Emerging Interests As We Begin Our Journey

Mrs. Diljee and I have been so thrilled about the rich learning we have been seeing in the classroom.  Each day, we are eager to capture exploration and creativity through photos and notes.  Children are born ready to learn.   They enthusiastically investigate the world around them, wonder, and communicate and we have loved watching their interests unfold as our year has begun.

We wanted to use this first post to communicate some of the rich interests we have seen emerging in September and October since our Open House where many documentation pieces were posted.  The kindergarten program is designed to discover the interests of children, to provide materials that support their curiousity in these areas, and to weave math, literacy and other curriculum areas into their interests.  Children who are exploring what matters to them become more engaged and students who are more engaged have an emotional attachment to their learning which makes it authentic, deep, and meaningful.

Below are some Pic Collage displays of a few the many areas of learning we have been exploring.  We invite you to reflect on the collages as we do to look for the many math and literacy connections occurring naturally in the children's explorations.  We are particularly struck by the engagement of the children in the photos.  It's as if they don't even know we are there!


A clear interest from the beginning of the school year has been exploring insects.  We have been reading books about bugs, collecting our questions, sharing observations, sketching, making bug books, and, perhaps most importantly, slowing down to look closely at the world around us.  Our insect inquiry has also expanded to exploring the changes in nature around us (leaves, corn, flowers, etc.).  There has been a great deal of counting and comparing how many insects we have found, measurement language as we compare sizes, sorting based on type of bug, etc.  We have also noticed a great deal of fine motor work in capturing an insect and in focusing on detail as students sketch their observations.

Early in the year, we noticed the art centre to be popular in the classroom and wanted to expand and explore this interest in the outdoors.  The group began by collecting nature materials to paint with water colours which led to their using items from nature to paint on paper.  The children were noticing that dirt and sand would stick to the wet paint so this led to collecting items from nature to make a collage with glue.  The students then began to ask to use the paint again so to explore different art medium, chalk and water was introduced.  They used it to create using their environment and added colour to trees, the climber, etc.  As puddles began to form around our schoolyard, we took the opportunity to incorporate rain water into our nature art creations. We will continue to explore this interest by putting out various materials at the art centre.

An interest around baking and cooking was also evident early on.  Students were using the water table outdoors to mix in sand, mud, dirt, etc. and concoct all sorts of recipes.  Coincidentally, we also planned to begin our dramatic play centre as a bakery and the interest took off in the classroom.  We discovered it was a rich inquiry when we noticed children at many centres were "cooking".  There were meals being made at the sand centre, "snacks" being taken to the block centre, and corn from our outdoor explorations being used for food and mixing.  We supported this interest through reading The Gingerbread Man is Lost at School and created our own cookies (measuring, counting, size, etc.).  When they went missing, we made signs using letters, words, and pictures to communicate our message.  This interest continues to grow in the classroom and children are eagerly bringing items from various centres to add to our bakery.