Natural Curiosity

I am a firm believer in Inquiry based learning. The Institute of Child Studies published a document called Natural Curiosity. Below, I have attached a link to a portion of this document.
http://www.naturalcuriosity.ca/pdf/BranchISection.pdf

Our Pumpkin Inquiry

Students have had several opportunities to investigate pumpkins over the course of a few weeks. We opened the pumpkins and the students discovered that there was pulp and seeds inside. The students scooped out the seeds and pulp and sorted them into separate containers. They also sketched the inside of our pumpkin in their Inquiry lab book.

 

 

I asked the students what they would like to do with our pumpkins and seeds, and they came up with

some great ideas!

 

1. Students wanted to plant the pumpkin seeds in the garden and water it. They are hoping the seeds will grow pumpkins. We will be watching our seeds over several months to see what happens. We have also read many books about growing pumpkins.

2. Some students suggested planting a whole pumpkin. They believe the pumpkin will get smaller when buried in the ground. This is a great springboard to discuss decomposition with the students.

Shared Writing

The link belows explains the process of shared writing, which is one way I model writing to our young learners.
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/reading-and-language-arts/skill-builder/48883.html

Below is a picture of a message the children helped to write: