What do you want to know more about?

Small group work is not new to the children in Studio Purple.  We’ve come together to discover each other’s collections, discussed how to communicate and even wondered together how to be a friend.

All worthwhile topics that have not only brought the children together as small, intimate groups but has informed us as a whole class. This time, we turned to the children and wondered “What do you want to know more about?”

The children’s rich list of ideas was the spark to forming our newest small groups.  From discovering ourselves and how our body works, animals of many kinds from the sweet domestic house cat to exotic and fanciful Lemurs, the phenomena of Rainbows to transportation, specifically investigating subways and ships on the sea and in outer space.

Gathering together each week, these groups over time will investigate their interests through questions they compose.  Asking good questions is a skill built over a lifetime.  Our advantage is still  “executing an act of curiosity”, a phrase from Dan Moulthrop that captures the beautifully open and beginner’s mind of our four and five-year-olds.  We have the time to wonder about things others may take for granted and in the process discover some things about the world and maybe even ourselves!

"How the subway train, the engine moves." Henry enjoys thinking about subway trains
"What the inside looks like. Like the parts of the inside. The parts that you need to build it." Quinn wonders about rocket ships
Sylvie draws a hot air balloon. "I wonder how they work. How do they float in the air?" "It's the balloon that makes them float." -Quinn
"My brain! I'm drawing how the brain looks. Look it's just a bit of particles. I want to know how the brain controls the body." Spencer
"Everything! I'm trying to make a human body. I don't know about your foot but I don't know how to draw it. I don't know how draw all the inside of my body." Britton
"The brain!" -Maddy "You need the brain for everything!" -Callen "It looks like a maze. I like to look in books and it looks like a swirly maze. I wonder why." -Maddy
"I don't have anything that I don't already know about cats! But Elephants...I want to know why they eat the water and spray it out with their trunks!" -Eleanor
"I do not know where they live." Liam wonders about Lemurs.
Nico discovers a lizard in our book and begins to draw it. "What kind of lizard is this?" "It's an iguana. I know that!" -Eleanor "Well it does live in the desert." -Liam "Do you know everything about it?" -Nico "Well I think it's a berry eating one." -Liam "Well that means it's a vegetarian. Most animals are vegetarians." -Margot
"When I was a baby I thought it was like this." -Milo
"I know all about rainbows. Well, I don't know all about rainbows. I know some. I know clouds sometimes are on the end of rainbows." -Ada
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