Ruby Tuesday

I love that I am still inquiring into inquiry! This post is based on something that Kath Murdoch shared with staff at the International School of Paris last week and that sparked a new pathway in my own journey of inquiry. It's always fascinating and insightful to go beyond thinking about inquiry to engage actively in the process of inquiry to deepen learning.  Discussing possible starting points for inquiry, Kath gave two quite different examples.  1. A starting point that could go off in any number of unknown directions  2. Introducing an authentic project or action that will take place in the future to frame an inquiry Making connections to these different approaches, I recognised so many examples of the first proposal. Through reflection, I realised I actually use the second approach quite often in Kindergarten, often using the word "challenge" to promote playful learning. It was then I became curious about the "elements" or characteristics of inquiry tha

I aspire to co-create a community of learners that think, feel, inquire and play together. For this to be a reality, children and adults need to see value in their own ideas, wonderings, connections and perspectives, and those of others. Relationships and interactions are key to develop trust, respect and feeling safe with uncertainty. Learning needs to be valued! Not the kind of learning that requires students to fill in the blanks on worksheets, or complete exercises that require little thought. More important is learning how to learn, the process of learning, learning about oneself and others, and learning about complex and intriguing concepts through play and inquiry . The systems in place in a classroom can directly promote or deny opportunities to foster communities of thinkers and learners, in which children are listened to and their voices are heard, beyond when adults give permission for children to speak. For a number of years, I have not asked asked children to raise their

This blog post offers a visual analogy to capture some of my thinking about the connections between play and playful learning.  I am going to use Earth and its layers as a way to represent a child's world.  The core of the Earth helps us to consider how play is at the heart of a child's learning and in so many domains such as social, emotional, physical and cognitive development. Play is described and defined in many ways by so many including a process, an activity, a strategy, a state of mind, an opportunity... To be mindful of and to protect children's time to play each day (both indoors and outdoors) for a minimum of 2.5 hours each day in the Kindergarten class I teach, I hold onto Peter Gray's criteria for play which position children as the ones making the choices and directing their own play.  There are many different 'types' of play and educators may name and categorise these differently. Regardless of the type, there are no limits to what might happen. T

I have been lucky enough to be part of Jo Fahey's online workshop 'The Power of Play' for the past four weeks. We explored many different types of play through various lenses, but I have chosen to focus this blog post on socio-dramatic play. Other types of play that might be synonymous or connected with socio-dramatic play include role play, pretend play, imaginative play, make-believe play, symbolic play, dramatic play and fantasy play. It is important to note that each intentionally use the word 'play' to allow children choice and to self-direct their learning, in contrast to 'drama lessons'.  Much has been written about socio-dramatic play being 'the most advanced' or 'the highest form' type of play. This is based on the idea that it combines functional play (playing with objects as they are), constructive play (playing to combine materials and making something new) and games with rules (playing with rules that are adopted, adapted or inve

I am curious about curiosity! On Friday, I had the pleasure of attending a Learning Pioneers live webinar about cultivating curiosity with Kath Murdoch and Guy Claxton.  Being curious about such a big idea means we don't "arrive" at a final destination and end our inquiry. The webinar was an exciting reminder about the cyclical nature of inquiry and how ongoing curiosity drives continuous meaning making, connections, wonderings and deeper and broader learning for all learners - children and ourselves! I was reminded of a couple of workshops I have led on nurturing curiosity that I have never blogged about. I shared 11 different strategies that I will outline here. On Friday, some of these strategies were explored in depth.  In a culture that harnesses the energy and tension of not knowing, and where surprise and the unfamiliar are welcomed, curiosity is nurtured. Far from a world of right and wrong and where mistakes are feared, the process of learning is fuelled by curio