Researching Children Researching the World!
Here at St. Paul’s we are fascinated by children’s fascinations!
Their curiosity is compelling!
Their explorations exciting!
A significant part of our thinking, learning and teaching here is REFLECTIVE NOTICING.
This means that we think about and explore how we deepen what we are noticing about children’s mastery of learning.
This means we draw on what we know about emotional patterns of play, behaviour and schemas to help us understand children’s learning.
REFLECTIVE NOTICING means we “stand aside for a while” and “leave room for learning”.
REFLECTIVE NOTICING means we observe carefully, reflect deeply, respond creatively to children’s play and talk, explorations and questions.
We are “researching the children researching the world”!
Did you know that each room has a Research Question?
Here in Baby Room 2 we have continued our provocation around sensory exploration with lots of different materials – food, paper, water and much more!
We are all curious explorers and sensory scientists!
Our St. Paul’s Promise “I use all my senses to engage in scientific enquiry” helps us plan and support children’s curiosity as they explore, examine and wonder about their many worlds.
Paper Provocation
Sensory exploration is so important for young children – to learn about the world through touching, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling or through recognising how their body is moving.
We know that babies learn through…
Investigating
Discovering
Experimenting
Problem-solving
And we have been offering all sorts of paper and have supported the children in…
Ripping
Mixing
Exploring sound
Wrapping
Unravelling
Stretching
Scrunching
Watering!
We see children
Observing
Predicting
Manipulating
And immersing their whole bodies in the trays of paper!
Splish, Splash! Wondering About Water!
Splish, splash!
We like water!
The splashy, paddly kind.
Slosh it out of buckets and spray it all around!
We do like water!
Water is fascinating isn’t it!
And the children love to explore it.
How it moves and how it changes other materials.
Which things float on it or sink in it.
And how it can be cooled down or heated up.
We have been splashing with hands and feet and using brushes to make movements in water.
We have been mark-making and noticing ‘the look’ of the water on paper, on the ground and how the water changes the tissue paper when you brush it on.
We have been…
Filling
Emptying
Sieving
And catching water!
We have been making bubbles with the soapy water.
Blowing the bubbles
Blow! Blow! Blow!
And watching them
Float
Fly
And POP! POP! POP!
As we catch them in our hands!
We have been asking…
Can you fill the bucket up with water?
How heavy is it?
Can you empty your bucket?
Does it make a big splash?
Splish! Splash!
We do like water!
Our St. Paul’s Promise “I use all my senses to engage in scientific enquiry” helps us plan and support children’s curiosity as they explore, examine and wonder about their many worlds.
We want to support the children to be confident in their experiences, enquiries and explorations of resources.
We want children to manipulate all sorts of different resources – natural and made.
We want children to communicate ideas, experiences, feelings and make connections in their learning.
We want children to be curious and to be immersed, wallowing in their environment, curious to “look out for” interesting things.
