The first few weeks of school are so important to build relationships with each other and establish the routines and rules that will help build a safe and happy classroom community! School wide we only have three rules: 1) Be safe. 2) Be respectful. 3) Be responsible. We start out figuring out what these rules look like, sound like, and feel like. We started out getting to know the areas of our room and how to play with and use the materials in each area safely, respectfully, and responsibly. We learned how to use them gently, take care of them and put them away in their proper place. If they are not safe, respectful and responsible, they are not allowed to use the materials. That is one beauty of play based learning! They want to use the materials so much that they will work very hard to be safe, respectful and responsible in all areas and at all times! Are mistakes made? Of course! That is how we learn! Here are some photos showing how they are exploring the areas and how to use the materials in them! When the kids came in, they would notice our Mystery Box on the table and would get so excited as to what was inside! This is how I introduce new materials to them. It always held a new material for us to learn how to use as long as we followed our rules. It has held things such as markers, watercolor paint, permanent markers, scissors, glue sticks, glue sponges, oil pastels, white boards with expo markers, etc. Each time they are so excited to be able to use these new materials independently! I am amazed at how responsible they are with them as they don’t want to lose the privilege of using them! Here are some pictures of them practicing using some of our new materials. They also have to be safe, respectful and responsible with their new friends. This is part of relationship building. How do kids develops relationships? By playing of course! How else can they truly get to know each other and me? I guide them through what to do when they have social problems with each other and how to be problem solvers in any situation. After a few weeks, most start using the new vocabulary we learn to talk to friends when they are frustrated rather than get angry. We spend a lot of time on this! In our classroom, mistakes are not a bad thing but a tool to help us learn. I am quick to point out my mistakes and think out loud to model for them how I will learn from my mistakes. This makes our room a safe place where we don’t have to feel embarrassed when we do something wrong. We help each other out and become problem solvers when mistakes are made. Learning cannot take place until relationships are built and they know that in our room, we can take risks, try new things, and not be afraid to fail in front of our peers, but rather look at these times as opportunities to collaborate and problem solve and learn from our mistakes and each other. This is our learning community! Now that it has been built, the rest of our learning can begin!
Our first inquiry was about colors! I wanted to get them to start thinking with an inquiry state of mind. I want them to use our classroom to be curious, wonder, and discover answers through investigating and sharing their discoveries with the class! I gathered some books, set up some areas to explore color mixing and see what they would discover! Since our new room does not have a color chart, this group will get to create one as a collaborative project. Here are some of the books we used to investigate. This book was the one we referred to the most! They were amazed at how many shades there could be of each color. I made primary colors with water and food coloring. Pipettes, a science tool, showed up in our mystery box and we learned how to use them carefully and responsibly. They found out they could use more or less of primary colors to make different shades of the same color! They also found out that red, yellow and blue can create every single color! I set up our Maker Space area for them to create different shades of all the colors of the rainbow using paint! This is what we will use to create our color chart! They picked a color they wanted to make, figured out the two primary colors needed, decided if they wanted it to be a light, medium or dark shade and figured out a “recipe” to create it by figuring out which primary color they needed more of and less of to create the shade they were going for. For example, they figured out that lighter orange shades would have more yellow and less red. Darker green shades needed more blue and less yellow! It took a lot of self control and muscle control to not use too much paint! They did very well with it! After they created a color, they named it! We had Ocean Wave Blue, flaming pink, sunset orange and so many other creative names! After we felt we had enough rainbow colors, we created all of our shades of brown! They used brown, peach and white to make their beautiful shades! These two books were perfect! I put out a canvas for them to make their mark on for a collaborative painting! Here is the finished art piece! We also explored if there could be different shades of black and white! A lot of these kids are knowledgeable about the order of colors in the rainbow so we decided to put them in that order. Here is the finished project! We will add the color words as we learn them! Color exploration was even happening in our Dramatic Play Area! Check out all of the shades in this cake! It was a perfect first inquiry and class project! Our room is more and more becoming ours as we make our marks! I’m so excited that these kids are already calling themselves scientists, mathematicians and artists! Tune in next week as we start to dive into the Fall Season! It is not just about trees!
The classroom environment that I set up is very thought-out to create a calm, safe environment that the kids will learn from no matter where in the room they go. Sometimes I may be there to participate with and guide them, but many times they will be exploring materials, looking closer, discovering, creating, problem solving, and practicing skills we are learning about independently and with friends! Everything that is put out for them in the beginning has no directions or preconceived end results. It is purely exploring the materials, learning to take care of the materials and building relationships as they explore together! Here are some of the materials they explored in the beginning. In our Building Area they were only allowed to play with the blocks on the bottom. If they did a good job of being safe, respectful and responsible, I would add another cubby of blocks. This continues until the whole area is open! I have everything out so that they can see what they are working toward. The baskets on the top are open to build with also. The white baskets are what I call Loose Parts that are open ended materials that encourage creativity as they have no set purpose…their imaginations are the limit! They like to use these along with the blocks! When the all of the blocks are open to them, they will get to start getting to use the loose parts as well. This is our Dramatic Play Area! Here is where they role play and build vocabulary and language skills. A lot of stories happen here and a lot of writing as they see how many of the careers they are role playing use writing for many reasons and want to do the same! It can be a kitchen, restaurant, vet clinic, doctors office, space stations, toy factory….whatever they are interested in, we will create it here! This is our Art Studio! Here they started out with only red paint and will work up to all of the colors! All of the materials we use for art, we also use to show what we notice in science so this area mixes science and art a lot! We call this Transient Art! They create with more open ended loose parts. Clay is wonderful for strengthening their finger muscles and creative thinking! This is our Literacy Area! Here they will enjoy stories, write stories and practice literacy skills that we learn together! Here is our Math Area. They know that when they are here, they are mathematicians! Right now they are freely exploring math manipulatives that we will use later as we practice math skills. Here is an area to explore cause and effect as they paint a rock with water! I put out some line cards if they are interested in creating any of the different lines! This is our science area. It is starting out with a focus on stories but using items from nature and familiar creatures they may want to explore for science! As they learn about science tools and informative writing, they will use this area to look closer and show what they notice using writing and the different art materials available to them. They have done a great job taking care of the materials and getting along with each other as they explore each area! They are very quickly becoming good friends and a wonderful community of learners! I am excited to see what this incredible group of kids will choose to explore as we grow as learners together! In my next post, I will explain how I use the Mystery Box to introduce new materials!
We learned that all motion is either caused by two kinds of force. Pushing or pulling. I set out clay and let them explore by using the forc...
In this blog you will see a journey being taken by students and teacher to build up our minds, muscles and imaginations together through inquiry, exploration, investigation, problem solving and teamwork!
I work really hard to listen and observe the kids to see what they are interested in. I like to use their interests to guide the curriculum. I have found that when the curriculum stems from their interests, they naturally use the literacy, math, and 21st century skills needed as they explore and investigate. From the beginning of this year, the kids had been showing an interest in bird nests. Every time we went out on the playground, they were making nests. They also started gathering every stick we could find in order to build a more sturdy nest in our classroom since the one on the playground disappeared every day. Since we were still building a learning community in our room, I observed and put this on the back burner to revisit later, hoping the interest would hold. It did!! I put out an invitation to look closer and see what they noticed about the nests before we started building one. I also put out an invitation to create nests in our clay area. I predicted that maybe our nest inquiry would lead into an interest in birds so I also set out an invitation to learn more about birds to see what would happen. A few kids were interested and enjoyed it and learned from it, but not a majority of the kids. Birds would not be a large scale inquiry. I decided to stick with nests and see where it would take us. As we started a See/Think/Wonder Chart about nests, a picture of a bald eagle on its nest was noticed on our promethium board. All of a sudden, all of their questions and wonders were centered around these Bald Eagles. You could feel their excitement as we discussed and wondered about these amazing birds of prey! I asked if they wanted to explore these eagles further and they were very excited about the prospect! We watched many videos and live cams showing us eagles. The kids never tired of watching these! Based on their wonders, we created four expert teams. The Nest Experts (for those who were originally into the nest making), The Eagle Experts, The Eagle Family Experts, and The Eagle Prey Experts. I put out paints and clay in our Art Studio Area that would inspire them to use art to show what they notice about eagles. I loved how many tried to show that they noticed the curved beak of the eagle! The Eagle Experts learned that an eagle can get up to 43 inches high and have a 7 1/2 foot wing span! They measured out the width and height of the eagle and I drew it out for them. These birds can be massive! They were amazed at how big they were! They enjoyed seeing how much bigger the eagles wing spans were compared to them! They then looked closer at the feather colors and used ripped paper to create the long feathers of the wings and short feathers on its belly. They learned that they have curved beaks and sharp talons to hunt their prey with and learned the terms predator/prey and what they mean. The nest experts used the sticks we had been collecting and started out by throwing the sticks everywhere on a little branch I provided for them. They soon realized this wasn't going to work as all the sticks started falling off. I loved listening to them talk about it and problem solve. I heard terms and phrased such as "team" and "We won't give up!" They asked to look up a picture on my iPad. I had them look closely at an eagle nest to see what they noticed. They noticed the sticks went around the outside in a circle-like way and there was grass in the middle to make it soft. They then watched a video on the computer of an eagle making a nest. They noticed that she tried many places to put that one stick before she decided on where it would stay. When they went back to the nest, they were very careful on their placement of sticks! It was very hard and I still had to wire some pieces together to keep it from falling apart. This team learned how amazing it is that birds can make such strong nests with just two feet and a beak! They came to the conclusion that humans are not as good as birds when it comes to making a good sturdy nest, but we did our best and it turned out great, though fragile! They created a "Stop! Do not touch" sign. The Eagle Family Experts wanted to show what a typical eagle family looked like. They learned that the mom eagle is bigger than the dad eagle and that the mom have one to three eggs at a time. Both help keep the eggs warm and take care of/feed the babies. Two friends chose white clay to make an egg. One put a crack in it as though it were getting ready to hatch. After studying the colors on the birds, they used paper tubes to create the eagle family. They made sure the mother was bigger and that her and the father were brown with white heads and yellow beaks. The babies were fluffy gray with black beaks. They prey team used the computer and researched the type of animals that Eagles hunted and decided to use clay to show some examples. We created a web map in our room to organize our wonders and what we learned. Here are the finished displays to show what we had learned during our inquiry! The kids labeled and added the facts that we learned around our large eagle. It was amazing to see where the students took this! It was entirely based on their interests and changed with them! It took a little while to develop into a large scale inquiry. Not all of their interests go that far, and that is okay. This easily could have been a small scale nest inquiry done by a small group! I just had to listen to them, pay attention, and be willing to set out opportunities for them to explore further based on what I observed! So far, I have noticed two other very heavy interests shared by the class as a majority. Superheroes, and creating sounds and rhythm in different ways. I have noticed these interests since the beginning of the year and those interests continue to be strong, so while many other small scale inquiries may be going on, after the holidays, we may start one of these! I can't wait to see where the kids will take those interests! Here are some other things going on in our room! In math we are learning about making numbers up to ten in different ways to develop their number sense. They are also working hard to be able to write their numbers to 20. Some are even trying to get to 100! It took this friend 3 white boards to get to 80! Her goal is 100! A lot is going on literacy as kids are getting very excited about how much they have learned to read and write! In writing all of the kids are working on different writing skills from drawing a story to letter/sound correspondence to spaces and punctuation! In reading we are focusing on learning as many sight words as we can and noticing blends in words. In our science area, the kids have expressed a new interest in potions. I set up their first potion experiment for them. This station will continue through the holidays. In engineering, the blocks have been largely ignored in favor of K'nex! After reading the book "The Most Magnificent Thing," the kids have enjoyed creating their own magnificent things and showing the class what they do and how they work! Lots of creative and critical thinking are going on here! Stay tuned to see what will happen next in our classroom! You can never tell what it will be!
I spend a lot of time watching and listening to the kids, trying to figure out what interests them. I love to teach the standards by using ...
I have learned that if the class is truly interested in something, they will use reading, writing, and math skills as they explore their interests naturally. I observe and listen closely to discover what they are interested in. Sometimes a book or story will spark an interest. Sometimes an interest is sparked by something a friend shared with the class. Sometimes I notice interests by listening to their stories and their play. Our last large group interest was sparked when one of our friends found an almost dead praying mantis. The kids were fascinated with it and wanted to look closer, observe, and find out more. Every time we went outside they wanted to look for insects! I set out some invitations for them to explore insects further. They quickly started looking through books and models of insects to see what they could find out. I started encouraging them to record what they noticed using different materials. One of their favorites was the book Microsculpture:Portraits of Insects by Levon Biss. It truly took a closer look at insects including closeups of legs, wings, eyes feet, etc. it was such a beautiful book. I set it out with materials for them to create their own beautiful portraits of insects showing what they noticed. They are starting to figure out how to try to spell unfamiliar words by writing the sounds they hear in words. They practiced labeling their insects here also. But the insects they got the most excited about were the ones completely covering our milkweed plants! They wanted to know all about them! We looked at a picture of one and made our thinking visible by recording what we saw, thought and wondered. Then we got our Entomologist tools, took them outside and found out everything we could about them! They were amazing and thorough Entomologists! We recorded everything we noticed and then put some of our information in the computer and found out they are called Milkweed bugs! We then did an observational drawing as Entomologists and used our writing skills to label what it is and some body parts. Here is the display outside our room showing everything we learned about them! The other insects all took a backseat to the milkweed bug! I could have done a traditional insect unit, but these kids noticed something in their environment where they could truly experience it, so I followed the direction they took our insect study. I often let the kids direct our curriculum! They show me what they want to learn and I follow their lead and learn along side them. They were much more involved, interested and excited about learning as we followed their interest. Also, this fell naturally into our science standards of living things and what they need! I can’t wait to see what other interests this group will have that we can dig deeper into! They are definitely bringing in leaves by the bucketful... Here are some other things going on in our classroom: We are still working on those fine motor skills! Our finger muscles need a lot of work! Stories are being created in all of the areas of our room as we learn about story making! Here they are encouraged to show math in an open ended way. At the moment they are working on the numbers 1-10, shapes, writing numbers to 10, counting objects and matching to the correct number, counting to 25, subitizing and patterns. They are also learning to notice math all around us and how we use it in our every day lives. Some Fall art inspiration with sunflowers. They drew pictures of Mrs. Coberly wearing Michigan State colors and wrote “Mrs. Coberly loves Sparty!” Then we decorated her door! They loved this! Unfortunately, the Buckeye/Spartan game did not end well for me! It has been a busy place filled with all kinds of learning!
It all started with a field trip to the local trash dump and recycling center. The kids saw so much trash and recyclables in the dumping ar...
Handwriting has never been easy to teach to kindergartners, but it is in the Common Core Standards that they learn how to print letters correctly. Each year I have tried through the traditional ways of working on fine motor skills the first half and then formal handwriting sheets the second half of the year. It never worked so this year I tried something new... An inquiry about lines! I asked the kids what kind of lines they knew of. At first they drew straight lines, but then started to expand the types of lines they made! We read some books and watched some videos on YouTube that showed us different lines and also gave them names. I put out provocations for them to explore lines in many different ways and see what they noticed and what connections they made. I put out invitations for them to use lines to make letters, shapes, designs, pictures and numbers: They explored! They are doing activities to build strong finger muscles to help with handwriting and explore lines at the same time! Our clay is quite hard and they have to work it to soften it up. Plus, manipulating the pipe cleaners helps work those fine motor skills! Through this simple inquiry, the kids are much more aware of the different types of lines and how to make them. They are recognizing them in letters, shapes, numbers and pictures. So far, I am seeing an improvement compared to previous years in their names as they try to form the letters the correct way. More are pulling down vertical lines rather than pulling up when making letters but for some this is a hard habit to break! We will keep working on it in developmentally appropriate ways and we will see as the year goes on if this knowledge of lines will help them with the common core standard of writing letters correctly! Here are some other things the kids have been doing in our room during this inquiry! Dots! We celebrated International Dot Day and celebrated creativity! Ken Robinson said that creativity is as important as literacy and I cannot stress enough how true that is! Employers want creative and critical thinkers so these skills need to be emphasized! Here are some pictures of some invitations to be creative and our final display of creativity! In Literacy, we have been focusing on letters and letter sounds. They have been using their names and the names of their friends to help them to recognize letters and their sounds. The invitations at the beginning of the year focused mostly on exploring letters and names. Working lavender into this play-dough also made this a great sensory experience as they used it to explore letters and try to spell their name and friends names. They have been working on the concepts of print as they learn letters and sounds through letter books. They have been practicing starting in the right place, pointing to the words and going in the right direction when they read. When they partner read, one is the reader, the other is the helper so they have to listen and watch closely, then they switch roles. In math we have been exploring numbers counting objects and matching them to the number. We also have been exploring measurement. In math we are also exploring shapes and their properties. In science, they have been working on looking closer, wondering and documenting what they notice. I set out invitations for them to explore and practice these skills. It has been a very full first month! It is amazing how far the kids have come! Stay tuned to find out what the kids are creating for our math area!
Purposefully developing relationships with parents is so very important to our classroom learning community. I want parents to feel that they are part of our learning community and know that we are all a team doing everything we can to help their child reach their fullest potential: Parent/Teacher/Child. I start out the year meeting parents during our Kindergarten Screening process. I wanted parents to be able to create something special for their child while they were waiting so I put our this invitation for them. I want parents to remember how they felt when offered this invitation! Some may have been a little nervous to try, yet they rose to the challenge, even though it was hard. Many were amazed at what they were able to create using the wire as they had never used it before in this manner! Many were very proud of their accomplishment. Many got lost in their art because they were so focused! Also, they all had felt safe just trying their best! Now, here is the connection I want my parents to make: This is exactly what happens when I put out an invitation in our room for their children. These invitations invite their children freely explore or rise to the challenge! It helps them try something new, making them use important critical and creative thinking skills which are needed so much for their future success in school and beyond! As the year goes on, they will use writing skills as they learn them to document what they created or noticed. If I could do this again, I would have a book about wire sculptures for them to use as a resource, as books will be included with the invitations in our room for them to develop reading skills and use as resources. I hope this shows parents how their children will learn new things by visiting the different areas in our room! After school started, the kids were invited to learn how to use liquid watercolors and Sharpie markers as they created self portraits. We took their parent's wire sculptures, note, and their self portrait and put them together in our hallway to display how we view children! Our image of the child. When we had an open house, I had some more invitations set up for parents to take part in, again, to help create this important home-school connection! One was some rocks and sharpies with the invitation to write their hopes and dreams for their children. These will stay in our classroom for the children to visit in our Library Area which is also our quiet, calming area for when they need it. Many times, if kids are sad, these rocks bring them some comfort from home. Another invitation invited them to create a string of beads and add them to what we call our Peace Wreath. It is a reminder of our peaceful community with each other and our efforts to create a peaceful atmosphere for their children. It was an opportunity for them to work with their child as a team to create something beautiful for our classroom. It also serves as a reminder to kids that when we are in this room, we will create amazing things together. At the end of the year, these beads will be joined with the ones created by families in past years which are part of a beautiful class chandelier, making them a part of this classroom in the years to come! Home/School connections are very important to me! I hope that parents will feel welcome and valued as we take this journey with their child!
The kids have been asking a lot of questions about space. I started out by setting out some invitations to learn around the room for them to...
The classroom environment that I set up is very thought-out to create a calm, safe environment that the kids will learn from no matter where...
Since the middle of February while were creating our dragon project, I started to notice something. The kids were taking the logs out of ou...
In this blog you will see a journey being taken by students and teacher to build up our minds, muscles and imaginations together through inquiry, exploration, investigation, problem solving and teamwork!
I was so glad that this group was interested in rocks and crystals! My group last year was also into them and we had just started investiga...
During our Force and Motion Inquiry, I noticed a lot of simple machines being created during their play as they explored force and motion. ...
Since the middle of February while were creating our dragon project, I started to notice something. The kids were taking the logs out of ou...
Project/Inquiry Based Learning has been a passion of mine ever since I discovered it about 5 years ago. Since then, I have stepped out of m...
I work really hard to listen and observe the kids to see what they are interested in. I like to use their interests to guide the curriculum...
Before I show you our finished project, here is a quick rundown on the process leading up to it! You can see the process in more detail at...
I work really hard to listen and observe the kids to see what they are interested in. I like to use their interests to guide the curriculum...
The kids were very excited to work together on large scale marble mazes and a marble run. They chose to make a marble run out of paper tubes and cardboard and two marble mazes, one with legos and one with a giant geoboard and rubber bands. The teamwork and problem solving were amazing! We had to work through the process of talking about their plan as a team, and learning to listen to each others ideas. The provocation- Giant geoboard, rubber bands, lego board, legos, and marbles When the kids started making the marble run, they decided they wanted to make it zig-zag back and forth. Then they went to work! Teamwork! Testing it out with a marble to see if what they have so far will work What they have so far! The kids still have some problems with the marble run that they will try to fix after Spring Break. They are excited to figure out ways to fix these problems! I love hearing their conversations as they figure things out! I wish I was better at getting quotes! That is a part of documenting that I am still working on! When the kids started working on the geoboard and lego mazes, they figured out right away that they needed to create a barrier all the way around the outer boarder. They would test out their mazes by having someone lift them up and move them up and down while someone else would move or place new rubber bands and legos on the boards! I loved listening to all of them think out loud to each other! The rest will have to wait until after spring break! We will keep these experiences available for them to explore. The kids have been asking a lot of weather related questions and they found the first flower of spring in our natural play area! This may guide our learning when we get back!
To celebrate the new friendships that have developed and to continue to build relationships with our families, three of our classes decided to hold a Friendship Feast right before our Thanksgiving break. We had the feast in the evening so that more parents would be able to join us. The kids created invitations inviting families to come. I was blown away that almost every family from our class was able to come! That meant we needed to get planning! We had parents sign up to bring items for the feast. Our amazing head of food services provided her fabulous roast turkey and cooked it for us on our feast day! Next we decided to create a beautiful (kid-created) environment to hold our feast. We created pumpkins for centerpieces by stuffing paper bags with newsprint, twisting the top and painting them. The kids traced their hands on green paper and cut them out for the leaves. We painted our hands to create this friendship banner with the other classes involved. The kids collaborated in small groups to come up with a design for a table runner, sketched it on the runner and then painted it. We made labels for all of the food that would be set out. We created "Thank You" cards for the head cook for making us turkey and the custodians who helped set everything up and helped us to tear it all down and clean it all up afterward. Then us teachers took everything our three classes made to the gym after school and set it all up. As families arrived, we organized the food on the buffet and the celebration began! You could see signs of friendship and community building everywhere you looked! We had around 200 people show up for this wonderful celebration of friendship. I had so much fun talking with families and enjoying a wonderful evening with them all! I always enjoy building relationships with the families that I have the privilege to work with. I hope we can do it again! Here is the wonderful team of teachers that worked together to make this all happen. I am so lucky to work with such a wonderful group and I can never thank them enough! I adore them! I hope everyone has an amazing Thanksgiving Break full of family, friends, and food! Enjoy every moment!
I get multiple emails every day asking for copies of my inquiry planning templates and daily schedules. After clearing all of my emails and trash for the year, I accidentally deleted permanently some emails from people wanting these that I had yet to answer. Since I don't know who they were, I am hoping they will find this page and get the planning pages that they needed and know that I did not ignore them! In this post, I have links to all of my template pdf's in my google drive for you to download. I do all I can to help others on their journey into inquiry based teaching so these are free for you to download. They are not perfect but they have worked for me at different times in my journey as a Reggio Inspired Teacher. You can take the ideas and change them to work for you in your situation and environment, but they will give you a base to work from as you make your own. When planning for Inquiry/Project based learning, it takes a lot of time up front, but then planning is easy for the rest of the inquiry which can last up to a month. Planning an Inquiry always starts with observing the students. Once I notice a large group interest, I find out what they know and wonder. I take that information and start planning. Right now, my favorite planning tool is a simple web map. This web map was created based on the one that the amazing Joanne Babalis created over at http://myclassroomtransformation.blogspot.com. Check her out! She is brilliant! I liked the way she designed it and I can just add more lines where I need them. Sometimes I use this template, but sometimes I just make my own web map with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. It is a great way to organize my thoughts. You can find this template here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BMXZ3WnNBdWxzOU0/view?usp=sharing Here is a photo of a handmade one filled out. As I am brainstorming ideas I have the Language Arts and Math Common Core Standards and Science and Social Studies Standards nearby. I made this sheet with all of the language arts and math standards all on one page to make it easy for me. It is amazing how many standards are covered, used, and learned by using the skills authentically during inquiry! I highlight the ones that will be covered. You can download this Common Core list here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BWURZb2xYRFdoSEE/view?usp=sharing This next inquiry planner is a great way to organize your ideas into the different stages of Inquiry Based Learning and also has an area for project ideas and presentations if you want to go even deeper using Project Based Learning. It literally spells out the process of Inquiry/Project Based Learning. This template was very helpful as I was transitioning from thematic based teaching to Inquiry Based Teaching. You can download the Inquiry planning template above here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BVkQ4OE5PNWxsbmc/view?usp=sharing Here is one already filled out about our castle inquiry as an example. You can download it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BUDBfZG9FcUpjQzg/view?usp=sharing After that, I use many different "weekly" planning papers. This one is more fluid and open ended. It can also last for more than one week. I like the way it makes me plan for the environment as a third teacher. Many of the ideas that end up on my map can happen during our play-based learning block. I find that I use this template more the second half of the year. You can download it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6Ba0tTWGFGQ2lsVUk/view?usp=sharing Here is an example filled out with plans here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BaUZDRG5STnhuR0k/view?usp=sharing At the beginning of the year, I usually use my schedule as my planner. Here are two different years. You can download the one above here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BNGNWM09fN1MyX28/view?usp=sharing And this one here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BZE1tNUF3N19fbHc/view?usp=sharing These also show what my schedules look like but I will get more into scheduling in another post. They are far from perfect! I am constantly trying to figure out ways to have less transitions in the schedules and I feel that it is always a work in progress! I will be making some major changes to it next year. I am always looking back and reflecting on the previous year and this past year showed me some changes that I need to make. I will share that when I figure it out at the beginning of the next school year. Also know that my schedules are more fluid than they look on paper. If students are really engaged in some part of the day, I may let them have more time and move another planned lesson to the next day. When I use these, I still need to plan my environment as the third teacher so I made a map of my room using Pages on my iPad. This is great to have for substitute teachers so they know what is going on during the play block! I just fill in the invitations to learn, provocations, challenges, and experiences that will be set up in each area. Hopefully providing these links will help you all be able to get these when you want them, rather than having to wait for me to answer your emails! I hope they help! Darla Myers
Here are a few photos of the documentation showing others of our journey as we inquired about color and shades.
All of the classes in our school received caterpillars to observe this month! The kids were so excited to see the provocation set up when t...
In this blog you will see a journey being taken by students and teacher to build up our minds, muscles and imaginations together through inquiry, exploration, investigation, problem solving and teamwork!
We learned that all motion is either caused by two kinds of force. Pushing or pulling. I set out clay and let them explore by using the forc...
I have worked very hard to create an environment that beckons kids to explore. I love the Reggio Emilia philosophy of the environment...
After making the ramp to get all of our food items for those experiencing homelessness down the stairs, the kids started showing an interest...
I have had many ask about what my schedule looks like, being a Reggio Inspired classroom. If you are inspired by the Reggio Emilia Philosoph...
In this blog you will see a journey being taken by students and teacher to build up our minds, muscles and imaginations together through inquiry, exploration, investigation, problem solving and teamwork!
In the last couple weeks of school, we decided to do an inquiry about the sky. Our Driving Questions were, "What do we see in the daytime s...
In this blog you will see a journey being taken by students and teacher to build up our minds, muscles and imaginations together through inquiry, exploration, investigation, problem solving and teamwork!
Project/Inquiry Based Learning has been a passion of mine ever since I discovered it about 5 years ago. Since then, I have stepped out of m...
A class up in Canada (Joysofkinder) started The Kindness Ninja movement and sent us an invitation to become Kindness Ninjas! It included a guide written by them, directions, the Kindness Ninja Pledge, a Kindness Ninja Master, a plaque, and two headbands. I went out and bought a 3’ x 3’ piece of felt and made ninja headbands for the class, then presented the kids with the kit! We read their guide, put on our kindness ninja headbands, took the pledge, put our thumbprint on the plaque to seal our pledge and voila! We were now official Kindness Ninjas! The kids could not wait to do our first RAK (Random Act of Kindness)! I mentioned they could change the world with kindness and they were very doubtful. “We can’t change the world,” was heard over and over. We read the book Ordinary Mary’s Extrordinary Deed. It’s about how one girls random act of kindness in the end affected millions of people. One little girl ended up changing the world through her on little act. It really helped them understand how powerful their acts of kindness can be! It was Mrs. Rigg’s Birthday so we decided to RAK her! They were so excited! They painted a banner to hang outside her door. She was so surprised and said she felt so loved. She also wondered who in the world the kindness ninjas were! What was really cool was our act of kindness inspired her to have her class do an act of kindness for another teacher. When I told th skids, they saw how there acts of incense was already spreading kindness around our school! Our next act of kindness was to make a book for Miss Reese filled with kind words about her! We got ready to deliver it to her room without being seen! We had been practicing our stealth ninja moves! We had brainstormed kind words when we made Miss Reese’s book. I set up an area where they could write notes of kindness to friends and family. This was a very popular station with good authentic writing! Our Next RAK was to create posters that would encourage others to choose kindness. We used our stealth ninja moves to hang them up where there was a lot of traffic before anyone could see us! We often repeat our pledge to help us remember to choose kindness that day! Next, we decided to RAK our beloved Literacy Lab Teacher, Mrs. Coberly! They painted hearts and wrote words of kindness on them to Mrs. Coberly. More authentic writing experiences! That is when they always do their best writing! Using our stealth ninja moves, we taped them all to Mrs. Coberly’s door. She was so happy! She came up and told us that it made her day and she planned on spreading the kindness, but wondered if we had any idea who the kindness ninjas were? The kids all said they had no idea! They really want to keep their identity a secret! They came up with the idea of sending out Kindness Ninja kits like the one we had received! It was perfect because I had been getting requests on social media for kits. We studied maps so that we could figure out where we were sending the kits and keep track. They painted Kindness Ninja Masters. We made “A Beginner’s Guide to Becoming a Kindness Ninja (more authentic writing happening!) and I typed up directions, the pledge and made plaques, then cut headbands. I put them in envelopes to send off. Unfortunately, the ones going out of the U.S. were going to cost $10 to send and I had fourteen that needed to be sent internationally. So unfortunately, I had to take the Kindness Ninja Master out of the international ones. The ones sent within the U.S. came with Kindness Ninja Masters. We told them to tag us on social media when they did their Random Acts of Kindness. We can’t wait to see how we have helped spread kindness all over the world! I am so thankful to the class from Joysofkinder who sent us our invite and started this wonder wat to teach kids about how kindness affects the world! We will keep you updated as we continue our Random Acts of Kindness!
Project/Inquiry Based Learning has been a passion of mine ever since I discovered it about 5 years ago. Since then, I have stepped out of m...
I get multiple emails every day asking for copies of my inquiry planning templates and daily schedules. After clearing all of my emails and trash for the year, I accidentally deleted permanently some emails from people wanting these that I had yet to answer. Since I don't know who they were, I am hoping they will find this page and get the planning pages that they needed and know that I did not ignore them! In this post, I have links to all of my template pdf's in my google drive for you to download. I do all I can to help others on their journey into inquiry based teaching so these are free for you to download. They are not perfect but they have worked for me at different times in my journey as a Reggio Inspired Teacher. You can take the ideas and change them to work for you in your situation and environment, but they will give you a base to work from as you make your own. When planning for Inquiry/Project based learning, it takes a lot of time up front, but then planning is easy for the rest of the inquiry which can last up to a month. Planning an Inquiry always starts with observing the students. Once I notice a large group interest, I find out what they know and wonder. I take that information and start planning. Right now, my favorite planning tool is a simple web map. This web map was created based on the one that the amazing Joanne Babalis created over at http://myclassroomtransformation.blogspot.com. Check her out! She is brilliant! I liked the way she designed it and I can just add more lines where I need them. Sometimes I use this template, but sometimes I just make my own web map with a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. It is a great way to organize my thoughts. You can find this template here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BMXZ3WnNBdWxzOU0/view?usp=sharing Here is a photo of a handmade one filled out. As I am brainstorming ideas I have the Language Arts and Math Common Core Standards and Science and Social Studies Standards nearby. I made this sheet with all of the language arts and math standards all on one page to make it easy for me. It is amazing how many standards are covered, used, and learned by using the skills authentically during inquiry! I highlight the ones that will be covered. You can download this Common Core list here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BWURZb2xYRFdoSEE/view?usp=sharing This next inquiry planner is a great way to organize your ideas into the different stages of Inquiry Based Learning and also has an area for project ideas and presentations if you want to go even deeper using Project Based Learning. It literally spells out the process of Inquiry/Project Based Learning. This template was very helpful as I was transitioning from thematic based teaching to Inquiry Based Teaching. You can download the Inquiry planning template above here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BVkQ4OE5PNWxsbmc/view?usp=sharing Here is one already filled out about our castle inquiry as an example. You can download it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BUDBfZG9FcUpjQzg/view?usp=sharing After that, I use many different "weekly" planning papers. This one is more fluid and open ended. It can also last for more than one week. I like the way it makes me plan for the environment as a third teacher. Many of the ideas that end up on my map can happen during our play-based learning block. I find that I use this template more the second half of the year. You can download it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6Ba0tTWGFGQ2lsVUk/view?usp=sharing Here is an example filled out with plans here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BaUZDRG5STnhuR0k/view?usp=sharing At the beginning of the year, I usually use my schedule as my planner. Here are two different years. You can download the one above here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BNGNWM09fN1MyX28/view?usp=sharing And this one here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B08gV9mV4K6BZE1tNUF3N19fbHc/view?usp=sharing These also show what my schedules look like but I will get more into scheduling in another post. They are far from perfect! I am constantly trying to figure out ways to have less transitions in the schedules and I feel that it is always a work in progress! I will be making some major changes to it next year. I am always looking back and reflecting on the previous year and this past year showed me some changes that I need to make. I will share that when I figure it out at the beginning of the next school year. Also know that my schedules are more fluid than they look on paper. If students are really engaged in some part of the day, I may let them have more time and move another planned lesson to the next day. When I use these, I still need to plan my environment as the third teacher so I made a map of my room using Pages on my iPad. This is great to have for substitute teachers so they know what is going on during the play block! I just fill in the invitations to learn, provocations, challenges, and experiences that will be set up in each area. Hopefully providing these links will help you all be able to get these when you want them, rather than having to wait for me to answer your emails! I hope they help! Darla Myers
In this blog you will see a journey being taken by students and teacher to build up our minds, muscles and imaginations together through inquiry, exploration, investigation, problem solving and teamwork!
Since the kids were so interested in apples, I figured they would be interested in looking closer and learning more about pumpkins so I set ...
In this blog you will see a journey being taken by students and teacher to build up our minds, muscles and imaginations together through inquiry, exploration, investigation, problem solving and teamwork!
