Welcome back to our blog series on inquiry-based learning. Strong Start Early Care and Education is dedicated to providing an early childhood education that will help your child become an inquisitive-minded child who will be secure in their ability to learn and solve problems. We use an inquiry-based curriculum from the earliest ages to reach these goals. When a child takes an active role in their learning, they are on their way to being an autodidact. People who are autodidactic know how to take in, process, and then use, new information. Our world is changing so fast that we can not imagine what the adult world will be like for our current preschoolers or what problems they will be called on to solve. What we do know is that how they learn new material and problem solve will lead them to the answers and solutions of the future.

After the first step of asking a question (or questions) and making a hypothesis, the third step in inquiry-based learning is data collection. Observation and research are used to investigate the topic. This can be a trip to the zoo or firehouse or reading books about the topic. This step can last a short or a long time, or repeated as the child deepens their understanding and asks increasingly sophisticated questions for which new data is needed. By having your child share with you what they have been investigating at Strong Start you can continue the investigation process at home through field trips, bedtime book choices and even TV choices of educational programming.

Sharing your child’s interests is one of the great joys of parenthood. It also offers the chance for shared enrichment, increased communication and bonding. We are honored to play a part in this process.