Ms. Cole’s Exploration of Animals

Starting on the first day of school, I noticed the children’s great interest in animals. As I paid attention to this specific interest I could see that of the children beginning to use the animals more and more throughout the day. The children would often bring the animals out during free play and they would continue to bring them out and incorporate them into that of the daily explorations as well. I found it interesting that the children had a vast amount of knowledge on these animals. Their knowledge and understanding did have gaps that we could work on developing but nevertheless it was very interesting to see them share their specific knowledge upon the different groups, types, and kinds of animals. Throughout our exploration in creating a baseline of the knowledge that the children already had, we have also looked into that of the topics related to animals that the children have shown a curiosity in and what they wanted to explore further.

 I began our inquiry by first developing lessons that would cover many of the basic topics of animals including but not limited to that of: what they are, where they live, what they look like, how they act, how they connect, and so on. During these lessons we used a variety of materials that the children were familiar with, during every lesson we had the basket of animals on hand (even if it was just to use as a reference), we used large building blocks, wood blocks, magnatiles, the smart board, and the classroom SMART board. Throughout these lessons the children were able to freely express themselves sharing what they knew that pertained to the specific lesson and that of additional information they had already developed. In continuing our inquiry I started to include that of pictures and using the SMART board more to be able to introduce the children to new topics pertaining to their interest of animals and start to develop their understanding in the areas that their knowledge is lacking.

In our inquiry of animals the children have showed a keen interest in being able to draw or sketch that of what they know or what they are learning. In using that of the art materials, the children been very open during that of the discussions that they have been participating in while they are sitting and drawing what they know or what they want to know more about. In the beginning of our learning we started simple with identifying what each animal was, what characteristics it has, how it is similar to other animals, how they are different from one another, how they act, where they live, what type of animal they are, and what other animals they coexist with.

Most recently the children and I have been exploring that of the different groups of animals and the habitats that they live in. In working on their understanding of these topics, we have explored that of what the characteristics of the habitat are and why the specific groupings of animals live in the area that they do. One exploration used that of the world map to place the animals geographically where they lived and another one used that of recreating a habitat in the block area and then pretending to be an animal that lives there interacting the way the animals would in their natural environments.

To continue this learning, the students and I are going to dive deeper into that of the habitat and start looking more closely at the specific animal groups that live there. While deepening our understanding on these topics, we will look more closely at some of the misconceptions that the children have and at what animals do not get along (predators and prey) even though they coexist.