Check More Than the Weather Report

We just returned from a planned week long vacation-this one was not storm induced! 

It was a good time to check our initial list of questions and wonderings to see which ones we had experimented with and made some discoveries about and which ones we needed to spend time investigating. 

This brought the children back in to the planning process of their learning. We realized we still had many questions about tornadoes.  At independent book time, the children found all of the tornado books and brought them to the easel.  We’ll be reading parts of them all during the week.  The children like to put sticky notes on the pages that intrigue them.  This is what research looks like at four years old. 

We also started making tornado tubes out of two 2 liter soda bottles so the children could get the feel for the way the wind has to swirl in order to start the funnel effect. 

The discussion that started to happened after just today’s “research” about the similarities and differences between tornadoes and hurricanes and then comparing them both to our storm a few weeks ago was quite incredible-and happened naturally as the children talked to one another. 

This happened because the children were invested in their learning. 

When the children play such an integral role in the learning process their experience is much more enriched-and so is mine!!