You may or may not know that three members of our amazing PreK team spent Friday, May 16th teaching other educators about what inquiry looks like at the PreK level. As presenters at the Magnet Schools of America conference, Mrs. Fleming, Mrs. Granahan, and Mrs. Smith-Horn led a hands-on activity showing others how to build inquiry explorations. What does that look like? Instead of asking a student what would happen if they used a red block in their tower, a teacher might ask, “How could you make your structure taller, stronger, or more stable?” Instead of asking a student how many small cups it would take to fill a larger cup in the water station, a teacher might ask, “How could you fill up that big cup?” The more open ended the questions, the more thinking is needed to be done by the student.
Using the knowledge they gained at Cultivating Young Scientists (CYS), a graduate level program for PreK educators in the area of inquiry-based instruction, our teachers engaged a class of teachers and administrators from around the country. Through hands-on explorations, they served as expert mentors, sharing insights from their own classrooms as well as the background knowledge necessary to implement such a program.
We are all so proud of our whole PreK team which has taken on CYS. Each teacher takes three semesters of graduate-level work in addition to their regular teaching responsibilities. Their hard work is seen each an every day. Friday was just a way for the rest of the world to see just how amazing our team is!
Below are some pictures from their workshop. It sure looked like folks were having a great time!
-Mr. Reed-Swale
