Bringing Personalized Learning from the Classroom To Your Home
An inquiry-based project about pumpkins that families can do at home that supports a diverse set of learners
There has been a rise in interest in personalized learning, especially now with the pandemic as parents and educators having to adapt to remote learning. As an educator, personalized learning was congruous with differentiated learning where I strived to meet the needs of all learners.
I have created an inquiry-based learning project curated from my experience in the classroom and modified it to assist learning at home for families.
Personalization is giving your child the steering wheel to lead the road to their own individualized learning journey.
I was recently interviewed by Estelle Bardon, who is the creator behind Mylibook, the personalized children’s book series. I shared about my experience as an educator and how we can personalize a child’s learning journey at home and in the classroom.
Inquiry based learning is defined as “an approach to learning that emphasizes the student’s role in the learning process.” Rather than the teacher telling students what they need to know, students are encouraged to explore the material, ask questions, and share ideas. It allows children to take ownership of their learning by becoming investigators and acquiring knowledge and understanding through hands-on experiences.
Personalizing your child’s learning at home with Inquiry-Based Learning:
“Questions lie at the heart of inquiry.”
-Kath Murdoch
When I was teaching kindergarten, I would teach an inquiry-based learning approach within the curriculum. The children loved it as we would learn about a topic, go in depth about it and reflect and apply the skills that they learned. We did this with many projects while I was teaching that got them excited and motivated to learn, while simultaneously developing their academic and social and emotional skills.
Here’s a sample of an inquiry-based learning project that I have created that you can do at home with your little ones! It’s been tested with a diverse set of children between the ages of 1.5–6 these past few weeks.
Topic of inquiry for the month of October: Pumpkins
Write these three questions down on a piece of paper, poster board or whiteboard . Make sure you keep the papers or poster paper somewhere safe as you will keep referring back to them!
Title: Pumpkins
Question 1: What do we know?
Question 2: What do we want to learn?
Question 3: What have we learned?
The objective is to get children involved and thinking about the topic.
Step 1: What do we know?
Ask your child “What do you know about pumpkins?” You can ask them guided questions about what they know about pumpkins. Some examples include the five senses, where they grow, how to write the word “pumpkin” and so forth.
Make sure to jot down your child’s words as best as you can! You can model for them first and say what you know about pumpkins first and then let your child try.
For example: Cally: Pumpkins start with the letter P
Modifications:
Younger child: If your child is on the younger side (age 1–3), you can modify this step. You can have them draw a pumpkin and tell you about it — and ask them guided questions about what they know about pumpkins. You can name activities you can do with pumpkins and see what interests them.
Using non-verbal skills: you can have them draw the different activities that they can do with pumpkins on a piece of paper. You can let them point and choose which activity that they want to do.
Step 2: What do we want to learn?
This is the fun part! In the next section, you can list questions about what you want to learn about pumpkins. This could be various things such as: Where do they come from? How many kinds are there? Where do they grow?
The possibilities are endless! Make sure to number the questions you have as you will use the numbers later to answer the questions.
Modifications: if you have older children, you can also include them in the process! You can ask them as well what they are interested in so they can also be active participants.
Step 3: Learning time!
This is where you do research with some hands-on activities learning more about pumpkins. As you do different kinds of activities you will slowly unravel the answers to your questions, and also have fun! Allowing children to play opens the realm for a vast amount of learning new things.
Here are some sample activities that support the development of the whole child.
Reading: You can read books about pumpkins — here are some great book suggestions. “The Biggest Pumpkin Ever” is one of my favorite books to read about pumpkins. National Geographic is a great resource for non-fiction books.
Writing:You can practice writing the letter “P”, “pumpkin” or words that relate to pumpkins. It all depends on the pace of your child. You can have them draw words that start with P or sound out letters depending on their comprehension level.
Vocabulary: You can learn vocabulary words about pumpkins. You can type or write the words out along with a corresponding picture, talk about them with your child and refer back to them throughout the process. This helps with oral language and building on your child’s vocabulary.
Some examples are: Pumpkin, Patch, Farm, Pulp, Seeds, and Vine.
Science: Looking at a pumpkin closely, you can cut it in half and show the seeds. You can observe the seeds closely. This could lead to talking about a pumpkin’s life cycle.
Cooking: Cooking is a great way to foster sensory play. You can make pumpkin bread with your child and have them experiment with the dough. You can cook your own pumpkin in the oven, or you can use a pumpkin puree.
Outdoors: Going outside is a great way to get children engaged in learning. You can search for local pumpkin patches available to visit with young children. You can also go for walks around your neighborhood and go on a “pumpkin hunt”.
Art: You can paint or decorate a pumpkin. You can also create your pumpkin drawing, or make a pumpkin seed collage.
Some other activities:
-Block play: You can build a pumpkin patch out of legos or blocks, or you can make your own pumpkin patch block tray!
-Technology: You can look up questions on Google together. Scholastic and Brain Pop Jr. are great resources for educational videos and content.
You do not have to do all of these activities. These are mere suggestions that I have done in the past with my class of 25 students. You can ask your child which activity they would like to do to learn more about pumpkins. Again, this is all personalized to your child. They may be curious about 1 or 100 questions! The important thing is that they are motivated and curious to learn, and access information through experiences.
Step 4: Reflection
This is when you circle back and reflect and ask your child and ask what did you learn? You could model for your child something you learned first, and ask your child to do the same. It really depends on your child so it could be one thing they really loved learning, or it could be many things! That’s the beauty of personalized learning — there is no right or wrong answer.
You can choose to do this after dedicating some time to research and learn more about the topic. This could vary for everyone. Not all the questions have to be answered, it really depends on what your goal is.
You could do that at home as well sometime during the day or, for example, during dinner time. Consistency and repetition are so important for little ones to process new information.
The idea is that your child becomes an investigator and agents in their learning journey.
You did it!
Once you are finished reflecting on the project and all that you have learned, you can celebrate! You can do something fun, or you could simply be proud of embarking on a personalized learning adventure with your child! In my classroom we would celebrate with a class dance party that my students loved!
Personalization supports a diverse set of learners:
Personalization paves a path to customizing each child’s learning journey in meeting their own strengths and interests to take ownership of their own learning. According to an article by Understood on the instructional strategy of personalized learning:
“This approach has the potential to help reduce the stigma of special education and better meet the needs of kids with learning and thinking differences.”
Personalization supports children with learning and thinking differences. A friend of mine, Amanda, has a 3 year old son, D, who is speech-delayed. He communicates with word approximations and signs.
She did this activity with her son, and instead of using language to detect what he knows, she asked him closed ended questions so that he could answer yes or no. She worked to build connections on what he knows to support his learning through hands-on experiences.
“I showed him several pumpkins, real and plastic, and asked him if they knew what they were. He nodded yes but could not say the word pumpkin. I asked him to tell me about pumpkins, he arranged them in sizes from big to little. I asked what color and he said “oh” which I interpreted as the first syllable of orange. He then found other orange household items to arrange with the pumpkins to compare the color”
-Amanda R.
My goal of this article was to bridge my experience in the classroom and bring it to your home. I’ve included concrete examples of a diverse set of children and modifications as there is no “one-size fits all” when it comes to personalized learning. I hope you try this project at home with your little one(s) as well! Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any feedback.
If you are interested in further early learning tips you can follow me on on IG @mama4literacy.
