Health & Development Inquiry

When we came back from Christmas holidays, we took some time to observe and document carefully the current interests in the classroom.  We discovered that our interest in the elements of a play inquiry had waned with the time off so began to think carefully about our next avenue for investigation.

One day, a couple of children saw some dolls in our cupboards and asked to have them added to our bakery/home dramatic play centre.  We put them out and were amazed by how many children wanted to interact with them and the depth to the roles and scenarios that was occurring using the dolls.  At that point, we decided to convert our dramatic play area into a baby nursery.



Mrs. Diljee brought in many items that her son had outgrown (such as a bathtub, bottles, etc.) for the children to explore and also brought in a scrapbook from when her son was younger.  She shared it and talked about child development with a small, interested group.   Miss Heffernan invited her kindergarten teacher friend in with her six month old baby for the children to observe.  They had many questions and loved to watch what he was able to do.




Around the same time, we noticed that a group of children had turned the overhead projectors we had been using toward their structure at the block centre.  They began to take "x-rays" of each other and examine similarly to doctors and dentists.  A lot of conversation began to come up at lunch time about going to the dentist or the doctor's.  We decided to add doctor tools to the block centre to see what happened and the tools were immediately and regularly used to support play.

We also noticed that many children began to make medicine for the babies and for patients and talked about safety with medicine and mixing potions.





One of our friends made a connection in our discussions and reading to his sister going to the hospital for a broken arm.  He brought the cast in to show us.  We have noticed a great deal of connections being made by students as we read and talk.




We invited a child's mom in who is a doctor and brainstormed our wonderings prior to her visit.  We emailed our questions ahead of time so that she could answer us.  She brought in many tools to show us, answered our questions, and left us with further wonderings.  We converted our baby nursery into a doctor's office with the babies to be used as patients though most of the patients are the children themselves!  We have noticed since her visit that the play at the dramatic play centre has become richer and more detailed.

 

We have begun to delve deeper into this area of interest in our inquiry groups and are eager to share further learning stories with you along the way.