Growing and changing: beginning our inquiry process

 

With a new term comes a brand new Inquiry for our Autahi explorers to delve into.

This is a perfect topic for our Spring term: there will be plenty in the natural world, and our own lives, to explore.

Our Inquiry model follows a cyclical structure.

We begin by wondering and asking questions. As we make discoveries, we are able to act and reflect on our new knowledge. We will find ways to share and celebrate our learning. Our new learning will also prompt fresh questions and wonderings - and on we go!

This week, we are at the 'I am curious' phase of inquiry. At this stage, we like to keep the inquiry very open and discover what knowledge our students have already, and also what areas of our our inquiry topic are most interesting to them.

You may have seen this table in our classroom.

Sorting and categorising is often a good way to tap into what children already know about a topic. By exploring the objects in this collection, we invited our students to think about 'which things grow?' In doing so, we also had to consider how we know that something is growing or changing. We began to collect some ideas and will dig into this theme further in the course of our Inquiry.

We then began to make a collection of sketches of things we think grow - and things that do not. 

As you'll see from our pictures, the natural world features strongly in the 'things that grow' category. The 'things that don't grow' category is more mixed. It includes natural objects like shells and fruit, as well as man-made objects like houses and shoes.

We also have questions about what actually happens when different kinds of things grow (for example, snakes shed their skins).

This is a great topic to chat about at home. Ask your child which things they think grow - or don't grow. Or maybe spot some growing - or not growing - things when you're out and about. And do drop by and take a look at our Inquiry wall: it will also be growing and changing as our investigation progresses!