LIVING THINGS INQUIRY!

To begin our Living Things Inquiry, students watched a BEAUTIFUL video Characteristics of Living Things  that showed our incredible earth and some amazing life.  As the children watched they responded to the images on the screen with wonder and excitement.  They were excited to begin discussing their wonderings about different animals and living things...  and there were many, many, many wonderings!  So many in fact... the inquiry has just kept growing and we are now into week four!

I found that the best way to honour these inquiries was to "chunk" some of it.  First, I asked the class what living things were in our room.  At the time, we had eggs in our incubator, bean plants growing (from our Energy inquiry), our 2 hermit crabs and caterpillars.  I asked "Is there a way to investigate living things by using the living things in our classroom?"  Many of the students suggested we use stations again.  The class and I decided to have "Living Stations."  They suggested a chick station, a plant station, a hermit crab station, a butterfly station, a creation station, a research station (for our other wonderings) and a people station (as we are living).  At first I thought, okay it is a lot to focus on, but we can do it... but after a day of really considering the stations, I decided to suggest to the students that we focus only on our first four stations as there was going to be a lot of changes to some of our living visitors.  We then decided that we would focus on these four stations:  the chick station, the plant station, the hermit crab station and the butterfly station.  Afterwards, we would continue our research into our wonderings and look more in depth into people and the human body.

Once again, I asked the students to choose one area they would like to study in-depth about.  Each group then got together and began to write their wonderings about that living thing.  Here are the wonderings:

Wonderings about Caterpillars & Butterflies

Wonderings about Chicks

Wonderings about Hermit Crabs

Wonderings about Plants

After gathering materials to help students explore and discover what living things are and what they need (i.e. library books, life cycle posters) we co-constructed a list of  "I can..." statements and questions they could explore at each station.  After examining, the wonderings I also spent time searching for interesting videos on youtube and created QR codes (and for those who know me... this was a pretty big step in my growth with technology!) for each station.

With much excitement, the students traveled in their groups to each station for 2 large chunks of time (they were also free to go their during other points in the day) to explore their wonderings about the living things, discover new ideas and share their learning with one another through discussion and their "Discovery Book" work.  The results were AMAZING!  The children were so engaged that at one point they had been at one station for over 30 minutes and they were still focused!  (I even took a video of it to show my colleagues, my principal and the children in the class!)

 Here are photos of each Living Inquiry Station:

The Chick Station:  The Incubator

The Chick Station: Brooder

The Hermit Crab Station

The Butterfly Station: The Caterpillars

The Butterfly Station:  Butterfly Cage

The Plant Station

 Here are some photos that capture the children exploring, discovering and documenting their learning:

Here are some samples of work:

Hermit Crab Habitat and Observations

Discovery:  A Hermit Crab is moving into another shell

Discovery:  Picture of a Hermit Crab changing shells

Discovery:  Hermit Crabs shed their skin.

Hermit Crab Observation

Hermit Crab Habitat: Labeled needs

Hermit Crab Habitat and Needs

Plant Observation:  Seeds are different

Discovery from video:  This plant can eat bugs.

Planting Inquiry:  Planting a flower in a box with just a hole

Discovery from video:  I learned how some plants can eat insects

Observations & Discovery:  Caterpillars

Observations:  The butterflies grow a chrysalis.
Picture of caterpillars hanging and food.

Observations of Caterpillars

Discovery from video and books:  Butterfly Life Cycle

Discovery of how the chick grows & picture of what is inside the egg (observation)

Observation of incubator and response to a video that showed the chick growing inside the egg.

Observations of the incubator and chicks hatching

Observation of the incubator & what the embryo looks like inside the egg

Discovery: Response to video on the life cycle
"I learned that they are growing in the egg.  The chicks use their beak to get out."

Observation of what is happening inside the egg when we "light" them

Discovery:  Life Cycle of the Chick

THE CREATION STATION!

Things really started to change as I examined the Reggio Emilia approach and read from the "Capacity Building Series." What resonated with me was the focus on the child.  The child is at the centre, our children are the heart of the program.  The child's learning is what is important... Their thinking... Their process.  Children should be involved in the decision making in the classroom, their ideas should be given time in our day, their creativity should be honoured.  This is not a new thought for me...  Of course I have always valued these things, but looking deeply into the Reggio practices made me see that I could do this in a different way that may be more meaningful to the children.  I started to allow my students the freedom to create pieces of art that were their vision, not mine.  I have grown in that I no longer expect the same kind of art project to be done... You know which ones...the works where each one looks exactly the same, using the same colours, the same materials etc...  Reggio made me realize that I was not honouring the creativity of my students.  By creating our "creation station",  putting out most of the art supplies from the storage closet, something changed for my students.  They had freedom to be creative!  They became excited to use different materials.  As a class we may decide what kind of art project we would like to do, but the individual decides how to do it.  Here are a few samples to show you from our Living Things Inquiry:

The Creation Station & Art supplies on shelf

A Hermit Crab

A Hermit Crab

A Venus Fly Trap

A Venus Fly Trap

A Chick

A Chick

A Black Chick (represents one that hatched)

A Hermit Crab

A Hermit Crab

Butterflies and Caterpillars

A Venus Fly Trap (used a paper cup- see the bug eyes!)

A Chick (beak opens up to say "Cheep")

I love that each child created a living thing using different materials from their friends.   I love that each child's vision was their own and that they CHOSE!  Every child was valued...They inspired one another, gave each other ideas and praised one another for their Amazing work!  Aha moment!