Details about our inquiry journey are down below.
The video revolves around “Sharing the Planet,” based on the PYP and the student-led inquiry into butterflies. This unit takes place during spring, and here at Shekou International School, it is the time when butterflies start flying around our open campus. Usually, the children notice them and take an interest in them. The children began showing their curiosity by dancing like butterflies and following them around the playground. Greater curiosity arose after they found some kind of “worm” in the sandpit, which led to a debate about what kind of insect it was. I didn’t have to make a big provocation because they were already motivated to investigate and learn more about butterflies.
We went back to the classroom, and I read the book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle, who coincidentally was our author of study during Book Week. Based on this, we discussed “What do we know about butterflies?” I annotated their ideas as they mentioned them, which helped guide our inquiry.
I asked the children if they would like to have butterflies in the classroom, and they were excited about the idea. The first thing we received was a group of cocoons. However, the butterflies didn’t make it out. The children could see one of them opening, with its legs and antennae moving, but the butterfly didn’t emerge. This was a valuable learning experience that led us to hypothesize why this could happen. The children shared their theories, and we called a butterfly expert from the store. He explained that the weather was still too cold, which was probably the reason for the butterfly not wanting to come out.
The learning continued to grow, and the eggs and caterpillars arrived in the classroom. Our observations allowed us to categorize and sort facts and misconceptions as the days passed, and we continued studying with books, stories, and videos. We learned that the cocoon stage didn’t last 10 hours, as they had initially mentioned; it actually took many days.
The celebration of our learning came when we successfully grew over 15 butterflies, and each child had the opportunity to hold a butterfly and release it in the playground.
We talked about what the butterflies might need to survive once they were free, and we ensured they had a host plant and a feeding plant so they would have a better chance of thriving.
The big concepts from this experience were generalized and transferred to other living things, such as plants, where we had the opportunity to plant seeds and see them sprout. We even related these concepts to human beings and our basic needs.
Lindsay Vargas 