Individual Nature Investigations

As our bee investigation was wrapping up, the kindergarteners began bombarding me with questions and suggestions about what we would investigate next.  The more they questioned and suggested, the more of a sense I got that they were ready to branch out and investigate on their own.  I have never done individual investigations and was concerned about the time constraints (only 2 1/2 weeks left of the school year!), but nevertheless I decided to give it a go.  Recently I had listened to several podcasts about Genius Hour and was inspired me to see what this type of individualized learning might look and feel like in a kindergarten classroom. I wondered what I might sacrifice from the learning and discovery process by letting kids investigate on their own rather than collectively, and on the flipside I wondered what my students and I might gain from the experience.  I often think of our investigations as a process of learning and discovering through projects and then ending with a final project that helps us reflect or make a difference in our own little corner of the world.  This experience, however, would be markedly different.  I wondered...

• Would there be a collective energy and excitement in the room even though our topics were all different?
• Would the kids care about their topic for more than a few days, or would they start to become more engaged in classmates' topics?
• Would they learn as much about their topic without doing little projects to make their learning come alive along the way?  And, would that matter?
• Would this type of learning process feel as joyful as our typical investigation process?
• Our investigation project ideas naturally emerge as we explore and wonder together, so how would project ideas emerge when kids are learning on their own?

Clearly this individual investigation process was going to be as much of a learning experience for the kiddos as it would be for me!!

I had noticed many of their recent investigation suggestions stemmed from things (other than bees) they had been noticing outside (isn't spring such a perfect time for little people to wonder about nature!), and I also had a hunch that making sure their topics could be seen and touched would make for deeper learning...so we settled on the broad topic of nature around our school.  Under that umbrella, the kiddos were free to investigate whatever their little hearts and minds desired.

We headed outside to notice, explore, wonder, and of course PLAY!

Bee Investigation

In the process of thinking about, talking about, and observing signs of spring together with the kiddos, I narrowed our next investigation topic down to the bees. Not only had the kids been noticing (and running away from!) lots of bees on the playground, but I also knew this topic would give us an opportunity to tie in some service work...which hasn't happened yet with any of our investigations this year.

Guinea Pig Investigation

To say that my class this year loves my guinea pig (Strudel) would be a massive understatement! They love watching him, feeding him, petting him, talking to him, writing notes to him, reading to him, 

holding him, 

Hot Air Balloon Investigation

It was hot air balloon season in Charlottesville.  Each morning as we passed our green sharing ball around the circle several kids were telling us about the hot air balloons they had seen on the way to school, and the rest of the kids were excitedly shaking their hands and heads in agreement. This morning routine continued for several weeks, so our next investigation was born.

We began by drawing and telling each other stories of hot air balloon sightings or anything else we already knew about them...

And we compiled our knowledge into an anchor chart...

Theater Investigation

If there's anything I've learned over the past 3 years it's that ANY topic can make for a literacy rich, joyful, challenging, engaging, and wonder-filled investigation, with plenty of opportunities to build and create along the way.  In fact, some of my favorite investigations have been our most unusual ones (spies and games and a magic door, just to name a few).  It's the kindergarteners' job to be playful five and six year olds full of curiosity and wonder, and it's my job as their teacher to figure out what interests and motivates them and help facilitate a learning journey around that big idea.  

In the process of preparing to act out a Halloween story for the other kindergarten classes (each K class chose a book to explore all week and then perform), I discovered how naturally all things theater (and storytelling) related come to this group.  In fact, the mere mention of the idea of putting on a show sparked a whole new choice time obsession in our classroom.  Not only did they spend the week preparing to act out our Halloween story,