When inquiry begins to happen, you grab the kite strings and hold on. Right now there are two overlapping inquiries in my classroom: one about maps and one about space and the solar system. I'm never sure where these things come from, but when I begin to notice an interest in children's play, I try to follow it and there are usually interesting results.
Our mapping inquiry started when I noticed that students were drawing treasure maps in their journals and on spare scraps of paper. This may have flowed out of making animal tracks or burying jewels in the sand table, it's hard to say. But I happened to have some photocopies of grid maps that I then brought in for them to explore. I found that students' first instincts were to tell stories with these maps: there were often monsters and treasure, and sometimes familiar characters like Batman would appear.
Using this interest, I brought in an atlas and "read it" during circle time. We explored different features every day for a week. Many of the features of maps were already intuitively obvious to my students ("Why is this part brown and this part is blue?" "Because that's desert and that's water.""What are these triangles here for?" "Those are mountains."). Others, like compasses, grid lines, or boundaries, needed a little more figuring out.
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| Two students are working on a map together, with the atlas to hand for inspiration. |
We've also been applying the concept of maps to build retelling and sequencing skills. Students have created "maps" of stories like The Snowy Day, The Very Grouchy Ladybug, Hansel and Gretel, and Going on a Leaf Hunt. Some stories are a more natural fit for this type of retell than others. Choosing books with a clear sequence or journey really helps students develop the concept.
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| For this project, we used coloured chalk and brightly coloured paper to get students using something new. |
As for the second inquiry, I'm having a lot of fun with the drama centre right now. Students made a whole series of dials that we've attached to the wall for the "Space Station".
One of my fine motor activity inspirations was weaving pipe cleaners through the holes of a colander. These make excellent helmets (I'm sure you'll agree).
Old headphones are both headsets and microphones. The sponge is a console. And it's important to keep power tools to hand, just in case anything needs fixing.
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| Some of these are dials, some are steering wheels. Some have colour grading and numbers |
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| . There's also a compass, just at the left edge in this one. |
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| We've got posters of the planets up to help set the scene. |
This box will become a rocket ship. The excitement on its delivery was palpable.
So, that's what we've been looking at these last couple of weeks. You can expect to see many more images of maps and to learn lots of interesting facts about space because I don't see these particular inquiries dying down anytime soon.
Sincerely,
Ms. Goegan
P.S. I personally recommend Mary Roach's book "Packing for Mars" as an excellent source for answering all the really odd questions you may have about what being an astronaut is really like.
