A Really Snowy Day!

We thought we got a lot of snow last weekend, but another 15 inches fell this weekend, transforming our playground into something brand new.  We slid, we jumped, we rolled, we tramped out to the compost pile with heavy buckets.  And we started asking questions about snow:

• How can snow be heavy?

• Why does snow have water in it?

• Why is it winter?

• Why can snowmobiles go on snow and cars can’t?

• How come you can’t make a snowball sometimes?

• Why does the snow come?

• How can you measure snow?

The most powerful learning happens when students are pursuing their own questions.  As teachers, we work to teach the skills and concepts we know students need to acquire in the context of these questions.  For kindergartners, those questions most often arise from their experiences in the moment.  All sorts of questions arose from the children's play in the snow today and will form the foundation of our science work in January.

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift should be curiosity.
Eleanor Roosevelt