II. Introduction
Welcome to Exploration Three: Our Impact. This
Exploration is the final in a series of three 3-K for All
Interdisciplinary Instructional Guidance materials.
This Exploration is the capstone on children’s
learning this year. In this Exploration, children
explore how their actions and the way they care for
themselves, others, and the world around them can
impact growth and change. Impact is a big idea, and
for threes this means exploring what happens when
they add a block to a tower, or comfort a sad friend.
In Exploration One: Our Community, children
explored their classroom, their emerging sense of
self and their membership in a classroom
community. In Exploration Two: Our Environment,
children noticed and investigated the world around
their classroom, and in this Exploration, they
consider their roles in the classroom and beyond.
In this Exploration, children explore how their actions
and the way they care for themselves, others, and the
world around them can impact growth and change.
This Exploration, like all Explorations, will unfold
differently in every classroom. It is built on big ideas
that invite interpretation and offer opportunities to
align learning opportunities to children’s interests. It
is through your careful observation, analysis, and
planning that the Exploration will become
meaningful to all the children in your classroom.
After this Exploration, children will leave the 3-K
year with greater understanding of the active role
they can have in caring for themselves and others
and how their actions impact growth and change.
To introduce Care, the first big idea in this
Exploration, consider adding care related items to
your classroom centers. You might choose:
• equipment medical professionals use to
care for their patients (i.e. stethoscope,
blood pressure cuff),
• tools mechanics use to
care for vehicles
(i.e. wrench, ratchet, and socket), and/or
• supplies gardeners use to
nurture a garden
(shovel, spade, and seeds).
Observe the children and listen carefully to what
interests them most. Use their interests to build out
the later weeks in the study.
After you determine what type of care, or what
aspect of care most interests your children, go
deeper! If children seem especially interested in
caring for animals, expand on that interest. Across
all centers, introduce materials that align to this
interest and support learning across all domains of
the ELOF. For example, you can add toy animals and
natural materials to the science center, veterinary
equipment and stuffed animals to the dramatic play
center, and books about animals and animal care to
the library.
After exploring Care, begin to introduce the second
concept of this Exploration, Grow. If children were
interested in caring for babies in the beginning of
this study, you may want to invite them to begin to
consider how babies grow. If they were interested in
caring for plants, you may want to help them
explore how plants grow. Additionally, you may
support them in understanding that other things
grow as well. For example, not only do babies grow,
but baby animals grow as well. In this portion of the
Exploration, you have the opportunity to highlight
social and emotional learning as children explore the
relationship between caring and growing.
The third piece of this Exploration is a study of
Change. In this final part of the Exploration, children
have an opportunity to dig into exploring things that
change. If you have been exploring baby care and
growth, you might now look at how babies change
as they grow. Not only are they physically getting
bigger, but they are also learning how to do new
things such as crawl and walk. Continue to thread
Care through this part of the Exploration as well,
highlighting how children’s caring actions impact
growth and overall change.
In Explorations there are opportunities for children
to develop in all domains of learning as described in
the ELOF. In the second and third piece of this
Exploration, there are specific opportunities to
explore how change and growth are related to math
by exploring how numbers and quantities can grow
and change. As in all Explorations, the goal is to help
children begin to explore ideas, think critically, and
generate and test hypotheses rather than to
produce specific answers.
By wrapping up the year looking at Change, you also
have the opportunity to help prepare children for
the changes that may occur when the program year
ends. Change can be exciting and/or challenging for
young children. It is important to take the time, and
give them the opportunity to become comfortable
with the changes that are likely approaching for
them as they move on from their 3-K for All
community to a new experience in Pre-K for All.
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