Tag Archives: inquiry

The Joy of a Journey

Last Saturday, I had an amazing “New York” day. My husband and I met my daughter and son-in-law at the Whitney Museum to see the inspirational exhibition of Edward Hopper’s work. After a few hours at the museum, we took a cross-town bus to Union Square where we got on a Q train to East 86 Street. We were hungry so we walked to Second Avenue and ate at a very old time New York diner. After stuffing ourselves until we could eat no more, we walked to the beautiful Carl Schurz Park and then took a walk on the promenade along the river. We ended the day by riding on the ferry from East 90th Street to Wall Street, with stops along the way. It was windy and cold on the top deck but we had the most amazing views of the city!

This wonderful day made me think about the joy of going on an inquiry journey with children. When I was teaching, my kindergarten class traveled all around New York as part of our bridge study. The next year, when the children were in First Grade ( I looped with my class), at the suggestion of the children, we investigated the various waterways that flowed under the bridges that we had visited and other waterways in and on the outskirts of the city. I’ll never forget those experiences and I wouldn’t be surprised if the children, now in their 30s, and their parents too, have memories from those excursions.

When I did consulting work with teachers, I encouraged them to embrace inquiry investigations in their classrooms. So many of these teachers did so and with truly wonderful results for the children and for themselves.

When we disembarked from the ferry we walked to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal to get the train back to Brooklyn, but along the way we passed Saker Aviation and I was reminded of a wonderful Aviation investigation that Dana Roth did with her kindergarten class.

Here are some photos to take  you along on the children’s investigation and on their journey.

THE NEXT TRIP WAS TO FLOYD BENNET FIELD.

 

 

I would love to hear about  inquiry journeys that you and your classes have gone on! 

      You can click on “reply” at the top of this post to share YOUR classroom inquiry story.

 

A YEAR OF KINDERGARTEN INQUIRY

Every Tuesday evening I facilitate a zoom meeting of early childhood educators where we discuss a different chapter of my book, Choice Time: How to Deepen Learning Through Inquiry and Play, and we share our stories from our classrooms. It’s a wonderful group of educators consisting of teachers and administrators from across the United States, Newfoundland, Taipei, Taiwan and Bolivia, South America.

Last week Lauren Monaco, a wonderful kindergarten teacher, who works at P.S. 89, a NYC public school,shared a study that she did with her kindergarten class in an East Harlem charter school a few years ago. The children’s interest in trees fostered curiosity about squirrels and inspired them to advocate for their East Harlem community. This wonderful study began in September but, taking a variety of loops and turns,  continued until the end of the school year.

At the beginning of the year, as a means of supporting children in developing a sense of classroom community, Lauren began a study of trees by creating tree inquiry groups. Each group “adopted” and named a tree that grew in the school community garden.

The children began drawing leaves from their trees, comparing how their leaves differed from the leaves of other inquiry group leaves. They looked at their leaves on a light box and examined the veins by looking at them through the hole of a “detail finder”, a piece of paper with a small circular window cut into it. They went outside and studied the bark of their tree.

Lauren introduced many books on the topic of trees and leaves to the class. A favorite book was Lois Ehlert’s Leaf Man. The illustrations inspired many leaf men being created as children engaged with natural materials at the art table during Choice Time.

 

Some of the children had an interest in creating a forest during Choice Time. To do this they had to experiment with paper so that they could figure out how to make trees that would stand up straight.

While the class was busy exploring trees and leaves, one child, Naima, began her own inquiry study. Naima became obsessed with figuring out how to lure squirrels to the classroom window. The children had noticed some squirrels in trees outside the third story classroom window. They wondered how they could get them closer so that the class could study them. Naima began to attach acorns to string and hang them outside the window, but couldn’t manage to lure the squirrels up to the third floor. Children are inventive and during Choice Time Naima began to create an elevator out of cardboard and tried to fit it through the narrow opening of the window. Naima’s interest in squirrels spread throughout the class.

Children developed a strong interest in squirrels, fascinated by how they moved and how they played. They read books and watched videos. They even found Youtube videos of mazes that were created for squirrels!

The interest in squirrels led to an interest in all the creatures that lived in or near the trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From a science catalog, Lauren purchased a “rotting log”. Children now were able to study the creatures that help decompose wood: snails, centipedes, pill bugs and beetles. This was a very new experience for these children who lived in the inner city!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The class took an exciting trip to the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. At writing workshop they shared their research with each other.

 

Lauren documented the direction of the study by posting the children’s work in the hallway. Rather than creating a “cute” display, an authentic story of the study, in the children’s own words, was created and the class shared their explorations with the school community.

 

The children’s focus turned to the question of how they could create houses for the squirrels and where they could build them. They looked at photos of houses for squirrels and they began drawing their own plans.

Home Depot donated wood pieces to the class and at Choice Time children began experimenting with constructing squirrel homes. First they sanded the wood and then they used duct tape and tape to hold pieces together.After they were satisfied with how their houses looked, they glued the pieces of wood together.

The children wondered where they could put their squirrel houses and decided that the school community garden, the site of their trees, would be the perfect spot.

At this same time the kindergarten classes in the school were doing an inquiry study of playgrounds. Because the school did not have a playground of its own, they visited other playgrounds in the neighborhood and also took a bus to Central Park to explore the playgrounds in the park. Of course an important part of their playground research included playing in the playgrounds!

“Let’s make a playground for our toy insects and our real snails!”

 

 

 

They began to create models for both squirrel homes and also play equipment.

 

 

 

 

 

An exciting day was spent painting the squirrel homes.

It was time to add more documentation.

Zoltan Sarda, the science coach, brought the children out to the garden and helped them get their constructions completed. It was particularly exciting for the children to use real, adult tools and to work on constructions in groups under Zoltan’s guidance

What began as Naima’s dream of creating an elevator for the squirrels became a reality! Look at the ecstatic expression on her face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now the focus shifted to the playground that the children wanted for themselves. Other schools had playgrounds and they wanted one too! They began to plan for the equipment that their playground would need.

They wrote a heartfelt letter to the Mayor and to other local politicians, explaining why they needed a playground. The letter received some interest at first. Then, unfortunately, the administration of the school changed and it went from being a child-centered program to one that focused on standardized test-taking and collecting data. Alas, as usual, it was the children who suffered. It was so clear (just look at their faces and the work that they were doing), that when children are engaged, interacting, playing and exploring in an environment that values joyful learning, they will flourish. 

There was an exodus of progressive educators after the administration changed. Teachers were no longer free to teach to the child, but were expected to teach to the test and to a standardized curriculum.

This all makes it so obvious that we, the professionals and the community , must stand fast and push for the education that children deserve. Deborah Meier, the founder of Central Park East and Mission Hill School, recently told me that it is clear to her that we know how to provide a successful school experience for children. We only have to look towards the expensive, progressive private schools where there are small classes, art, music, dance, and play in a nurturing environment. That’s what all of our children need!

Sharing Choice Time!

What happens when kindergarten children and second graders get together for Choice Time? Fun, fun, fun!
Fanny Roman and Angela Valco have been collaborating on inquiry studies together and they decided to see what would happen when their children got together for Choice Time. They both had a lot of TRUST in their children and had given them many experiences to engage in INQUIRY, COLLABORATION and EXPLORATION so it’s not a surprise that this was a very successful interage Choice Time!

Block building

 

Game center

The Guinea Pig Center

 

The Science Center

 

Constructing tracks for the robot

Making Play Dough

Painting together

Take a peek into the classroom to see the children building the tracks for the robot, working in the art center, playing games, and cleaning the guinea pig home. 

And then reflecting in journals about the wonderful experience of sharing Choice Time

Would you like to learn more about Choice Time? My book, Choice Time: How to Deepen Learning Through Inquiry and Play might be a helpful guide.

IT STARTED WITH A LEAKING SINK

 

My mantra to to early childhood educators has been to begin with the children. I’d like to share with you an example of how a teacher listened to his students and allowed their interests to lead the way to an inquiry investigation that naturally included math, science, literacy and higher order thinking.

How can the problem of a leaking sink lead to a fascinating prekindergarten investigation? Andy Yung, the prek teacher at P.S. 244 in Flushing, New York, with the support of his principal, Robert Groff, and assistant principal, Tu Harris, helped lead children into this investigation through their observations and their many wonderings.

The sink in the bathroom would not turn off and it bothered the children. Cayla announced that the sink is broken. Jonathan was worried that if the sink breaks there would be no water for the classroom and that there would be no sink. Anabel was more ecology-minded when she said, “The bathroom sink is wasting water!” Olivia seconded that thought, “The bathroom sink water keep(s) going…water (is) being wasted.”

Andy asked the children why it was important to save the water. Camilla said that we need it to wash our hands. Jonathan added, “We use to drink water. There’s water in the toilet.” Harsh was thinking beyond the classroom. “Sharks need water to live.” That made William add that all animals need water and Camilla joined in again by noting that “trees need water to grow.”

Brandon noted that the class Walking Sticks insects needed water to live.

Harsh observed that Tails, the leopard gecko, had a water dish in her tank.Raina noticed that the class fish lives in water and and Jonathan said the the plant-helper waters the plant every day.

When Andy began writing down what children knew about water, he realized that this was a perfect entree into a long-term investigation, the Water Project.There was a water table that hadn’t yet been opened and Andy decided that this would be an appropriate first step in the investigation. He brought it to the class meeting area, introduced it to the children, and asked them for suggestions on how to take care of the water table section. After many children contributed their ideas, William put them all together into three important water table rules:

Keep your body dry.
Do not throw water.
Do not splash water.
Andy brought out cups, funnels, pipes and buckets and the center was open for play and investigation.OnOOO
O

One day, Raina’s mother visited to show the class a video of Raina doing her chores at home. The children decided that they should have the chore of washing dishes too, so the water table became a place to wash the dishes from their Pretend center.

Andy is almost a poster boy for donorschoose.org, a wonderful site that encourages teachers to write small, classroom grant proposals and share these with the public so that people can make contributions to help get materials into classrooms. What fun it is to see water squeezed out as a spinner is turned around and around.

He also purchased a hand-powered washing machine!

A class trip to the laundromat it being planned.

Back to the water table, bubbles were introduced. For some children it was easy to blow a bubble, but for others it was a bit more difficult. But how exciting it was to finally figure it out and to shout, “I did it!.”

Bubbles were fun to blow outdoors too.

Here’s some other ways of exploring water that has been taking place.
Color mixing
Colored ice
Pouring water
Making paper by hand and with a blender


Water Music
Building bridges over water

Then the bridges moved indoors into the block center.Andy read many books to the children and some of them inspired more inquiry into what happens when water mixes with other materials, when it freezes and when it evaporates. A lot of new vocabulary was incorporated into daily discussions.The children conducted water experiments.

They used drawings to record the steps in their experiments.

The plumber came to fix the sink and this provoked a new interest in tools. Will this lead to a take-apart center? I’m sure that Andy, an observant and sensitive teacher, will follow the lead of his children!

A Second-Grade Journey

“The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.”
Norton Juster, The Phantom Toll Booth

Journeys have recently been on my mind. Perhaps it’s the onset of winter that is provoking my journey daydreams. More likely, though,  it’s the observations that I’ve been making on days when I’m consulting at P.S. 244 in Flushing, New York. The fascinating journey that Angela Valco has been taking, along with her class of mostly English Language Learner second graders, is what I’d like to share here. Since last month, they have embarked on a very  unexpected and child-initiated exploration, prompted by their interest in computers and robots.

Following an inquiry approach to Social Studies is a new mode of teaching for Angela. She first tried it out last year by exploring the NYC subway system and also picking up on the class’s fascination with two guinea pigs, their new class pets. Angela wrote the following to me, “ Inquiry work in the classroom has shifted my teaching approach, classroom culture and understanding of how children learn. …Being open and taking the time to listen to my students’ questions, ideas and wondering is the key to a successful inquiry. I enjoy being a part of the process of listening to my students share their curiosity and then working side by side with them in the inquiry process….My classroom has become a learning laboratory with the space and tools for my students to develop ideas and wonderings.”

To be sure, this has not been an easy switch in teaching style for Angela. Like many teachers, she previously followed a more teacher-directed thematic study approach. However, after seeing the success and excitement generated by various inquiry projects in the kindergarten classes, she decided to follow the direction taken by the kindergarten teachers and move towards experimenting with instruction that is less predictable and scripted. She also added Choice Time into her schedule. In an email to me, Angela wrote, “I am constantly stepping out of my comfort zone to make learning more engaging and to give more ownership to the kids. …Choice time and inquiry is a time where I see learning come alive! I watch and observe my kids in a way that makes me understand them more. It’s my favorite time. It’s worth all the extra time and all the uncomfortable risks.”

Let’s consider some aspects of going on personal journey, one that we might look forward to during our vacation from work. Of course we first must get the idea for the trip. What is it that sparks our interest in visiting a city or going on a climbing expedition? A trip might be inspired by discussions with friends who have taken this journey, an article in the newspaper or even a movie that we’ve seen. After making the decision to take this trip, we do some initial planning. Perhaps we consider what we already know about the place we want to visit. We might contact friends who have already been there to get additional ideas from them. We could jot down some ideas about what we might want to see on the trip and get new information by using a Google search. Then we plan our itinerary, book a flight and reserve hotel rooms. We’re ready for new experiences and discoveries! There are some places we know that we MUST visit but we also realize that we can get “off track” when something really interesting comes up. By keeping a diary we can keep track of our thoughts along the way and reflect on our experiences when we return home. After the trip, we might invite friends or family over so that we can share our photos and talk about our marvelous journey.

Angela and her class went on a journey – one of discovery and learning. This class journey followed very much the same trajectory as a trip that you or I might take on our vacation. It first began when Angela listened to her children as they worked and played and recorded her observations. At class meetings she brought to the children’s attention some of what she heard from them and this information provoked a class discussion focused on their interests. Since the major interest was on robots, together, they created a thinking map, showing what they already knew about robots and what they wanted to find out.

Angela began planning by thinking about questions children might have, materials she might need, possible trips, etc.

 

Then she began brainstorming with the children to see what they already knew.

The children also helped to plan for Choice Time by sharing their suggestions for different centers.

Just as our trip wanderings sometimes stay on track and other times take detours in unexpected directions, some Choice Time experiences  connect to the robot investigation and others  give children  opportunities for exploring a variety of interests such as a sewing center and a Build-a Story center where children built a story with Legos, wrote about their story and shared it with the class.

He is building a story and writing about it. Angela noticed that this was a wonderful center for her English Language Learners.

 

 

Wondering about what allows the keyboard to work.

 

Checking it out by looking inside the keyboard.

Analyzing the Robot

 

Using an IPad to get directions for constructing a robot.               Building a tent   Sharing is an important part of project work.


A few weeks into the robot study, I encouraged Angela to ask the children if they could think of ways to use classroom resources to further their robot investigations and also to demonstrate what they already know. This will be a class discussion when the children return from the holiday break.

Similar to our trip diaries, the children write in their reflection journals after each Choice Time. Some children share journals each day, inviting their classmates to ask questions and make comments.

 

One day I visited the class during their meeting and I asked them if they thought that a robot would someday take the place of the classroom teacher. Angela told me that this idea opened up a “can of worms” and an intense discussion on this topic lasted for a few days. Perhaps this thought put the children a bit out of their comfort zone! 

 

If I created a robot, it might…

…clean a car.

…sweep floors

…save people

This is still a study in progress. Where will it go? How much longer will it continue? Will it lead to another study, one of computers and coding? The answer is still to be discovered and I’ll most certainly share the progress of the journey that these second graders and their teacher are taking in a future blog post. Isn’t it refreshing to know that the direction of the study isn’t all worked out and that it is the power of the children’s interests and questions that will lead the way?

“It’s good to have an end to journey toward: but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Transporting a Classroom Towards Inquiry

I could almost hear a chorus of silent groans coming from the teachers sitting around the table in the staff room at P.S. 10 in Brooklyn. It was March 17th, 2005, my first day working as a consultant at the school. The new principal, Jett Ritorto, wanted me to introduce inquiry projects and investigative Choice Time to the kindergarten teachers. But it was mid-March and this was just one more new addition to their already over-programmed day. I wasn’t welcomed with open arms!

“We can’t do an inquiry project. This is when we start our transportation unit.”
I recognized this plea from my own not-so-long-ago days in the classroom. I had my theme, my materials, and my time-schedule all set up and then, in would walk a new staff developer with her own agenda, turning all of my plans upside down.

I assured them that we would not be dropping the transportation unit. Instead we would see what happened if we approached it in a new way. I suggested that they each go on a neighborhood walk with their class that week, with a focus on exploring the different ways that people could travel, to, from, and around their neighborhood. After the walk, they should encourage children to share their observations. This would give the teachers a sense of what the students already know and also what form of transportation seemed to interest them the most. That would allow them to narrow the focus of the class’s transportation study.

When I came back to the school the next week, I met with each teacher individually. The inclusion team, Dana Roth and Karen Byrnes, were excited and eager to share their experience with me. Their children had lots of questions about the subway and that was where they wanted to focus their study. The three of us spent the rest of the period preparing an anticipatory web, plotting out the many possibilities for a subway study. All seemed well.

Later in the week they contacted me and sadly told me that a subway study was out of the question. One of the students was confined to a wheelchair and would have to be excluded from all subway trips. They decided to switch to a bus study. I suggested, however, that they first bring the problem to the class and see what kind of solution the children came up with.

The children were outraged! “That’s not fair! Saim should be able to go on the subway just like us!” Here began a most unusual transportation study – The Wheelchair Project.

The class decided to find out more about Saim’s wheelchair and what it was like for him to move around the school and neighborhood. Saim was pleased as punch to be the center of attention (Dana said that she would not have pursued this route if the child was sensitive about being singled out).

They began the study by interviewing Saim. After the interview, they all sat around him in a circle, observing and drawing. The teachers began webbing what children already knew about wheelchairs and also collecting their “wonderings” on post-its and adding these to the web. From these activities, they decided to focus their study on movement and accessibility. These were the two areas where the children had the most interest.

News about this unusual transportation study traveled around the school like hotcakes. When the school’s physical therapist heard about the investigation, she provided the class with an unused wheelchair. This became a very popular wheelchair observation center. Children used magnifying glasses, tape measures, and detail finders (a square of black paper with a peek-hole cut in the center) to look closely at the different parts of wheelchair. They drew the wheels, the brakes, and the gears. Then they shared their drawings and ‘recordings’ with the children in the block center who were constructing their own version of a wheelchair. This chair took many days to construct. It sometimes fell over and was rebuilt often and eventually was held together with yards of masking tape!

 

 

The class visited the school bus that brought Saim to school to see how the lift helped children with walkers and wheelchairs get on and off. They interviewed the driver and also met Manny, a very affable upper-grade child who used a walker to help him move about. Manny was invited to the classroom where he was interviewed. He then gave each child an opportunity to try out his walker.

After this experience, a lift-bus was built in the block center. After a few days, it was deconstructed and the children built “a better lift bus.”

They walked took neighborhood walks, checking to see which stores and sidewalks were “wheelchair friendly.” Then they walked around the school to find out if their school was wheelchair accessible. The front of the school had lots of steps! How did Saim get into school? In an exciting moment of discovery, they found the symbol that they saw on the lift bus, along with an arrow. The class followed the arrows until they came to the ramp entrance. Problem solved!

They visited a neighborhood house that had been altered to make it wheelchair accessible and they interviewed the owner of the building.

This study certainly held the interest of the class and raised a new awareness of the challenges in Saim’s daily life. The children developed a feeling of respect for Saim and for the other children in the school who used wheelchairs, walkers and crutches.

Over the years, I have returned to the school to visit Dana Roth and I’ve always been intrigued by the variety of studies taking place in her classroom. On one visit, the children were investigating colors – inventing colors, exploring the various names of Crayola crayons and coming up with their own inventive names for their newly mixed colors. On another visit, the children were building a school in their dramatic play center, reflecting their investigation of their own school. Dana still does some thematic studies but she also listens closely to her children and develops inquiry projects based on their interests and wonderings.

I haven’t worked at the school for the past five years, but I’m going back in the fall to, as Laura Scott, the new principal, says, “Give a refresher course” in inquiry studies to keep it alive and well at the school. Let’s see what happens.

Changes!

In response to the unfortunate atmosphere of teacher bashing that we are living through, I would like to focus on some wonderful work being done by a group of hard-working teachers in a public school in New York City.

Here’s a bit of background information about this barrier-free, pre-k – 5 school, located on the Lower East Side, which is situated in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge. The ethnic breakdown is approximately 75 % Latino, 20 % African-American, 3.5 % Asian and 1.5 % ‘other’. Many of the children live in shelters or foster homes. There’s a large special needs population, often transferring into the school mid-year. Because of the No Child Left Behind legislation, families from other areas of the city transfer their children into this hard-working, caring school and, because children are traveling long distances, there’s a major problem with lateness and absences. This year, the heavy-duty budget cuts came down hard on this community. Without any significant PTA fundraising, staff is often forced to reach into their own pockets if they want to provide any extra materials for their classrooms.

Four years ago, I was approached by their network leader, Dan Feigelson, and asked if I could do some consulting work here with the kindergarten and first grade teachers. He was familiar with the inquiry and Choice Time work that I had done in my own classroom (we had been colleagues at P.S. 321 in Brooklyn) and thought that the children would benefit from more exploration and playtime. The principal, a former pre-k teacher herself, was in agreement.

The school already had a long-term relationship with the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. The children were making progress in learning the technicalities of reading and writing. However, they were challenged when the content became more complex. Because of personal stress in their lives, children had difficulty working collaboratively and in resolving conflicts without resorting to violence. The administration believed that the children needed more opportunities to learn and practice positive social skills and to engage in abstract thinking. They decided that the place to begin working on these problems was in the early childhood grades and that is when they decided to approach me.

Here were some of my impressions when I first visited the school: very hard-working and committed staff; positive tone in the classrooms; I did not hear teachers yelling or using harsh words when disciplining children; kindergartens had an unplanned form of Choice Time (really more like free-play) for 20 – 30 minutes at the end of a day filled with all academics; classrooms had very little organization of centers and practically no sense that children were expected to use materials independently (in the block ‘center’ were math manipulatives, dramatic play, teacher-materials stored, etc., there was no visible art center); first grade classrooms did not have Choice Time at all (occasional ‘free play’ as a reward for good behaviors); there were no blocks in the first grade rooms and a very small collection of blocks in the kindergartens.

Drawing on the Reggio Emilia philosophy of considering that the classroom is the second teacher, we first worked on room environment. I wasn’t sure if I was putting the cart before the horse, but it seemed like a concrete way of beginning. Major changes were made in the ‘look’ of the classrooms. The principal also ordered unit blocks for all kindergarten and first grade rooms. To my delight, the teachers began noticing immediate changes in the way that the children were using materials and in the general classroom ambiance.

We then planned out some studies that the teachers thought would interest the children, support their curriculum and also interest the teachers. The first grade teachers wanted their inquiry project to have a social element to it. They thought about the day-to-day lives of the children, and what would be important to all of them. Most of the school population, rather than using private physicians, either went to the emergency room of the local hospital or to a nearby clinic. This is where the teachers wanted to begin…with a study of the EMS. This also morphed into an ambulance study because of the children’s interests and questions.

They visited the local clinic, had a doctor and a nurse visit the classroom, and examined up close an ambulance that visited the school specifically so that the children could explore the inside and outside of the vehicle and interview the EMS workers. Some children became fascinated with bones and what was happening inside their bodies. In the classrooms, ‘hospitals’ were created along with x-ray rooms (overhead projectors, old x-rays). In one first grade room during their choice time, I observed a boy, doll in arms, racing to the “x-ray” room. “My baby hurt his arm. He’s crying! Help me”. The doll was quickly put on the overhead projector and the “x-ray technician looked at the shadow on the wall. He held up an x-ray, looked at it and said, “Your baby has a broken arm. Take him to the hospital!”. He wrote a little note on a pad, gave it to the ‘father’, who took it and rushed back to the classroom hospital, where the baby’s arm was carefully wrapped up with an old ace bandage. That same day, at Choice Time in another classroom I noticed two girls tracing the body of a boy on butcher paper and then, using a book as reference, drawing in the bones for the body. At the same time two other children were using the overhead projector to trace an image of an ambulance. They kept turning it on and off to check their work. This drawing was going to be the ‘plan’ for an ambulance model that they would later create out of cartons and other materials.

The Kindergartens began with a study of the local firehouse, making many field trips there, exploring the firetruck, interviewing the firefighters, checking out their own homes for fire exits and smoke alarms and creating their own home-safety plans.

This year is my fourth year working at this school. Some of the studies that have taken place are a kindergarten exploration of “Beautiful Stuff” ( children brought in ‘found’ objects from home like buttons, toilet paper tubes, broken pieces of jewelry, wood scraps, etc., sorted and labeled all of the ‘booty’ and brainstormed for ideas on how to use these materials in different projects) , a study of the local bakeries, a neighborhood garden study ( I watched children in the block center creating different areas for a classroom garden, using sketches that they worked on together. There were children in the science center planting seeds in small pots that they decorated. When they were finished planting, they brought the pots to the block center where they were put in the ‘community garden’.), a first-grade study of bridges, particularly the Williamsburg Bridge and a study of the NYC subway system. Each first grade class designed and built bridge towers outside their classroom doors and then connected them across the corridor to make one large suspension bridge!

When I asked the teachers if they noticed any positive changes since we began our work, here are some of the things they shared with me:
They noticed that
o Children were becoming more verbal
o The children who are their ‘struggling learners’ are participating more in class work and discussions
o During Choice Time and Inquiry-study time, children with behavioral issues are becoming calmer and more cooperative
o English Language Learners are talking more and sharing stories, possibly because there is no fear of coming up with a right or wrong response
o There is a noticeable carry-over to the writing being done during writing workshop since the children have more shared experiences to draw from
o Field trips have become more purposeful and the children can understand the purpose of each trip
o Parents have told the teachers the their talk about things that they are exploring in class and use a lot of new vocabulary.
o The teachers are more supportive of each other
o There is more professional collaboration
o There’s more of a feeling of a grade-community
o Teachers, along with children, feel a pride in their work
o The cluster teachers have come on board and are planning lessons to support the classroom studies

In a recent email to me, one of the kindergarten teachers wrote about some of the changes that she and her co-teacher made in their classrooms, “ Our block area has been enlarged. Therefore the children have more room to build. We have “blueprint paper” for them to draw their ideas first before building and pencils as well as post- it’s for labeling their building. The art area is more accessible as well as all the different mediums that they need. The dramatic play area is changed with each study and discussed with the children beforehand. There are papers in each work area for the teacher to make notes about what the children are doing, what we think and how to proceed, as well as writing (down) what the children are saying. The room was not as organized and now the children have access to the materials and their projects.”

The children created a market in the pretend center when they studied The Essex Street Market

Building The Essex Street Market in the block center

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am noticing that the flow of the day is much more ‘child-friendly’. Kindergartens have Choice Time for an hour every morning. They go on more neighborhood trips. The first grade has Choice Time at least twice, sometimes more, each week and they too go on curriculum-related trips more often.

When we discussed future professional goals, the teachers asked if we could focus more in depth on using documentation and assessment to help in planning whole class and small group projects and investigations.

These teachers have worked so hard and been so admirable in their professional growth. Their classrooms breathe with imagination, inquiry and a real life force!

On June 10th, two of the teachers and I will be presenting a workshop at Lehman College in the Bronx, NY. The conference is An Early childhood Education Conference: The Reggio Emilia Approach in 21st Century Urban Settings. Our breakout group is titled CHANGE! – DEVELOPING INQUIRY-BASED SOCIAL STUDIES PROJECTS AND CHOICE TIME CENTERS IN KINDERGARTEN AND FIRST GRADE CLASSES AT P.S. 142M. If you’re in the area and would like to attend, you can email Carol Gross at cmg38j@gmail.com

Is Kindergarten Ready for the Child?

Have you ever had a parent ask you if her/his child is ready for kindergarten? Have you ever heard a teacher complain about a child who doesn’t have enough academic skills to be in kindergarten?

I’ve been wondering a lot about these two questions.

Checking online, I found one after the other websites-advising parents about kindergarten readiness. Some sites discuss the pros and cons of redshirting, keeping a child back from kindergarten so as to give (usually) him an extra ‘edge’ in the grade and also giving him time to develop the ability to sit still for extended periods – time for hours of reading, writing, phonics and math.

My big question is this: Shouldn’t kindergarten be ready for all children?

Shouldn’t teachers (and administrators, of course) understand that within this kindergarten age group there’s a wide range of development, physically, socially and intellectually?

New York State, among many others, has adopted the Common Core Standards (a document that defines, grade by grade, what children should be able to do in reading, phonics, writing and math by the end of the school year.) These prescriptions are all about ‘academics’. Social and emotional issues are not even addressed. I could go on and on criticizing all different parts of these ‘standards’ but unfortunately this is what schools must consider when thinking about classroom practices.

What I’m noticing is that many schools seem to be feeding the fire of this hysteria by assuming that kindergarten must now, because of the standards, become the ‘new first grade.’ Hence come the fears and anxieties of parents who naturally want to protect their children and insure their school success.

However, I strongly believe that teachers (and administrators) should analyze these standards and then revisit the writings of John Dewey and Lev Vygotsky. It is possible to create classrooms where children have many opportunities to learn through exploration, play, exciting inquiry projects, singing songs, reading funny big book stories together and also meet the standards. This can, and should, be a class where there is an environment of stress-free learning and fun.

When I work as a consultant in kindergarten classes, I always stress the importance of keeping inquiry-based explorations and play at the core of the child’s day. Reading, writing and math workshops certainly can by incorporated into the program but they shouldn’t be the focus of the child’s day. When I was teaching, I certainly did have those workshops, but my day always began with a group meeting that flowed into choice time centers. I put a lot of thought into planning centers that challenged the children while they were playing and having fun. This started our school day with energy and good feelings.
Now, returning to those standards for kindergarten, here are some thoughts:

Why not sing Down by the Bay, Jenny Jenkins and many of the other rhyming songs, where children need to listen for and generate rhymes? Won’t children then be demonstrating an understanding of how to “recognize and produce rhyming words” and have fun at the same time?

Why not introduce an inquiry into the names of classmates? Children will gain contextual practice in recognizing alphabet letters. They’ll have many phonological and phonetic experiences when they clap out the syllables of the names and make interesting comparisons and ‘noticings’ (“Look! Akhira and Alexandra both start with A and end with A” “Lee only has 3 letters and it has one clap. Barbara has more letters and it has 3 claps”. “If we take away Pam’s P and change it for an S…its Sam! Pam and Sam have rhyming names!”) With teacher guidance, they begin learning the small, frequently used words that are hiding inside names (am is in Sam, and is in Randy, in is in Devin…).

Inquiry projects provide unlimited opportunities for teachers to keep an eye on helping children meet the standards. For example when children study the trees around the school, they get to make shape comparisons, measure tree trunks, see how leaves can float (if they’re lucky enough to have a water exploration center in the classroom!), learn how to use nonfiction texts to get new information By exploring a topic that is of interest and that is a part of their real world, children learn that they can use a variety of tools and strategies to look for answers to their questions. They become researchers!

If we were to judge how young children learn best by putting inquiry based learning on one side of a scale and hours of paper and pencil instruction on the other, I think that the result is a no-brainer. I believe that the scale would tip down on the side of inquiry. On the inquiry side children have fun while learning and practicing skills such as formulating and asking questions, recording information, purposefully using a variety of math strategies, working cooperatively in groups, and using many different avenues and materials for making discoveries.

When teachers move towards a constructivist approach, the knowledge and needs of the children becomes central. This is different than a teacher-led programmatic approach where the program goals are central and the children must adjust to them. By designing instruction based on the children’s prior knowledge there are more opportunities for children to feel successful. When a teacher gives children opportunities to explore areas that interest them, she is helping children develop a disposition to become self-directed life-long learners.

This is what kindergarten should be. In this type of classroom, kindergarten is ready for the child!

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Why Choice Time?

Exploration is what you do when you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s what scientists do every day. If a scientist already knew what they were doing, they wouldn’t be discovering anything, because they already knew what they were doing.
Neil de Grasse Tyson
Director, New York Hayden Planetarium

This week, I received emails from two teachers, each asking for advice and information about Choice Time. They want to know what kinds of Choices to offer, systems to keep Choice Time from becoming chaotic and unfocused, how often to schedule Choice Time, what they should be doing during Choice Time, how many choices to open at one time, etc. These are all important questions that I want to answer so as to give these teachers as much support as possible. But, that said, I think that it’s important to first explain why I value Choice Time and why I spent so much time planning for this part of my kindergarten and first grade curriculum.

Choice Time provides a point and place, during the school day, for children to make sense of the adult world. So much of what happens in the classroom today is driven by a standardized, scripted curriculum. Teachers are bound by pacing calendars and quantitative assessments. Because of these mandates, children have less and less opportunities to make decisions, even down to being able to chose what they will be writing each day. That is why it’s important to provide time for children to explore, theorize, create, and experience the frustration of learning through trial and error.

My ideal Choice Time involves an active teacher who, by listening closely to children’s conversations and monologues, becomes aware of many of their understandings, misunderstandings and wonderings. This invaluable insight into their world provides the teacher with the seeds for planting future classroom dialogues and inquiries.

In planning choice time centers, I would suggest keeping in mind your big goals for the year. I wanted children to develop independence and self-confidence. Making interdisciplinary connections and beginning to generate personal lines of inquiry and exploration is another important goal. I provided many opportunities for children to use reading, writing and mathematics in ways that would support their own, self-directed projects and activities. Children should understand that they could use classroom equipment and materials in new and innovative ways. There should be many opportunities within the center for children to expand and deepen their use of language to express ideas, discoveries and confusions. When there was a sense all of this happening, then I knew that I was on the right track and my Choice Time was becoming successful in meeting my goals.

In setting up choice time centers, I planned to leave opportunity for children to ‘set their own agendas’. In September, the centers were usually rather basic: blocks, dramatic play, play dough, an art center, water explorations, a science table perhaps with shells to explore. These were a few of the possible early centers. As the year proceeded, centers became more focused on the children’s particular interests and on class inquiry studies. For example what began in September as ‘water explorations’ might possibly become a ‘water-machine invention’ center where children were experimenting at constructing water machines. At the playdough table, instead of making traditional flour and salt playdough, children might be creating their own innovations on the traditional recipe, adding sand or sparkles to the batter to see what would happen.

Although I was setting up the centers and deciding, initially, what materials to include, my ‘message’ was “I wonder what interesting projects you are going to come up with?” We would have interesting class discussions centered on “what can we imagine doing with this new paper?” or “Are there any thoughts on what we might explore with our new microscope? What new materials will we need to bring to the science table to help you with your science investigation?”

Generally, there wasn’t a specific ‘task’ to be completed although, sometimes, there might be a particular focus for a center. For example, one year when my class was studying the waterways in New York City we read about landforms and how they affected the creation of these waterways. This topic fascinated many of the children and they asked if they could use our sand table to make their own landforms using the Plasticene that we had in our art studio. I emptied the sand from the table and each day a group of children went to work on this project. There was a big basket of reference books and some photographs of landforms such as mesas, buttes, mountains and valleys. The children decided on how this project would proceed and, on some occasions, a few disagreements erupted, such as on the day when Alex decided to add spikes to her butte. She adamantly insisted that buttes had spikes. When the children came complaining to me about this, I suggested to Alex that she defend her decision to add spikes by finding some pictures of buttes in the book basket. I walked away and left the group, hoping that they would come to some mutual agreement. When I came back, I saw that the other two children, looking through the photos with Alex, convinced her that the buttes should be ‘spike-free’. Through their dialogue, conflict, and rhetoric the children pulled apart an idea, experimented with different strategies and eventually arrived at a point of compromise and satisfaction.

There’s so much more that I will be writing about Choice Time in future entries…helpful routines for making it run smoothly, ideas for new centers, the role of the teacher during choice time, assessing the work that the children are doing in their centers, dealing with problems like scheduling and clean up time, making connections to the curriculum, how it looks different across the year and from grade to grade…and any other choice time questions that come up over the course of the year.

CLICK HERE to make a comment. I invite all readers (teachers,students, parents, grandparents, etc.) to leave comments.  It would be wonderful to hear what you have to say so we can have more of a dialogue on the subject.

The door is open!

When I taught kindergarten and first grade, the most exciting part of my day was Choice Time, when children had time to pursue an inquiry topic, explore materials and ideas and, of course, have space and time to play.  If you would have asked any of the children what the most exciting time of the day was for them, I would not have been surprised if they would have also named Choice Time as the best part of their school day.

Now that I’m a staff developer working with early childhood teachers I can see that it’s difficult for them, considering the push for high academic standards for young children, to program Choice Time into their daily schedules. My challenge is to help them (and their administrators) understand that a well-planned Choice Time gives children the opportunities to explore new ideas, problem-solve, practice newly-learned literacy skills in personally meaningful contexts, and, quite importantly, to have fun playing!

I’m starting this blog to open up a forum for sharing ideas, reflections, memories, suggestions, problems and questions about Choice Time. Ideally, we will all have the opportunity to dialogue on the topic.

In play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behavior. In play it is as though he were a head taller than himself.

Lev Vygotsky

The door is open. Let our Choice Time conversation begin!

CLICK HERE to make a comment. I invite all readers (teachers,students, parents, grandparents, etc.) to leave comments.  It would be wonderful to hear what you have to say so we can have more of a dialogue on the subject.