Perky Preschool

Communication is important to develop understanding. As we begin with the Finding out stage of our inquiry, the preschoolers gathered together to sort the different animal pictures. They were encouraged to talk about their sorting and explained how they decided to sort and why.  As these little inquirers are still expanding on their English vocabulary, they were supported with a variety of prompts. Together with the developing language skills, they are also still developing a deeper sense of thinking skills to build foundations for later problem-solving skills.  Asking a lot of open and leading questions as prompts helped support the inquiry.  At the end of the activity, the preschoolers came up with 6 animal groups: mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects and fish Together with their group they used and schemed our class unit books.  They looked at resources to find information about the animal group they chose. They supported one another to understand the inf...

After several weeks of Tuning In and Finding Out, the preschoolers are now getting ready to apply their thinking, research, and communication skills.  They will spend the remaining weeks digging deeper and becoming experts to a specific animal. They chose the animal that they would like to learn more about.  They worked on their research, and found out important information about the animal. As researchers, they used different tools to gather information.  They looked at books, watched educational videos and interviewed people.  These information were then documented on to their research paper.  They understood that there are things that they know (or think they already know) but they should be able to prove these ideas.  They need evidence to back up their ideas.  Alongside their RESEARCH, they are SORTING OUT information and developing a plan on how to COMMUNICATE their understanding to the audience for the Animal Exhibit. They started making th...

Don't Grow Up (It's a trap!) - Walt Disney - UNIT OF INQUIRY Creating a Timeline   The students write stories about their developmental milestone from birth until present as  they continue 'Finding Out' about their personal histories.  Seeing how much they have changed over the years help them understand themselves better and who they have become at present.  They see how their family have grown and changed when their sister or brother was was born. As they look back at their past, they also begin to share, compare and understand different perspectives of people. They notice how each and every one of them grow, develop and how families are unique in many ways. In this unit, it is also important to know which countries they are connected with from their parents or grandparents.  To help them understand that, they located and plotted the places where their parents were from and even the places that they have lived or been. They saw how some parents came from two d...

  Preschoolers started SORTING OUT all the information they have learned. They started answering questions and put together their ideas for their presentation.    Research and thinking skills are Approaches to Learning in this unit. They learned to think and to look at information in books and videos to complete and answer their inquiries.    They looked at several sources to ensure that the information is correct. Once they have finished sorting out the information about the animal, its life cycle and food chain, they started creating the output to showcase learning for the final project.   Preparing their animal habitat.   Can you guess what this is?   A busy week for the Perky Preschoolers!  Watch out for The Perky Farm Exhibition on March 12!