For this week’s class we met up on Wednesday at George Jay Elementary to learn about inquiry based learning in Rebecca Bathurst’s kindergarten classroom. Before this class I was familiar with Rebecca Bathurst’s work with her students from following her Instagram page after a teacher had recommended it to me. I have been following and reading what she has been doing with her latest inquiry on dinosaurs and have been amazed. From going outside and exploring the possibilities of habitat’s to going as far as to create dinosaur eggs she has truly taken on her students inquiry and is creating a multitude of learning possibilities.
One thing that stuck me upon entering Rebecca’s classroom was how beautifully she had decorated it. Last semester one of the classes that I took was literacy in the Elementary classroom instructed by Jodi Streelasky. In this class, one of the things that Jodi was very passionate about was the importance of classroom walls and how too much commercialized materials and colours could over stimulate a child and could affect their learning ability. Jodi showed many examples of classrooms that were inspired by Reggio Emilia that use natural materials, neutral colours and natural sunlight, and explained all the research behind the benefits that these environments have for students. Right when I walked into Rebecca’s classroom it reminded me of all the pictures that I was shown last semester and was instantly inspired.
I loved to see how passionate Rebecca was while talking about inquiry learning and her education heart (I think that is what she called it). I definitely would like to explore and integrate topics of inquiries into my own classroom one day because of how it can engage students and make learning fun. As a teacher that is our biggest goal when it comes to the lessons that we teach and I feel as though I walked away with inspiration and visions as to how I would like to teach and structure my own classroom one day. Overall, it was a cool experience and am very grateful I was given the opportunity.
