1.2 Play-based learning in a culture of inquiry

Children are constantly engaged in making meaning of their world and in sharing their perceptions. Play is an optimal context for enabling children to work out their ideas and theories and use what they already know to deepen their understanding and further their learning. Innately curious, children explore, manipulate, build, create, wonder, and ask questions naturally, moving through the world in what might be called an "inquiry stance". Educators observe and document the children's thinking, ideas, and learning; interpret and analyse what they have noticed; and express their own thinking and wondering as they interact with the children. In a Kindergarten classroom, the educators adopt an inquiry stance along with the children, and a culture of inquiry characterizes the learning environment.

Inquiry is an integral part of certain disciplines. For example, inquiry processes and skills are central to science and technology. However, in the Kindergarten program, inquiry is not a set of processes and skills but a pervasive approach or "stance", a habit of mind that permeates all thinking and learning throughout the day. It is not limited to a subject area or topic, a project, or a particular time of day. It is not an occasional classroom event, and it is not an approach appropriate for only some children. As noted in the curriculum policy document for each discipline in the Ontario curriculum, inquiry is "at the heart of learning in all subject areas". Educators use their professional knowledge and skills to co-construct inquiry with the children – that is, to support children's learning through play, using an inquiry approach.

Play as the optimal context for learning: Evidence from research

Play nourishes every aspect of children's development. … Play develops the foundation of intellectual, social, physical, and emotional skills necessary for success in school and in life. It "paves the way for learning". (Canadian Council on Learning, 2006, p. 2)

Play is a vehicle for learning and rests at the core of innovation and creativity. It provides opportunities for learning in a context in which children are at their most receptive. Play and academic work are not distinct categories for young children, and learning and doing are also inextricably linked for them. It has long been acknowledged that there is a strong link between play and learning for young children, especially in the areas of problem solving, language acquisition, literacy, and mathematics, as well as the development of social, physical, and emotional skills (NAEYC, 2009; Fullan, 2013; Ontario Ministry of Education, 2014c).

Young children actively explore their environment and the world around them through play. When children are exploring ideas and language, manipulating objects, acting out roles, or experimenting with various materials, they are engaged in learning through play. Play, therefore, has an important role in learning and can be used to further children's learning in all areas of the Kindergarten program.

How do children learn through play?

In its "Statement on Play-Based Learning", the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC), recognizes the educational value of play as follows:

The benefits of play are recognized by the scientific community. There is now evidence that neural pathways in children's brains are influenced by and advanced in their development through the exploration, thinking skills, problem solving, and language expression that occur during play.

Research also demonstrates that play-based learning leads to greater social, emotional, and academic success. Based on such evidence, ministers of education endorse a sustainable pedagogy for the future that does not separate play from learning but brings them together to promote creativity in future generations. In fact, play is considered so essential to healthy development that the United Nations has recognized it as a specific right for all children. …

Given the evidence, the CMEC believes in the intrinsic value and importance of play and its relationship to learning. Educators should intentionally plan and create challenging, dynamic, play-based learning opportunities. Intentional teaching is the opposite of teaching by rote or continuing with traditions simply because things have always been done that way. Intentional teaching involves educators' being deliberate and purposeful in creating play-based learning environments – because when children are playing, children are learning.

(CMEC, 2012)

The process through which learning happens in play is complex. Educators continually develop and deepen their understanding of that process through professional learning and classroom observation, interpretation, and analysis. To be effective, educators depend on their nuanced understanding of the many ways in which children learn and develop and how children's grasp of concepts is revealed during play (Trawick-Smith & Dziurgot, 2010). Educators also realize how critical their role is in helping to consolidate and further children's learning in play by making their learning visible to the children, as well as to their families.

Kindergarten classrooms make use of play and embed opportunities for learning through play in the physical environment (ELECT, 2007, p. 15; see also Chapter 1.3, "The Learning Environment"). The learning experiences are designed by the educators to encourage the children to think creatively, to explore and investigate, to solve problems, self-regulate, and engage in the inquiry process, and to share their learning with others.

Play-based learning: The connections to self-regulation

When children are fully engaged in their play, their activity and learning … [are] integrated across developmental domains. They seek out challenges that can be accomplished … Through play, children learn trust, empathy, and social skills. (Pascal, 2009a, pp. 8‑9)

Vygotsky (1978) connects socio-dramatic play ("pretend" play) to children's developing self-regulation. During socio-dramatic play, children naturally engage in learning that is in their "zone of proximal development" – in other words, learning that is at the "edge" of their capacities. Evidence may be seen in various play contexts in the classroom – children may be noticing for the first time that they can influence how water moves through a tube, that their shadow moves when they move, or how it feels to move a paintbrush over a canvas. As they notice and build on their insights, they are regulating their own learning.

In socio-dramatic play, language becomes a self-regulatory tool. Children's private speech, or self-talk, is a mode through which they shift from external regulation (e.g., by a family member or educator) to self-regulation. Children begin to assimilate adult prompts, descriptions, explanations, and strategies by incorporating them into their self-talk. As they integrate the language they have heard into their own private speech, they are activating complex cognitive processes such as attention, memory, planning, and self-direction (Shanker, 2013b). Participants in socio-dramatic play communicate with each other using language and symbolic gestures to describe and extrapolate from familiar experiences, and to imagine and create new stories. Socio-dramatic play supports children's self-regulation and increases their potential to learn as they engage with the people and resources in their environment (Pascal, 2009a).

The inquiry approach: Evidence from research

Research suggests that students are more likely to develop as engaged, self-directed learners in inquiry-based classrooms (Jang, Reeve, & Deci, 2010).

Inquiry allows students to make decisions about their learning and to take responsibility for it. [Educators] create learning contexts that allow children to make decisions about their learning processes and about how they will demonstrate their learning. They encourage collaborative learning and create intellectual spaces for students to engage in rich talk about their thinking and learning. They create a classroom ethos that fosters respect for others' ideas and opinions and encourages risk-taking. ... Collectively, these actions lead to a strong sense of student self-efficacy. (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2011, p. 4)

Asking questions and making sense of information to expand understanding are at the core of all inquiry. Through its focus on an inquiry approach, the Kindergarten program promotes the development of higher-order thinking skills by capitalizing on children's natural curiosity, their innate sense of wonder and awe, and their desire to make sense of their environment. An inquiry approach nurtures children's natural inquisitiveness. As educators give children opportunities to seek answers to questions that are interesting, important, and relevant to them, they are enabling them to address curriculum content in integrated, "real world" ways and to develop – and practise – the higher-order thinking skills and habits of mind that lead to deep learning.

Play-based learning in an inquiry stance

As noted above, educators in a Kindergarten classroom adopt an inquiry stance – a mindset of questioning and wondering – alongside the children, to support their learning as they exercise their natural curiosity. In addition to joining the children in inquiry, educators, as "classroom researchers", wonder and ask questions about the children and the children's learning (e.g., "Why this learning for this child at this time and in this context?") and about the impact of their interventions on children's learning and growth in learning (e.g., "What will be the impact on the learning of these children if I intervene in their conversation in this way at this time?", "How might changing the way we use the tables in the classroom affect the way the children collaborate?"). Being in an inquiry stance is critical to creating the conditions required for inquiry learning.

As educators question and wonder along with the children, they bear in mind the intention for learning – which, in any given context, will involve one or more of the overall expectations (OEs) set out in this document (see Chapter 4.2). The educators do not plan lessons based on predetermined topics at predetermined times (e.g., topics based on the calendar, such as Mother's Day in May, Thanksgiving in October), and they do not develop lessons or activities around the "nouns" that the children happen to use (e.g., rocks, trains, tadpoles), as was often done in the past. Instead, inquiries evolve out of reciprocal questioning and wondering. As the children express their thinking, educators think about questions they can ask that will further provoke children's thinking and continue to stimulate their curiosity and wonder.

For example, a child might bring some tadpoles to school. As the child voices questions, ideas, facts, and opinions about them, other children who are interested in the tadpoles might join in. The educators engage the children about their questions and ideas, probing for more details and clarification from them. Rather than providing information about the tadpoles, they wonder out loud about how, together, they might find answers to some of the questions. One of the children might express the idea that tadpoles turn into frogs. Through a probing question such as "How could we find out if that's what happens?", the educators can elicit ideas, and the group might decide to observe the tadpoles over a period of time and to record what they observe (OE13). Together, the educators and the children consider the many ways in which the children could represent their observations and ideas (e.g., in a drawing or a model, or by acting them out) and the kinds of tools and equipment they will need to do this. They might also discuss the care they will need to provide for the tadpoles. At this point, other children might be invited to be part of the inquiry as well. The educators might probe to find out what bigger questions underlie the children's interest – what does it mean to develop? To transform? What is happening on the inside of the tadpole while it changes on the outside? The educators might also choose to provoke further inquiry by providing opportunities for the children to explore other similar kinds of changes or stages of life that happen – for example, in seeds, in eggs, and even in humans. Once the inquiry is under way, the observations would need to be recorded – and this would become a purpose for writing and an opportunity for the children to learn about an important element of the writing process (OE1 and OE10).

The educators engage with the children in inquiries that enable the children to explore their questions and wonderings as co-learners with the educators. The educators offer provocations that build on the children's thinking or invite the children to engage in new ways of learning.

Further to the example about tadpoles above, the educators might point out to the children that scientists investigate things they are interested in, and that the children now have an opportunity to "be" scientists as well. The educators will have placed hand lenses and recording materials at a table with the tadpoles, pointing out to the children that they are using the same tools that scientists use. They might also mention that the children are using the same processes that scientists use (e.g., observing, wondering, asking questions and generating theories, communicating, working together). As the children conduct their investigation, the educators observe and document what they say and do. The educators confer about the documentation and then reflect on it with the children, negotiating what materials the children might add or take away in order to further test their theories about the tadpoles and build on their thinking.

For more information about pedagogical documentation, see Chapter 1.4, "Assessment and Learning in Kindergarten".

The following chart outlines the elements of the inquiry process in the Kindergarten classroom, describing the actions of both the children and the educators.

The Inquiry Process in the Kindergarten Classroom

The critical role of the educator team: Co-constructing inquiry and learning

[W]e must abandon our idea of a static, knowable educator and move on to a view of an educator in a state of constant change and becoming. The role of the educator shifts from a communicator of knowledge to a listener, provocateur, documenter, and negotiator of meaning. (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., 2009, p. 103)

The examples in the previous section illustrate how educators, in their interactions with the children, constantly engage in a creative collaboration with them to co-construct thinking and learning. The process can be summarized as follows:

As educators collaborate with the children to:

• formulate questions,
• select materials,
• stimulate and support creativity,
• think aloud about various perspectives and interpretations,
• think aloud about multiple possibilities or solutions,
• solve problems, and
• document thinking and learning,

they intentionally and purposefully:

• listen,
• observe,
• document,
• analyse documentation, considering a range of possible meanings and perspectives and making connections to the overall expectations, and
• provide feedback through questions and prompts that effectively extend thinking and learning.

As the educators interact with the children, they respond to, clarify, challenge, and expand on their thinking. They negotiate the selection of a rich variety of materials and resources for them to use, and co-construct the children's inquiry with them.

As children move naturally from noticing and wondering about the objects and occurrences around them to exploring, observing, and questioning in a more focused way, the educators document their thinking, what they are wondering about, their theories, and the ideas that pique their interest. They interpret and analyse the documentation to support their own inquiry and learning about how the children learn. Their analysis, which focuses on how the children's thinking and learning relates to the overall expectations, informs the choices educators will make about how to further challenge and extend the children's thinking and learning. It also serves as a guide to the level and type of support each child needs. The educators' documentation and analysis make children's thinking and learning visible and inform the path that educators take to support individual children's learning.

For further information, see Chapter 1.4, "Assessment and Learning in Kindergarten".

How does the inquiry approach differ from theme-based or unit planning?

Traditional planning models asked educators to develop "themes" or teaching units composed of several lesson plans with stated objectives, the relevant program/curriculum learning expectations, and materials lists. Kindergarten programs were traditionally structured around monthly themes related to seasonal events and celebrations, and resource books supporting such themes have provided related activities that adults believed would appeal to early learners. Such planning models and associated resources, all based on adult perceptions of children's interests and learning, have been shown to have a negative effect on children's engagement (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998; Wells, 2001).

Traditional planning versus an inquiry-based approach

Communicating with parents and families about play-based learning

Play-based learning supports growth in the language and culture of children and their families. (CMEC, 2012)

Play-based learning is the foundation of the Kindergarten program in Ontario. The concept of learning through play means different things to different people, especially to the parents and families of the children. It is therefore important for educators to have a clear understanding of play-based learning in the Ontario context, in order to be able to explain it to families, colleagues, and community partners. A shared understanding of how learning takes place through play can encourage family members and community partners to support play at home, and in community settings as well, and can help expand children's opportunities for play and learning.

See "Fundamental Principles of Play-Based Learning", in Chapter 1.1, "Introduction".

Family members want to understand how their children develop and learn. They normally welcome and benefit from educators' observations and information about how to support their children's learning. When speaking informally to families, and during classroom visits, educators can make the links between play and learning by sharing their observations in the moment. For example:

Amalla is learning about symmetry as she builds with the blocks today. Let's ask her to tell us what she notices about her structure.

When he was playing a card game with some of the other children, Jerome learned about taking turns.

Families also have valuable insights into their own children. When educators foster a more reciprocal relationship with families, both educators and families will have a more complex understanding of the children.

Children communicate and represent their learning with one another and with the educators in the context of their play and inquiry. The educators also provide more formal opportunities – for example, in child-led family conferences – for children to share their learning with their families through the documentation they and the educators have created, shared, and discussed.