship
Ability
First step
Misfortune
Courage
Confidence
Strength

During concept funnelling, the children reduced these words to the following words:

- Control - this was removed because they can't control themselves. It goes with freedom. The ones who were 'free' also were being controlled. What does this mean?
- Happiness
- Friendship
- Ability- isn't this a bit like control and freedom?
- Courage
- Confidence
- Strength - get rid of
- Determination - because little tree tried to get out when he had no hydration. Should be cut as was only in one part of the story.

Finally, as the children explored central concepts, the narrowed the above words down to these final words. Note: They added 'control' back in. A lot of the discussion revolved around the face that the characters in the story who appeared to have freedom were in fact being controlled. The word 'potential' was also added in to summarise a number of the words decided upon during concept funnelling.

- Control-freedom
- Potential (decided that covered ability, courage, confidence, determination)