Kolbe states that, ‘Trees are a rich topic that can inspire and enchant’. I can’t help
agree, trees aren’t just beautiful they are also extremely fundamental to our environment
and existence. With this in mind and with autumn well underway - the leaves
noticeably changing colour - I thought how a discussion on trees would be a
wonderful way to begin this new term.
When I’m working
with children in small groups, listening to them inquire, telling their
stories, working out their ideas I can’t help but feel excited. Inquiry based
learning is an aspect of teaching that I love and value.
This documented work begins with just one simple question, “Why do we need trees?”. As always I was
ready with some photographs to provoke the children’s thinking about trees, and
of course we spent some time sitting on the grass at Kindergarten examining the
trees around us.
As the children
started to reflect and share their ideas I was ready with materials for them.
Loris Malaguzzi the founder of the Reggio Emilia approach to education felt it
was important for the art studio to be subversive; a combination of both an art
studio and a science laboratory. This is evident each time I work with children
and provide tools for their exploration - whether it be clay, paints, pen and
paper – these media are helpful for children when working out their ideas, hypothesizing,
testing theories and answering questions.
In this recent
work the children worked with white paper, black vivid and at times dye. Here
is an extract from their thinking:
Why do
we need trees?
Chamodhi ‘Trees
are good for playing, if we hurt trees they stop growing’
Peter ‘You can
jump off trees’
Wyatt ‘And build a
house in a tree’
Chamodhi ‘We can build things in trees like monkey
bars and trees can be taller than a house or just little’
Payton ‘And if
someone cuts the wood off you can use it to make stairs’
Tyler O ‘You need
trees at Christmas in your houses’
Mason ‘And you
could use their leaves as a fan’
Drawings based on observation
include a blend of the observed, remembered and the imagined.
‘Young children are extremely
expressive, with an enormous capacity for sharing feelings and emotion, and
that imagination plays a key role in the child’s search for knowledge and
understanding’.
(Learning, Teaching Scotland,
2006)
Why do trees have leaves?
Marcus ‘They help people stay dry for a bit from the rain'
Wyatt ‘Some trees
have no leaves on when they are alive and trees bend in wind and they give us
shade’.
Liam ‘Yes trees
are good to park under to keep the car not too hot, and if you don’t park under
trees the car gets too hot’
London-Rose ‘Leaves
are at the top and sometimes at the bottom of trees’
Payton ‘Sometimes
leaves are pointy or not pointy’
London-Rose ‘And
trees have branches and a trunk’
Liliana ‘Trees are
very very interesting. Some trees are very big with bushes on the top. Trees
are our friends and they have leaves on them, which fall at winter.
Wyatt ‘No it’s autumn,
the leaves fall at autumn!’
Liliana ‘At autumn
time usually the leaves just turn different colours, leaves can fall in winter
too!’
Wyatt ‘Trees are
good for climbing and you can put swings in trees’
Tyler M ‘Trees
give us apples, plums, apricots, pears, oranges’
Marcus “And
Feijoas’
Mia “Trees have
flowers on them”
Why do some trees have flowers?
Emma ‘Because it
makes them into a beautiful tree’
Kate B ‘The
flowers make food for us’
Wyatt ‘And the
bees make food for us as they take the pollen from the flowers on the tree’
Tyler M ‘Trees
need rain lots of rain”
Why do trees need rain?
Livia ‘It makes
them grow’
Kate ‘Or they’ll
die’
Marcus ‘They need
water so they can grow’
Mason “Yes and
they need rain for that and sunshine or they’ll die forever’
Tyler M ‘Trees
give animals the shade’
What sort of animals?
Tyler M ‘Birds’
Mia ‘Giraffes eat
the leaves from trees’
Oscar ‘And monkeys
live in trees’
Tyler M ‘And acorns
come from trees which squirrels collect’
Wyatt ‘Trees they
make good homes for spiders and ants’
Claudia ‘Birds
live in trees, in nests and bees’
Taika ‘You know
trees make you breathe!’
How do trees make you breathe?
Claudia ‘The wind
blows the leaves around and give you fresh air’
Kate B ‘They just
give you fresh air’
Liliana ‘All the
bad air is coming up into this hole in the leaf and then it goes down into the
soil and the good air is invisible and it comes out into the human mouths’
As we worked together in small groups I was careful to
constantly revisit the children’s earlier ideas, allowing time for further
reflection and discussion. After several days we began to consider the hidden
world of trees, the aspect of trees that we don’t always get to see – life
under the soil.
Is there anything underneath a tree?
Liliana ‘Soil,
dirt and compost’
Livia ‘And worms’
Tyler M ‘Roots are
under, the water drips into the dirt and the water goes into the roots’
Mason ‘Some roots
poke out the ground and dirt is around the roots’
What are the trees roots for?
Kate B ‘It makes
them grow. The trees grow roots in the ground’
So, do all trees have roots?
Kate B ‘Oh yes, so
they can stand in the ground and not move’
'As children listen to each
other’s ideas and see each other’s work, they have opportunities to learn that
there are different points of view. Through exploring a topic in different ways
and from different perspectives, they expand their understandings' (Kolbe)
Apologies for this very long blog post, but after reading the wonderful conversations from the children, I hope you feel it was worth it.
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