Inquiring Mind

As part of our inquiry learning we understand more when our minds are stimulated to wonder, anticipate, and think. Inquiry learning is a powerful educational approach that encourages us to actively explore and investigate concepts, fostering deeper understanding and critical thinking skills. 

​By posing questions and investigating answers, we become actively engaged in our own learning process. We ask ourselves Do worms like brightness or darkness?  How do we know which one they are more comfortable with? How can we firsthand explore it?​

Inquiry often involves collaboration with others. We learn to communicate our ideas effectively, share findings, and work together to foster teamwork and communication skills. We work with an experiment, with an aid of a source of light, to understand the relationship between shining light and the responses of the worms. 
​Nora: When the light is on, they move actively.
Vivaan: When the light is on, they're moving faster. And when the light is off, they are moving slower.
​Fides: When the light is on, it moves very fast. And when the light is off, it moves slow.

​Instead of memorizing facts, inquiry learning encourages us to explore topics deeply. We develop a more comprehensive understanding of concepts as we uncover connections and patterns throughout our investigations. Through repeated observations by Nora, Vivaan, and Fides, we discover a consistent pattern of information which can be a more reliable data for our wondering mind. 

The movement, exhibited by Felix, engages our thinking that worms move toward food source, avoid harmful stimuli, and navigate their surroundings based on their sensory inputs and environmental cues.

Felix shares, during our investigation, that worms have no backbones. We start to introduce a term of invertebrates for this category of animals. We further converse  that's why worms have no ability to sit down. Interestingly, he mentions that worms do not think either. His comment may spark our interest to the next question, if worms have no brains, do they only depend on their sensory stimuli?

​Through inquiry, we learn to analyze information, evaluate evidence, and draw conclusions. This promotes critical thinking skills essential for problem-solving in various contexts in our everyday moments.

Through our experiments, we figure out our conclusions are as follows:
• worms don't have eyes, but they can sense light and darkness;
• worms prefer to stay in the dark, moist soil where they are safe from predators;
• worms breathe through their skin, so it's important for them to stay moist;
• if their skin dries out, they can't breathe!

Following-up our proposed plan in learning to give back to the community, we learn through the experience of cutting lemons, squeezing them, and setting up a lemonade stand without charging for the lemonade. This teamwork is amazing with everyone is being involved in understanding processes. Running a lemonade stand helps us too to interact with passersby, accept responses from others, and entrepreneurship spirit of the value of hard work. 

Our recent field trip to the water spray park provides a fun and interactive environment for us to move our bodies in different ways like running over challenges and coordinating our movement. Water spray park stimulates our senses through the feel and sound of water. We too experience different textures, temperatures, and water pressures beside exploring cause-and effect relationship (e.g. what happens when we block a spray nozzle?).

On this opportunity we would like to welcome Kalyan to Children & Friends! We look forward to building relationship through our various learning journeys.

During one of our daily walks, Margo picks a dandelion flower. She demonstrates generosity by giving it to Kalyan who walks with her. Kalyan accepts it with an expression of trust. Sharing indeed contributes to our building and maintaining positive relationships.

Kindest,
Children & Friends.