Rebecca Bathurst is a Kindergarten teacher at George Jay Elementary School. Our class had the pleasure of visiting her classroom and hearing about how she is using an inquiry-based learning style in her classroom. Before this experience,  I honestly had no idea how inquiry-based learning could be done with such young children, but I now feel like it is a very natural way for young children to learn.

First off, her classroom was beautiful! Everything was very natural and organic, with many handmade toys and trinkets. But beyond that, when looking deeper, there were so many play areas that allowed for the guided discovery of their inquiry topic of dinosaurs. Each area had a piece of the topic woven into it for the students to discover.

Secondly, Rebecca structured her curriculum around the idea of inquiry. She mentioned that she noticed many of her students were interested in dinosaurs, thus she chose it for the inquiry topic. She then used a provocation, which is an activity that will spark students’ interest and learning. She askes students what they see, what they know, and what they wish to know during the provocation. After this, there is a very scaffolded inquiry style where students cover curricular competencies under the topic umbrella of their inquiry (dinosaurs).

This way of learning truly plays into the young students’ natural curiosity process that exists at that age. Rebecca’s speech really made me see that. I see the true possibilities of leading an inquiry-based classroom in the elementary classroom now. I think it is a really exciting way to teach that I will try to incorporate into my future classroom.