Making an Inquiry Real

When we notice our students playing certain made up games, we try to enhance that play with appropriate props and materials.  Animal play is almost always popular in our room and it became very common again after Christmas.  We brought out all of our Vet tools and stuffies and every student got involved in one way or another.  We used this theme to touch on concepts across the curriculum: writing, letter recognition & sounds, number sense, addition, playdoh, art, etc.

Our students are more engaged in learning when an interest is tapped into, like pets and vets.  What really solidifies the whole inquiry as a holistic entity is when we can make it a real life experience.  We do this by going on a field trip or by bringing the real world into the classroom.  As we developed our understanding of how to take care of pets and animals, we were able to interact with 2 of the teacher’s dogs, SPCA volunteers and their dog, and a local veterinarian!

Jack and Max were the perfect pet patients.  Students were able to get up close to them to check their heartbeats, their ears, and have their paws wrapped up with gauze.

The SPCA and Ollie the dog were able to help answer lots of questions about how to keep pets safe and healthy.

Dr. Megan was a wealth of information and a wonderful example of a community helper.  She showed us real x-rays and was able to tell us what they mean.  She showed us how she performs real surgery on animals with a stuffed dog named Rusty.  All of our students then received a surgical hat and helped wrap sore legs, ears, and tails.  We saw samples of ticks and heart worms and gall stones.

Having real dogs and people visit our class extended our learning to a higher level than we would ever have arrived at simply by playing pet in Drama!  We are thankful to have community members willing to help us develop our inquiry projects.

Acquiring Language Skills

There are so many things we do to enhance and promote the acquiring of language skills in our young learners.  If we used one method, we wouldn’t be reaching every student, since kids learn in different ways and at different paces.  It is like trying to get to the centre of a maze by going down every single path: we try them all and hope that one of them leads to greater understanding.  Here is a snapshot of the activities we offered during the month of February.

It impresses even us educators when we see what we have done in picture format, and I doubt we even captured everything!  We use story stones to inspire creativity in story writing, we play group games to learn and review letters and sounds, we read leveled books in small groups, we use Lego to build letters, we write on the table with dry erase markers, we offer opportunities to write when we make signs for a fire truck or a vet clinic, we break codes using shapes and letters, and more.

Most importantly, we celebrate every little success.  When a girl in a reading group notices that a picture of a mom in a story matches the ‘m’ in the word mom, we cheer!  When a boy notices a story stone has a letter from his name, we are ecstatic!  We will follow every path we find in order to help every child develop their language skills to the best of their ability.

Coding in Kindergarten!

We were so lucky to have the Brantford Public Library visit us this week with their collection of Ozobots that they have available for loan.  Ozobots are tiny robots that students can control through the lines that they draw on paper.  It is a unique experience for students to have complete control over how a little robot moves.  The way to code the robots is simple enough for kids to be able to work independently, which is a way to give them confidence in their abilities.

The benefit from having the library share their Ozobots with us (other than getting a visit from our favourite librarian Val!) is that we had enough for everyone to have their own to work with.  In kindergarten we have a hard time sharing sometimes!

The first step was to use the markers to draw the path that the Ozobot would travel.

The process of figuring out how thick to draw and connect the lines was interesting to watch.  Students would draw, try their Ozobot, stop and figure out how to make it move better.  Some students wanted to keep working at it, so that their designs became more complex.  Some students were satisfied with a simple rectangular path whether the robot traveled the whole thing successfully or not.  The problem solving process that students went through to figure out what to do next was varied among our students.  These observations informed us about the level of problem-solving and determination each student was at.

The Ozobots turn on and off with a simple click of a button and they are pretty durable if they get knocked on the floor.  After this introduction from the library we can use the the 3 Ozobots our school owns when we visit our Learning Commons and we can try different coding activities to hone our coding skills.

Moving the body to move the brain

There is a lot of talk in the news and on social media about the increase in childhood obesity and how we need to get kids exercising more.  The above quote strikes me as a simple and natural solution…allow kids to move and be kids without technology as much as possible and their bodies and minds will have a better chance of developing as they should.  (Healthy eating is of course also essential and we do have a fantastic healthy snack program available to every student every day.)  An area to improve in, however, is when and how often we give kids the time and space to move.

We are fortunate in kindergarten to have a flexible curriculum, which allows us to incorporate this time to move and play.  An important side effect of this is the focus and learning that we see happening both during the play and after.  Our students prove to us that healthy bodies = healthy minds.

After moving freely through the classroom, building, moving large boxes, constructing towers and castles, balancing Mr. Bear on our feet, students are much happier coming to sit for 15 minutes in a small guided group.

Our extended outdoor play is a great time to flex our muscles during naturally occurring gross motor play.  We value these movement/play times so much that we allow time for them everyday.  Not only do these times provide physical exercise, which readies students to learn in the literacy and numeracy frame, they also allow students to flex their self-regulation, problem solving and belonging & contributing muscles.

Imagine what  might happen if this approach was carried on through the grades…

Re-Telling Stories

Overall Expectation 1: Communicate with others in a variety of ways, for a variety of purposes, and in a variety of contexts.

Specific Expectation: Retells experiences, events, and stories in proper sequence.

Coming back after the winter break, one of the first things we did was read aloud The Hat by Jan Brett.  This is a great story to re-tell because there is familiar repetition in the events that occur and clues in the pictures about what might happen.  To follow up the story, we worked in a small group to make a story map.

We all helped colour the character pictures and then we checked back with the book to see what happened at the beginning, the middle, and the end.

We talked about where the pictures should be glued down.  We all helped add the different articles of clothing to the animals with markers.  Again, we used the book as a reference.

We added a title and our story map was complete!  As another way to review the sequence of events in the story, students had an opportunity to play and interact with toy characters and clothing.  Students could act out the story with the book and with each other.  It was a fun way to solidify our new learning.

 

 

Math Challenge = Holiday Fun!

We introduced a new holiday-themed challenge this week.  We used chart paper to map out various shapes and colour coded them to match the snap cubes we have in our room.

We spread out the cubes, so that everyone had access and we had a good look at the map on the wall.  We could see that some students were drawn to certain images and they immediately started collecting the colours they would need.

Some students wanted to go up and have a closer look.  We observed lots of visual checking as construction began.  This activity allowed us to see students count, match colours, make patterns, and slide and rotate cubes to get the right configuration.  They used their prior knowledge of things like trees and candy canes to create recognizable shapes.

It was really interesting to see some creative innovations happening, such as the reindeer above that has clear antlers and a red nose, but does not match the map.

It was the same with the trees.  We could see the end results that looked like trees that are green with a brown trunk despite the fact that they did not match the map.  This challenge was even more of a challenge than we thought it was going to be, but it became a wonderful snapshot of how our students were thinking!

The candy cane became the ‘go to’ starting point where all students could feel successful with their creations.  We have been patterning before and this was a great time to review those skills.  Some students made 3 different candy canes and didn’t try the other shapes.  Some students tried building 3 different shapes!  It was an activity that was accessible to all students no matter their ability or confidence.

As new students joined in, the activity evolved.  Some students used the previous creations as models to try it themselves and others immersed themselves in the joy of pure construction.  Strengthening hand muscles like this is a great pre-writing activity in and of itself!  We will leave our chart posted to see if students will push themselves even further!

Guided Groups

In our play based program, getting kids to sit with us to be guided through reading leveled books, writing tasks or math activities doesn’t seem to fit. We work these times into our daily schedule because we believe they allow children a chance to develop skills that they regularly use during play. Another plus is that our students love to do it: they love the extra attention working with small groups allows.  We capitalize on this by adding the additional joy of going to show off our work to the Principals upstairs when we have mastered a skill or a book.

We have a special rainbow shaped table that allows for small groups to work together with the teacher at the centre.  We can do a lot of talking with this intimate setup and when we have their direct attention, students are more likely to absorb and integrate new learning. For example, we start reading groups with a picture walk where students look through the pictures in a new book to get an idea of what the book is about, which helps them decode new words.  We teach our students to slow down and point to each word that we are reading.  It helps groups all read together and to really notice the words that they are looking at.  We show students how to sound out words and how to check the picture for a clue.  We talk about what the period, exclamation point, or question mark means at the end of sentences.  We also learn how to be patient and take turns when working in a group.

When writing is the focus, we learn right away about how important it is to put our name on our paper…to get recognition for our great stories.  We learn that the pictures we draw tell a story.  The teacher is there to help students no matter what writing stage they are at.  They might tell us the story and we print it for them with a highlighter for them to trace, they might be able to print the words if we help them sound them out slowly, or they may be able to use sight words and independent sounding out to write their own stories.  Every success at every stage is celebrated.

One of the best ways to celebrate is the promise of a visit “upstairs” to share our good work.  If the Principals are not available, we read to the secretary or the LRT.  Our students are so excited to do this that they beg to be in guided groups sometimes!  We are so thankful that our staff is on board with this and that they are so good at pumping up our students after they share.  They are beginning to develop their feelings about learning and about school now, so the more positive the better!

We see students reading and writing during our learn and play times, which is the best way to know that we are doing something right!

Playdough in 4 Frames

Our students love to help make the playdough that we use in our classroom.  Apart from the fact that it gives them a sense of ownership of their own learning and learning materials, it happens to incorporate all four frames of our communication of learning!

Demonstrating Math and Literacy Behaviours

Overall expectation 9: demonstrate literacy behaviours that enable beginning readers to make sense of a variety of texts.  Specifically 9.1 sound/symbol relationships

Overall expectation 15:  Demonstrate an understanding of numbers, using concrete materials to explore and investigate counting, quantity, and number relationships.  Specifically 15.5 Counting in sequence, counting the number of objects in a set and 15.10 investigate adding/subtracting in everyday experiences

Every time we make playdough we are counting out how many cups or tablespoons of ingredients go into the bowl and adding them to make sure we have followed the recipe.  We are even talking about the different forms of measurement for mass and capacity.  We often see students rolling out the playdough in order to make the letters of their name or the alphabet in general. Using playdough has been shown to strengthen hand muscles, which prepares students for writing with a more confident pencil grip

Problem Solving and Innovating

Overall expectation 13 Uses the processes and skills of an inquiry stance.  Specifically 13.1 talking about what happened after an experiment and 13.4 explaining how their project was made.

For this particular batch of playdough, we added coffee grounds.  We had been observing students looking under rocks for insects during every outdoor time for a week, so we found a recipe online for playdough that looks like dirt.  It was an experiment that was just as interesting for us as it was for them.  We added some plastic bugs and watched.  Students immediately started to make homes for the bugs and they were able to tell us about them.

Self-Regulation and Well-Being

Overall expectation 3: Identify and use social skills in play.  Specifically 3.1 taking turns, 3.2 sharing toys and materials and cooperating.

The skills of sharing, taking turns, and social cooperation are a real challenge for students who are between the ages of 3-5.  They are learning at school that when the teacher puts out a basket full of plastic bugs (or other material), you can’t just grab as much as you want.  Educators guide children through the process of asking for a turn and how to share playdough, so that each child has a similar amount.

Belonging and Contributing

Overall expectation 1: Communicate with others in a variety of ways, for a variety of purposes, and in a variety of contexts.  Specifically 1.2 listening to and responding to others, both verbally and non-verbally, for a variety of purposes, in a variety of contexts .

When a new student sits down at the playdough table, they need to ask classmates to share instead of entering the play by grabbing materials from others.  If someone does ask, the other students need to acknowledge the request in a positive way.  These interactions are laying the foundation for later social relationships.  We make sure to praise students who are polite and kind in their requests and responses and we jump in to guide struggling students through the appropriate process.

Playdough is such a versatile and useful sensory activity.  We will continue to make it with our students on a regular basis.  I think some blue with sparkles will be next and I wonder what our kids will do with that?

Who Needs Expensive Toys?

Sometimes educators really are lacking in the tools they need to effectively teach a concept or unit.  At other times all we need to do is check the garden, the recycling bin, or the pantry cupboard!  There are so many examples of how we use the things around us, instead of buying expensive products.

 

chestnuts found at home

stumps

rocks

stumps and mulch

We don’t need fancy play equipment when we can balance on stumps and move them around to make a train.  We can look under rocks for bugs and we can examine nature that we find outside at home, like the chestnuts that I brought in with their spiky shells and oily insides that our students had never seen before.

 

The leftover cups from a summer barbeque have been a huge hit as they are stacked in different ways, used as a challenge to see who can build the tallest structure, and turned into a massive wall!

 

We searched outside for our one favourite leaf each.  We turned our leaves into leaf people.  We wrote about our leaf people and turned the whole project into a class book that we can take turns having at home to share with our families.

 

Nothing beats a free farm pumpkin as a source of art and science inquiries!  We had a close look at our pumpkin from the outside to the inside using our powers of sight, smell, and touch.

 

Big and small boxes have provided our students with the inspiration for forts, boats, pet beds, ice cream shops, and houses for a month now.  They get played with so much that we have had to reinforce some with duct tape!

We can’t forget also mentioning the advantages of making our own playdoh.  Our students become familiar with units of dry and liquid measurement and they learn how to take turns when we mix up our own playdoh every few weeks.  It would cost us so much to buy individual little containers.

Educators have to be creative when it comes to sourcing out supplies, but in the long run, it is better for students to have access to this wide variety of materials.  An added bonus is that they see the benefit for our environment in reducing consumption and re-using everyday things.

Opportunities to Problem-Solve

There is a time and place in kindergarten rooms for teacher-directed activities and there is a time and place for student-directed activities. For this activity we could have sat with small groups of students and walked them through the steps to make an adorable paper owl.  We often use this method for special occasions like when kids are making presents for families.  We decided to use this sample owl as the guideline for a problem solving challenge, with no expectations for perfect looking owl finished products.  Since it is the beginning of the year and this is our first challenge, we did have paper cut into triangles, squares and strips as a starting point.

It really threw a few students for a loop when we said that they had to figure out how to make this owl without teacher help.  That meant no cutting out circles for students who are still learning how to hold scissors!  The majority of our class decided to give it a try and they stuck with it right to the end.

We had a great opportunity to see how students use scissors and glue.  We got to see some of the processes for problem solving that were being used.  One boy went and found a marker to draw a black dot on each eye instead of cutting them out of paper.  Another boy decided to make his eyes large black rectangles instead of yellow circles.  A girl spent a lot of time studying the sample in order to figure out how to fold an orange square to make the beak.  It was so interesting to see how different each owl turned out and to see the look of pride on the face of each student when they showed us their finished owl.