Memories of a kindergarten colour inquiry
Usually a new inquiry has a prominent ‘spark’, but our colour inquiry was one that we simply decided collectively, as a class, to venture into. The spark was really just a conversation. At the end of our airplane inquiry, we had taken down the giant sky mural, and a student said, “Now what will we paint on the wall??” I said, “We always paint things about our inquiries…I wonder what our next inquiry will be…I wonder what we’re going to want to learn about…” She said, “I want a rainbow on that wall!” I said, “Well, is there something that you want to learn about rainbows? Do you think other friends will want to learn about rainbows?” She said, “All the colours! Can we learn about all the colours?” I said we’d ask all the kids what they thought, and after having a whole-class conversation, the students had agreed that an inquiry about colours would be fantastic. The students wanted to learn about how to make more colours of playdough, how to colour the snow, and h...