Some daycares in the Trumbull area are no more than warehouses for children, holding pens to keep the children minimally entertained and somewhat safe during the parent’s working hours. We know that all parents want the best for their children and that we all do our best for them, so why now start with the best daycare? One of the best advantages you can give your child is an intellectual foundation that they can make use f their whole lives.
The Importance of Inquiry-Based Learning
- Some learning methods teach children what to believe, but inquiry-based curriculum, such as the one used at Strong Start, teaches children how to think.
- This is a vital difference.
- Learning wrote facts will not help a child solve the problem of tomorrow, but learning how to analyze a problem and looking for an answer will.
What Inquiry-Based Learning Teaches
- When learning something new, a child is first prompted to search their minds for what they already know about the topic.
- Imagine the topic is dinosaurs. The child will tell all they know about dinosaurs.
- This is called a prior knowledge inventory.
- Then the child is asked to ask a question about the topic. What does the child want to know about? Perhaps they want to know what a particular dinosaur ate.
- The child will be helped to form a hypothesis about the topic.
- The child (with the help of the teacher in the early years) will design an investigation.
- After the investigation, which can include books or in-real-life investigation- say watching lizards for our example) a child will be asked to communicate the results.
- As a child advances the communication will progress from a retelling,t o drawing pictures to writing down their observations.
- Further communication with peers and discussion of their investigations and results will then take place.
- Finally, more questions will be asked and the pattern repeats itself until a new topic is chosen.
Developing a method for inquiry makes a child curious and hungry for knowledge and this, in turn, makes for a great student and successful adult who is a life-long learner.
Call Strong Start to tour our facility and to enrol your child in our daycare.