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Our Colour Investigation
A few weeks ago, a child came up to me while we were cleaning up and asked whether she should put the coloured pencil back with the red pencils or purple pencils (we sort our supplies by colour). I asked her to think about it and she wasn't sure. So I suggested we try an experiment to see if this pencil was either a shade of red or purple. This was the start of our inquiry. We couldn't imagine all the learning taking place from this one little question posed by a child.
Sometimes it's easier for a teacher to simply say the answer and move on. What if we had done that? None of this amazing learning would have happened! Through this learning, many of the children discovered that they could create a new colour and they realised that there were also multiple shades of colours. Through this, children and teachers discovered the value of inquiry-based learning. Inquiry leads to deeper learning and understanding than traditional methods of teaching. Without context, children are not prepared to accept and remember new information. The question-based approach of Inquiry models provides children with a context that supports both better understanding and recall. It is all about making learning meaningful to the learner.