they worked on their public service announcement, which they entitled The Frog Show. As they planned, prepared, and filmed scenes for the movie, they excitedly engaged in meaningful, multimodal learning.
Before the event, the children delivered tickets to their peers and family members, inviting them to see the show. On the day of their movie’ s premiere, they helped Ms. Evelyn and Ms. Kelly turn their room into a theater with signs, a projector, and seats for the audience. The teachers made sure that showtimes occurred during multiple times throughout the day, such as morning drop-off time and later in the afternoon, and they invited family members to attend when it was most convenient for them.
As viewers arrived, the children collected their tickets and offered them snacks. After each show, they took audience members around the room to see the work they had done throughout the project. Then the children invited their guests to participate in learning games they had created at different centers. The children from the other classes were excited to learn more about frogs through The Frog Show and the interactive centers. They left with a better understanding of why it was important to let the frogs live. Following this event, the number of frogs harmed on the playground reduced significantly.( See“ Phase Three Activities and Learning” below.)
While Ms. Evelyn and Ms. Kelly’ s preschool class tapped into the technology resources available in their program, an inquiry-based approach can also be implemented in low-tech ways.( See“ Incorporating Low-Tech Inquiry- and Project-Based Approaches” on page 54 for more about this.)
Valuing Each Child’ s Contributions
During the filming, which took multiple days, Ms. Evelyn and Ms. Kelly provided individualized approaches to ensure that each child could engage in and express their learning( Lowrey et al. 2017). For example, Mila, whose oral language skills were still developing, was reticent to speak in group settings. Instead, she painted pictures depicting her knowledge
Phase Three Activities and Learning
Below is a sample of the activities the children engaged in as they wrote, filmed, and premiered The Frog Show.
Tasks Learning Goals Children’ s Activities Evidence of Learning
Creating the film |
Participate in creating a film through planning, acting, and sharing ideas in collaboration with peers |
Planned scenes; wrote the movie script; incorporated dialogue in multiple home languages; acted out and recorded scenes; reviewed film scenes and made recommendations for edits |
Crafted a script with a message; multilingual learners created translations of frog-related vocabulary, which they taught to peers and included in the script |
Designing the set |
Design a simple set for a film |
Created backdrops and identified indoor and outdoor areas to film scenes |
Applied knowledge of construction to engineer backdrops by using appropriate tools and materials |
Inviting and interacting with audience members |
Interact with audience members to share knowledge about frogs in multiple ways( verbally, visually, and through interactive experiences) |
Gave tours of the classroom to share learning artifacts created during the project; led audience through various centers to participate in learning about frogs |
Showed and explained project artifacts; engaged audience in learning about frogs |
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