{"id":107,"date":"2007-10-17T19:43:22","date_gmt":"2007-10-18T02:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-wests.net\/rick\/2007\/10\/17\/inquiry-based-first-graders\/"},"modified":"2007-10-17T19:43:22","modified_gmt":"2007-10-18T02:43:22","slug":"inquiry-based-first-graders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.byuipt.net\/rickwest\/2007\/10\/17\/inquiry-based-first-graders\/","title":{"rendered":"Inquiry-based first-graders"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m a big fan of Freakonomics,<\/em> not because I agree with everything the authors claim, but because it makes me think, and isn’t that what defines a great book?<\/p>\n

I’m also a big fan of inquiry-based education, where children learn domain knowledge through problem solving and inquiry. So I enjoyed reading one of the authors of Freakonomics<\/em> describe on the Freakonomics<\/em> blog<\/a> a great inquiry-based first-grade project:<\/p>\n

\n

"My son\u2019s first-grade teacher recently held an open house to tell the parents what their kids will be learning this year, and how they\u2019ll be going about it. I have to say, it was pretty impressive. My favorite part had to do with turning the kids into first-grade (if not first-rate) empiricists.<\/p>\n

The teacher, a wonderful veteran from Texas named Barbara, described an upcoming project: collecting data on some or all of the 22 playgrounds in Central Park.<\/p>\n

First, the kids will vote on their favorite and least favorite playgrounds in the park. Then they will collect data on a variety of metrics: number of swings, amount of open space, shady vs. sunny areas, etc. Then they will try to figure out the factors that make a good playground good and a bad playground bad. They will also consider the safety of each playground, and other measures.<\/p>\n

We did not do this kind of project when I was in first grade; frankly, I am envious."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I am envious as well. What a superb learning activity, and what a great teacher!<\/p>\n

I have tried to do a couple of inquiry-based activities with my kindergartener to only marginal success. I pulled out all of our leftover wood from various home improvement projects and asked her to measure the pieces and color a graph so we would know how many of each length we had. She thought this was fun for a few minutes, and even though she tired of the task, she did a great job. On a different occasion, I had her plant bean seeds in different cups of soil, and we marked the cups as "water, no sun"; "sun, no water"; "sun + water" and so on. We then did an experiment to see under what conditions the beans would grow. <\/p>\n

Well, none of them grew–they must have been duds. So much for that experiment!<\/p>\n

Has anyone reading this every had a successful inquiry project with young children? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.<\/p>\n

Tags: K-12<\/a>, inquiry<\/a>, problem solving<\/a>, home schooling<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n

Powered by<\/em> Qumana<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m a big fan of Freakonomics, not because I agree with everything the authors claim, but because it makes me think, and isn’t that what defines a great book? I’m also a big fan of inquiry-based education, where children learn domain knowledge through problem solving and inquiry. So I enjoyed reading one of the authors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-teaching","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.byuipt.net\/rickwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.byuipt.net\/rickwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.byuipt.net\/rickwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.byuipt.net\/rickwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.byuipt.net\/rickwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.byuipt.net\/rickwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.byuipt.net\/rickwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.byuipt.net\/rickwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.byuipt.net\/rickwest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}