What a delight to watch the students exploring around the room, excitedly sharing their discoveries and making comparisons. “They stick to metal.” “But they don’t stick to this bell or door handle.” “Look how this one pushes that one around.”
The brainstorming following this free exploration touched on almost all of the Curriculum SLE’s, generating upcoming investigations to test their theories and develop students’ personally created understanding of these magical tools. And, one comment about their use even opened the door a crack into our year’s bigger Inquiry focus.
What I learned? - The power of putting children in the driver’s seat of their own learning. Their natural curiosities, wonder and cleverness generated questions for us to explore that they were excited about and had the need to know. Observing and listening to children is our best guide.