Scaffolding the investigation

We are now deep into finding the answer to our driving question "Why are there so many worms in the garden?".  As we know that true PBL inquiries often have a real world issue as the focus, we are trying to challenge the children to dig deeper in their learning and find out why worms are important and why we need them.

To support the children in their wonderings and scaffold their research we raced around and gathered the resources we thought the children would need to answer their question.  A big "A-ha" for us now, as we sit to reflect and write this post, was that we should have included the children in brainstorming possible resources.  If we truly are teaching life-long learners, then we need to teach them HOW to find the information they need to answer their question. Old habits die hard!  We were just so quick to provide them with all the tools that they needed that we didn't stop to include them in the process of gathering resources.  Going forward with our next driving questions we will make sure to ask our children: "What will we do to find our answer?" 

As our inquiry unfolded, and as the children learned more, they started coming up with their own ways to learn about worms.  Together we started to co-create with the students other ways to learn about worms beyond what we had planned.  For example: the children asked to look closer at worms under the document camera.  They also wanted to build terrariums that they had seen when looking at the non-fiction books.

Here is what the children did over the next few weeks to find their answer:

A worm expert from the Compost Education Centre visited our classroom and helped us build our own compost bin.

The children, equiped with shovels, spent the morning outside digging in the garden for worms.  They used magnifying glasses and all of their senses to observe and learn more.  We charted their discoveries. 

 

 

 

 

 

The children watched a BBC video clip called "Amazing World of Earthworms" on the smartboard.

In partners, children "read" non-fiction books, put post-it notes on the pages that they found interesting to hold their thinking, and then taught the rest of the class about their findings.

 

 

 

 

After discovering terrariums in the non-fiction books, the children wanted to build one! 

 

 

Along the way, as the children have made their discoveries they have been recording their learning to refer back to as they prepare for their presentation at the end of the inquiry.

 

 

Before this adventure in PBL, this is where our learning would have ended...they've learned about worms, now we're done!  This time around, we are pushing their learning further by asking them to show their learning by making a presentation.  Stay tuned for their informative presentations (adorable!)!!

Terra and Corrie

 

Getting the whole school involved

The Kindie kids were so excited about our new adventures in the garden that they wanted the entire school to have fun in our garden too. We decided that as a way to get the whole school involved in our project we would give every child in our school a flower bulb to plant. We are hoping that planting the bulb becomes the "hook" for other classes and that they will join us in experimenting with Project Based Learning through investigating our garden.

To get the bulbs out to the other students in the school, we wanted our Kindies to take on a bit of a leadership role within the school. So, we had our kids head outside and work together to count and package all 305 bulbs...one for each student in the school. The kids worked together to count out 10 bulbs, place them in a paper bag and place the bag into the wheelbarrow.

 

 

 

 

We then introduced the bulb project to the entire school at our monthly assembly. To make it a bit more fun and incorporate some technology into the presentation, we created an avatar using the app Buddypoke. Click on the picture to see our little video.

Once the video had played, some of our kids got up and delivered each teacher a class set of bulbs. They did such a great job! We are really excited to see what interests are sparked with the other classes through this activity!

To further include our school community we have made a bulletin board to document the students learning and journey. We are going to try to keep it updated each step of the way.

Corrie and Terra

building excitement:The Launch

We are officially on our way: Diving head-first into unchartered waters for us and it feels exhillerating and nerve wracking all at the same time!

Throughout the school year we will be tackling the general question of:
"How does our garden grow?"

As a way to hook the students and get them excited about getting into the garden, we have done a lot of ground work to provide lots of opportunities for the children to find where their interests lie.

The focus of our initial experiences in the garden was "Getting the garden ready for Winter".  The Growing Schools Organization was going to come back and help us harvest seeds for next year, plant some winter crops and put the beds to rest.  Before they came though, we needed to collect a few things that we would need for the workshop to help improve the quality of the soil.  Growing Schools suggested seaweed, leaves and straw to help put nutrients back into the dirt.

First thing was first:  We needed seaweed.
We are so fortunate to have amazing natural resources within walking distance of our school.  So on a beautiful sunny October day, all 58 of our Kindergarten children walked the 15 minutes to our local beach.  The kids worked together to collect as much seaweed as their bags could hold.  What an amazing day it was!  We saw cooperation, teamwork, critical thinking, rich vocabulary use, excitement, curiosity and kids just having fun.  Our journey into PBL was off to a great start! 

A couple of days later the amazing volunteers from Growing Schools came and delivered a fun workshop to the children.  The kids learned about the importance of buying local vegetables through an interactive little skit, they learned how to harvest seeds, and they planted some winter barley and peas.  The kids also had a chance to spread the seaweed that they collected, along with some leaves and straw, onto the gardens.  The kids had a great time spreading it all around, using trowels to turn the seaweed into the soil. 

 

 

 

And that is when it happened.... the kids clearly showed us the next step in our PBL journey.  WORMS!

They were fascinated by all of the worms in the garden!  You could hear the excitement as child after child found a worm.  They were comparing worms, counting worms, wondering where in the garden would be the best place to find a worm, sharing their new discoveries with others, commenting on how the worms felt, helping each other find more worms and...when the bell for recess went, nobody wanted to go play.  They all wanted to stay and keep digging in the dirt for more worms!

 

With our new "PBL listening ears" on, we heard the kids wondering:

"What's with all the worms?"
"Where can we find more worms?"
"Why are they covered in dirt?"
"Why is this worm so fat?"
"How does the worm move?"
"Where is the worm's head?"
"What do woms eat?"
"What do worms do in the winter?"


We've got it!  Our kids have given us their first driving question:

"Why are there so many worms in our garden?"

Soon we will all be worm experts!

Terra and Corrie

Letting Go

This is going to get messy isn’t it?? It’s ok!

We are on the edge of a shift in our teaching philosophy. And let us tell you – it is a bit scary!

We are two very passionate Kindergarten teachers who spend hours engaging in educational conversations, collaborating, and creating lessons for our young learners. We felt our units were engaging and interesting to the children and helped them to develop in the areas that we felt were most important. We liked to prepare our units in advance and know what our year would look like.

This adventure in PBL is forcing us to reflect on our beliefs as teachers. We have always loved, valued and believed in our students, but now we are wondering…did we really?

Do we really believe that our 4 and 5 year old children could have a say in what was important to learn? Do we believe in our students enough to really listen to their questions, curiosities, and stories and follow their lead?

After careful consideration and discussion...The answer is YES! Yes, we believe in you, Kindies!

For us this was the first piece of thinking that was tested by PBL as projects aren’t planned in advance, but emerge based on the children’s interests. The role we thought we had as teachers is changing.

In this ‘new’ teacher role we are going to start training our ears and eyes to look for the students’ interests. We are going to try to follow the children’s lead and then provide them with the scaffolding to find their answers and explore their interests further. To be honest this does make us nervous, but we know we need to let that go in order to successfully prepare and teach our students.

Now that our role, beliefs, and thinking about learning are shifting we feel we are ready to continue on this adventure. Let’s launch and listen!

During this adventure we promise to:

- trust and listen to the students.

- give ourselves permission to let go of the control. Let it go, let it go, let it go.

-make the process as important as the content.

This is real learning!

Corrie and Terra

Aha!

So here we are...two kindie teachers who are starting a new adventure with Project Based Learning! 

Here's how our adventure began:

Last Spring, we had gone to the school garden as part of our science curriculum and had the Growing Schools Organization come to provide the children with a workshop to help cover the science outcomes. As the children worked outside in our garden we had a major "Aha"moment!

Those kids that struggled in the traditional classroom were able to play and work better with their classmates while digging in the dirt. We saw glimpses of unexptected partnerships and teamwork between children that often needed support to work with other kids. We wondered if this could be a new way of building skills in the area of social responsibiltiy in a more meaningful and authentic way. So what started out as a science lesson turned into a great opportunity to practice social emotional learning.

Whoa!  Who knew digging in the dirt could be such a powerful learning opportunity!?!

After recognizing that the garden provided authentic opportunities to practice social responsibility we knew we wanted to get the kids outdoors and into the garden more.  But...how do we find the time?  How can we possibly fit one more thing into our day???

We had to make it work.  We saw the need for it.  We had to get those kids outside, but still felt the pressure to cover the curriculum.  Could we tackle this through Project Based Learning? Could we possibly grow our students' social emotional learning and the plants at the same time???

So we wondered...

How does outdoor Project Based Learning strengthen students competencies in the area of Social Emotional Learning?

We are new to PBL and are not experts. We have a lot of questions that we wonder about so we invite you to follow along as we jump into outdoor Project Based Learning.

Corrie and Terra