Discovery Time 2.0

Discovery Time continues to be a favorite time of day for the students in my kindergarten classroom. In fact, on days when have an alternative activity, such as Folk Tale Day or Fort Friday, they still always ask, "Don't we have Discovery Time today?"

Discovery Time is a win-win-win. The students engage in activities they enjoy, they build important life skills while engaging in them, and I get uninterrupted time to meet with small groups. It doesn't get any better than that!

The biggest challenge of Discovery Time is coming up with new activities. The general discovery areas stay the same, but I change out the activities every week or two. Fortunately, I have found many great ideas for provocations on the internet, and I also have been blessed with enough materials to develop my own.  Here are some things we have been doing at Discovery Time since my last Discovery Time post:

Honing fine motor skills and visual acuity by matching nuts and bolts

Exploring how things are constructed at the take apart area

Documenting what we observe at the science table

Getting creative with loose parts at the light table

Working with pattern blocks at the math table

Making cards, pictures and letters at the writing table

Playing house at the kitchen area

Sculpting with wire

Making letters with Play Doh

Constructing with Magna Tiles at the light table

Painting still life portraits at the art table

Designing and creating at the makerspace area

Noticing and discovering shells at the science table

Using attribute blocks and numbers at the light table

Constructing cities in the block area

Practicing counting with loose parts at the math area

Exploring lines at the art area

Matching skeletons and insects at the light table

Observing things in nature and comparing those
observations with others

Decorating gingerbread men

Making gingerbread traps

Exploring lines and colors at the light table

Fort Friday

Fort Friday is one of my favorite activities to do each year. It embeds engineering and the 21st century skills of collaboration, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity and imagination.

Using the Seesaw app, I send a note to all parents, inviting them to send a standard bed sheet to school with their child, along with an explanation of what it is for. In the morning, I split the students into groups of four or five. After being assigned a certain area in the classroom, the group's first task is to share ideas and then plan and design their fort. All students in the group must get a chance to share, although the final plan may be a compromise of ideas. I have found that this step can be very difficult for some students--which is one of the reasons I find this process so important!

Once the design process is completed, the next step is constructing the fort according to each group's plan. Again, this is a test of patience and teamwork, especially when the students realize their plan may have some design flaws.

After constructing their fort, each team tests their fort to see if it works the way they had planned (and hoped). Then, they get a chance to redesign and rebuild. Sometimes this results in a better constructed fort, sometimes, not so much.

At the end of this step, some teams were still struggling to create a useable fort. We decided to add a step to our engineering process: Call in an expert. We phoned our fourth grade friends and they sent 6 experts to assist our teams. Team members explained the problems they were facing and the experts helped them find solutions. The students made revisions to their plans to reflect these changes.

Finally, all forts were complete! Whew, it was a long morning! Sometimes, when doing this project, I start to get that anxious feeling that comes when I don't feel like I am doing something "academic." However, I simply have to reflect on the process and the conversations I overheard and know that valuable skills were developed on this day--skills that will prepare students for a lifetime of working with others, solving problems, and persevering in the face of difficulty. Nothing can top that!