Professional Learning Goals

Our professional learning goals were to explore, develop and deepen our inquiry-based teaching practice in the full-day kindergarten context. We aimed to provide our youngest students with a real-world and engaging learning environment that provides them varied opportunities to plan, observe, and gather and communicate information about the natural environment that engages their natural curiosity. This project has deepened our knowledge and skills as educators to effectively interact with students in order to clarify, extend and encourage students to communicate their thinking and share their findings through hands-on investigations, observations, questions, and representations of their findings.

Activities and Resources

• Our FDK team participated in a professional book club that explored inquiry-based kindergarten pedagogy through THINQ Kindergarten: Inquiry-based learning in the kindergarten classroom
• We applied our professional learning to develop and extend our best inquiry-based teaching practice in the full=day kindergarten context
• Through STEM inquiry, we planned, problem-solved and created an outdoor classroom and sustainable butterfly garden
• Through the inquiry processes, we investigated and observed the needs of living things and hatched butterflies in the classroom that were launched into the natural environment created by the students
• We explored through literacy and art the need to care for, respect and contribute to the natural environment

Unexpected Challenges

We encountered some unexpected challenges throughout this project. Primarily, our timeline was not long enough and we became rushed in the spring months. The process of creating and implementing an outdoor classroom and butterfly garden took much longer than anticipated. Collaborating with external vendors, board maintenance and a large FDK team demands a generous timeline.

In retrospect, this project needs to be initiated early in the school year with the understanding that an outdoor classroom and inquiry garden is a huge endeavour that must be done in phases and will evolve over several years. There were many elements that we had to push to next year because we did not have the time or funds to implement in this initial phase. Some elements we had hoped to add to our outdoor classroom were outdoor chalkboards, STEM loose materials and a soundscape that are now on next year’s plan. We also are still waiting for our canoe to be installed by our board, which will then be painted by students and transformed into a butterfly bed to participate in David Suzuki’s Butterflyway Project.

The teacher book inquiry exploring THINQ Kindergarten also needs to be initiated early in the fall to allow for time to explore and develop lesson ideas and to populate the Google Classroom with resources to share amongst the FDK team. Resources such as butterfly kits, planters, garden tools, soil, indoor seeds and pots need to be on-site before the spring. Germinating of plants begins indoors in the winter months and butterfly larvae need to be in classrooms six weeks prior to launching in their new garden habitat. Overall, the initial phase of this project was a success with very few challenges. We will continue to develop and evolve our outdoor classroom and inquiry garden in the future to enhance inquiry and learning that will benefit all students at our school.

Enhancing Student Learning and Development

Kindergarten students are naturally curious, continuously exploring, wondering and asking questions. They have a natural inclination toward inquiry. Our environmental inquiry project provided our FDK students with opportunities to explore questions in the engaging and relevant context of a outdoor classroom and inquiry garden. Our students are mainly newcomers to Canada living in apartment complexes without access to a natural environment. This project provided students with a “hands-on” context for learning about the importance of our natural environment and how they can actively contribute to it’s care. Learning through inquiry also increases student engagement and the development of the inquiry skills of exploration, investigation and communication. Students learn to collaborate with their teachers and peers become self-directed learners. Student learning and engagement has thrived throughout this project and continues daily in our community garden.

Sharing

We shared our professional learning with the entire FDK team, which is made up of eight FDK classes, so that they could also participate with their students in our environmental inquiry. The launch of the butterflies into the garden was celebrated and shared with members of our learning community including administration, parents and community organizations. The outdoor classroom and butterfly garden is a sustainable learning environment that will continue to be utilized by the entire school. We will document our teaching and learning experience throughout the environmental inquiry on a Google Classroom to share online with teaching colleagues now and in the future. Our plan is to continue to evolve the outdoor education program with more grades and divisions, and to continue to develop and share our online databank of lessons and resources for future teaching and learning.

Project Evaluation

We did achieve our main goal to improve our pedagogy as educators to effectively explore an environmental inquiry with our 250 FDK students that focused on the needs of living things and the lifecycle of butterflies. We also achieved our logistical goal to successfully create an outdoor classroom with eight butterfly beds and have each FDK class hatch butterflies in classrooms that were then launched into their new habitat. Our community event was a great success bringing together families, administrators and community members to celebrate our learning and our beautiful community garden.

Student success was determined with data. We applied Assessment as Learning, Assessment for Learning and Assessment of Learning from an inquiry stance that engaged learning through questioning and dialogue with our students to understand what they are thinking and consider possible adjustments in our practice to meet their learning needs. We assessed student progress in order to inform our instruction and provide for new learning opportunities that were appropriate to the observed strengths and needs of each student. We observed, analyzed, interpreted and documented our students’ ability to demonstrate their awareness of the natural environment through hands-on investigations, observations, questions, and representations of their findings. Information about student learning was gathered from observations, anecdotal notes, photos, student samples, and observation of interactions with their peers.

In retrospect, we would have started our project sooner and planned it in phases over several years. We did accomplish a great deal in our first year. We have the foundation of inquiry in our teaching practice and an outdoor inquiry space that will continue to evolve in the future.