Observe/identify an interest or topic through exploratory activities, active listening, focused discussions, and representations of childrens initial ideas about their thinking
This study was initiated by a team of two teachers (Mary and Jane) and their assistants, working with a group of twenty-eight 4- and 5-year-old children. It started with observations they made early in the school year about the childrens play and interest in superheroes, documented in the case study notes in Chapter 1. As time went on, the teachers continued to observe that this interest did not wane but continued to evolve, especially in the dramatic play area, where many scenarios and characters were developed and acted out. It also showed up during writing workshop time, where the childrens daily dictations and story writing contained similar characters and story lines, and in daily play outside.
Late in the spring, Mary worked with some of the children who asked the teachers to convert the dramatic play area to a woodland forest. They subsequently started requesting time several days in a row to present “plays” that featured fairies, transformers, and animals of different kinds. Always the theme of these stories involved the exercise of “special powers” to solve problems or explain phenomena the children did not understand. One of the stories developed by five children (three girls and two boys) was dictated to the teachers as follows:
