Water
Cycle Based Curriculum Resource
Before
I start getting into the details, we need to know what constructivism is and
how children learn best. Before I came to Seneca the whole idea of the way
children learn and how teachers would teach was so different, in fact it was
almost the opposite of what I thought. Children are full of great imaginative
ideas that can really blow you away. The best way for children to learn is from
play. Play is crucial way for children to develop because it enhances children
to be excited and curious. Play allows children to be creative; it allows them
to ‘do’, to experience it for themselves. This is very important because we all
learn from our experiences. If you look back at the time you learned how to tie
your shoes, as a kid you did not read articles, study books, or write down the
steps, your parents showed you and mast likely made it fun for you to do. I
remember my parents making the process a story referring the loops as bunny
ears and then saying the bunny runs under the hole, running around the corner,
up the hill, etc.
This also made it more
appealing to me because it was interesting and it caught my attention. Having
worksheets out for children is very boring, not relatable, and will not be remembered.
It is essentially useless especially for early learners. I can’t remember a
thing from my history class when all we did was reading the textbook and
answering the bland questions. “ Play nourishes every aspect of children’s
development- it forms the foundation of intellectual, social, physical, and
emotional skills necessary for success in school and in life. Play ‘pave the
way for learning’ (Canadian Council on learning, 2006, p.2). When a child is
playing with blocks they are learning social skills by playing and
communicating with others, intellectually by problem solving on where to put
the blocks and how to balance them, and emotionally by learning how to regulate
their emotions if the blocks fall or if they have a disagreement with their
peers. Every child is different and all have interest in different items so by
planning a constructivist curriculum, as a teacher you need to keep in mind
that every child has different skills. In a constructivist classroom, you will
usually see children exploring, initiating the play, with teachers guiding,
observing and documenting the process. 
A potential
topic in order to fulfill science and technology kindergarten curriculum is the
water cycle. There are four stages
in the water cycle evaporation, condensation, clouds and rain. This could be a
great activity because the children can hypothesise there theories, learn how
the weather works, talk with their peers, and experiment by trial and error.
To
portray a constructivist science curriculum three steps need to be followed:
1. Provocation
2. Connection
3. Reflection
The first
thing that needs to be done is to incite the children into the activities. The
provocation could be done in many ways, the children could notice that it is
raining outside and ask where does the rain come from? Or you as the teacher,
you need to attract the children by coming up with an experiment. Something you
can do with the children is invite them around the table and have a leaf and eye
dropper ready. As you get there attention, you put a drop of
water on the leaf you can ask them many questions like what do you think is
going to happen to this drop of water?, is it going to stay on this leaf
forever? Do you think the drop will move? Why did I put just one drop of water?
Asking them these questions will spark dialogue with the children and they will
start to hypothesise the outcome of what will happen to the drop of water. After
discussion, you can bring in a heat lamp and put it over the leaf. When you
come back to it the day after or in the afternoon and record what happened to
the drop. They will notice that it disappeared and then you can ask them, what
happened to the drop of water? Where did it go? Conversation and sharing of
knowledge is how we all learn, we build upon each other’s theories until they
come to a conclusion. As you are doing this experiment, the children should
feel free to grab a magnifying glass, or anything in the classroom that will
help them investigate and discover what happen to the water. This activity
hopefully inspired the children to want and learn more about where the drop of
water went.
Later on in the year you can build upon this
and talk about the next step in the water cycle which is Condensation. I have
been thinking of ways one might describe the process of condensation and so I looked
on Pinterest to find ideas other people did. The best way to come up with a
diagram to show condensation is to get a jar and pour some hot water in it.
Then wrap a lawyer of plastic wrap on top with an ice cube on top of the
plastic wrap. You well eventually see the water droplets forming on the jar and
on top of the plastic wrap, it will start participating. This is a great way to
get the children to see the whole water cycle come to life.
You can
also do an activity about clouds. This can be any activity you want, but in
this case I will demonstrate a math based activity. After showing the children
the cycle, they moved on to be more interested in the clouds. My cousin pointed
out that the clouds turn different colours. The other cousin was looking at the
different shapes of the clouds. I asked them what the clouds looked like? One
of my cousins said that one looked like a turtle; the other said she saw a boat
cloud. This gave me a great idea to go further with this and so I asked them if
they wanted to make their own clouds. My cousins used anything they could find
like construction paper, crayons, cotton balls, and there was even some
marshmallows that they used. They ended up with great pieces of work, naming
all of the shapes, measuring the different weights of the marshmallows vs the
cotton balls, putting the clouds from smallest to the biggest, etc.
At the end
my cousin was singing “Rain, rain go away” and I thought this was a perfect
opportunity to come up with a water cycle song. I created a song that named the
different stages of the water cycle, evaporation, condensation, clouds and
rain. I put a simple melody to it and pretty soon they couldn’t stop singing
it. Then I thought maybe putting actions into the song can give these big words
a meaning.
Children
will take the leaf and water provocation and they can test it out for
themselves. When they are having their conversations they are basing their
answers off of their experiences and from what they know. A child could come up
with the idea that the water went into space, or it sunk into the leaf. Every
child will have their own idea. I did this experiment with my cousins one time
and I asked them where the water went? The imagination these children displayed
was amazing. On if my cousins said that the water went into the tunnels into
the leaf and traveled to space, the other cousin said that the leaf ate it.
When I then put the lamp over the leaf and the water disappeared, they said
that the water went to go join their friends because there were water droplets
from the rain that morning on the window. This was interesting because you can
tell from what my cousins said that they know that the leaf needs water to
survive and that’s why she commented that it ate it. Also the example with the
water traveling through tunnels, the children knows that water comes from the
sink and comes from the pipes of the sink so she thought there were pipes of
water leading up to the sky. Also the older cousin pointed out that after it
rains and the sun comes up, everything dries up so it was the same thing for
the leaf and the water. By the questions you ask and the response of the
children you can tell that the children are making connections from their prior
knowledge.
The
reflection process is the last step. This is usually where the teacher
documents the work of the children and displays it up on walls so that the
parents can see and interpret what the child was doing. A great way to document
is by taking pictures of the process. As a teacher you need to be observing the
provocations and connections the children make and write down the dialogue that
is going on between the child, peers and teachers. Each week the teacher should
go back to this concept and go through each step of the water cycle and do more
activities on clouds and rain. There are so many big expectations and specific
expectations the children are learning. The teacher can identify what stage the
children are at by looking at the full day kindergarten document and checking
what expectations were met. Also as a teacher you need to know what the
children’s next interests are to know where to go next. My cousins after asked
me about thunder and lightning, as a teacher this is where you should take the
next steps for the science curriculum.
Not only is
there science and technology learned in this curriculum resource, but the
children are learning so much more. In the Full Day Early Learning Kindergarten
Curriculum, the three learning areas that I focused on was science and
technology, mathematics and language. As you can see in the activities, I have
included the math area in the cloud activity as well as personal and social
development can be seen in the interaction between the children. The way that
the children interact with each other, share and compare their thoughts and
work all go under personal and social development.
The overall
big idea is Properties of Liquids
The
last thing to know for the science curriculum resource is the inquiry process. The
main thing about science is the investigation and curiosity so here is how to
do it in a constructivist manor. There are 4 steps in the inquiry process
Initial Engagement, Exploration, Investigation, and Communication.
Initial Engagement
The child
has to have their own experience on why they are interested on the topic in the
first place. In this stage the child is observing wondering and being curious
about the topic by playing. In a constructivist classroom, children will always
be playing and they could come up with the initial engagement at any time. They
could be on a walk, or just in the classroom, or at home. In this case the initial
engagement was the water drop and the leaf. As the children are observing and
asking questions, the teachers should also be observing what the child’s
thoughts and questions are.
Exploration
In this
stage the children will be assuming there hypothesis. This is where in a
constructivist classroom, you would see dialogue between the children and each
child adding their experiences in to create predictions. As teachers, we would
encourage the conversations and keep it active with our own questions to them. Like
the leaf and the
Investigation
The children
would usually go on their own here and plan and reflect on what will happen
next. This is where measuring, graphing, sorting, and interpreting are done to
observe the topic. This is where after the leaf and the drop, children can come
up with their own idea and fill a glass half full of water and see what happens
to the water over a week. They will use measuring tools like lego, string,
etc., and compare results, and eventually come to a conclusion. The role of the
teacher is to provide materials and resources so that the children can expand
their thinking. Teachers would not do this process for them and if the children
end up with the wrong answer, the teacher shouldn’t tell them the right answer
because you want them to figure it out.
Communication
At the end
of the experiment, the children should come together and share their finding
with each other. This is where the connections are made and everything comes
together. All of the previous work should be documented so that the children
can reference back to it and so that parents can see and interpret their children’s
work as they can also learn from them.
Social media is a great way for
kindergarten teachers to communicate and share their ideas. There have been
many times in my placement where I needed ideas to come up with activities and
the first place I looked up was Pinterest. Just like the children, we all have
knowledge that should be shared and we can definitely all learn from each
other. Social medial makes this process so much easier for a teacher in Germany
to communicate with a teacher in Canada. Social media has made us so much more
informed.
I
hope this curriculum resource gave some insight to what a constructivist curriculum
would look like. I am glad to see that so many teachers are posting
constructivist activities, they are opening they eyes of many new to be and
existing teachers.
Reference
Ontario. (2010). The
full-day early learning -- kindergarten program: 2010-11. Toronto, ON:
Ministry of Education.
