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Engaging Grade 1 Inquiry Through Play

The children saw animal footprints in the snow outside their classroom window. Instead of telling the children what animal made the prints, the teacher asked leading questions to encourage the children to investigate and draw their own conclusions. The children drew the prints, made lists of clues, and hypothesized what animals could have been responsible. Later, the teacher facilitated a discussion where the children shared their findings. The teacher's role is to nurture the children's curiosity and support their interests as a starting point for learning. The teacher will now plan structured and unstructured learning experiences to further develop the project and allow learning to take place in multiple ways.

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Lottie Fisher
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55 views1 page

Engaging Grade 1 Inquiry Through Play

The children saw animal footprints in the snow outside their classroom window. Instead of telling the children what animal made the prints, the teacher asked leading questions to encourage the children to investigate and draw their own conclusions. The children drew the prints, made lists of clues, and hypothesized what animals could have been responsible. Later, the teacher facilitated a discussion where the children shared their findings. The teacher's role is to nurture the children's curiosity and support their interests as a starting point for learning. The teacher will now plan structured and unstructured learning experiences to further develop the project and allow learning to take place in multiple ways.

Uploaded by

Lottie Fisher
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

BLOG POST 20 March 2020

CURIOUS KINDIES
SK CLASS | NEWS | RESEARCH

INQUIRY
One day at school, before all this craziness
happened, my children were watching the snow
fall from the classroom window. They were
chatting and using the glass to trace pictures (a
new favourite activity). Suddenly, the children
exclaimed that they had could see footprints in the
snow. They called me over to look and I made sure
not to tell the students what I thought they could
be. As adults we could so easily provide the answer to our student’s questions and there, the
excitement, the interest, the intrigue would be gone. The children would return to their activities and
the school day would continue. Instead I chose to ask leading questions: “What do you think made
those prints? Why were they there? How did they get there?”. The children, without any prompting or
encouragement from me, rushed to get clipboards and pencils. They drew the print, made lists of all
the clues they noticed that pointed to the origin of the prints and made lists of all the animals they
thought could be responsible. Then later in the day when we had assembled for a story, I asked the
children to share their findings/understanding. We made a list on chart paper of all the animals that
could have been responsible for the prints, which led to fruitful discussions about animals and where
they lived, some children thought it was a kangaroo!

My role in their inquiry so far has been a facilitator. I am nurturing the children’s excitement and
inquisitiveness and supporting their interests. Now, using this initial interest, it is my role to further
their learning. The article Interest Based Learning: Using Interests, Not Just Following Them states that if
“we use children’s interests, then we can see the interest as the starting point for what we do, rather
than as the end point. It then becomes our role, in partnership with children, to convert the interest
into an effective learning experience, rather than assuming an experience will be worthwhile simply
because it is child-chosen or child-directed”(2012).

It is my role now to develop interesting learning experiences so that the project can grow and develop
from this starting point. I need to plan for different learning experiences, with both structured and
unstructured play experiences included to allow for learning to take place in many different ways.

Sources:
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