These included
› Reading stories about our furry neighbors, watching video clips, and learning the word for squirrel in Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Russian( the languages spoken by my students)
› Going outside to observe squirrels, then completing an interactive writing activity, where the children wrote about the squirrels they saw on our playground
› Guiding children as they used drawings and narrations to describe what squirrels ate, how they moved, sounds they made, and possible“ friends or family members” that the children discovered during time on the playground
While not what I had originally planned for our morning block of time, these activities allowed the children to work toward some of the same goals, such as capturing descriptions through illustrations and using sight words and details from their observations as they wrote about what the squirrel might do next. As we talked about the needs and wants of a squirrel, children were able to make comparisons to their own individual needs and wants.
Thinking about other areas of the curriculum, I ran to the store at lunchtime to gather supplies for a STEM-inspired project. During the afternoon, children crafted squirrel feeders out of pinecones, bird seed, and peanut butter and placed them outside our windows to feed our furry friends. During this activity, I was able to embed other learning goals I had planned for the day; for example, making predictions( how will we know if the squirrels or other animals discover our squirrel feeders?). The children’ s energy and excitement fueled rich discussions and continued interest.
When we reconvened on the community carpet, I asked the children:“ Have we answered any wonderings? What is something new you know? Do you have any new thoughts or wonderings?” The children placed their thoughts on our Look What We Learned wall, a student-designed bulletin board at the front of the classroom. The day ended with a festive parade to the main office, where we read our class story, sang the squirrel song we had created, and shared what we had learned.
While this learning occurred within a single day, many of the children remained interested in squirrels for weeks. Through observations and conversations with them, I was able to continue building connections to the topic. For example, we spent time on the playground observing wildlife and locating tracks or other forms of evidence that our outdoor neighbors had visited our shared space. We continued to replace and replenish our squirrel feeders, spotted new nests and the occasional blue eggs of a robin, and shared stories about forest animals of interest. The playground transitioned from just a space of play to a place of learning, collaboration, and new findings fostered by student interest and teacher observation.
Observing to Individualize Instruction
Teachers’ observations are critical to meeting children where they are( Bredekamp & Willer 2022). As I listened to children and observed their engagement, I continually considered how to respond to their questions, conversations, and actions to deepen their learning. This meant sometimes halting children’ s explorations to share information with the class or to acknowledge the wonderings of an individual child. By noticing students’ artifacts and listening to their voices, I was able to design additional experiences to extend their learning. This included incorporating more literature( both narrative fiction and informational texts), creating interactive games, and extending learning into other content areas, such as art( creating hats and signs).
I also observed children who struggled to stay engaged. In these cases, I revisited their wonderings from the morning and introduced smaller, more independent activities to draw them back to our squirrel exploration. For example, I asked them during outside observation time to collect items from the playground that a squirrel might use to
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