Why the curiosity approach supports our nature-based play learning at Green Grass Nursery.
Introduction
Lifelong love for learning and innovating is fueled by the approach taken during early years learning and education. Making learning fun and enjoyable is the sure-shot approach to instilling good learning habits and the desire to acquire knowledge. The curiosity approach is extremely conducive to creating future innovators and knowledge seekers. It is child-centric and lets them be at the core of their own learning and development. In this article, we will explore how Green Grass Nursery uses a child’s natural curiosity to fuel their desire to learn.
What is the Curiosity Approach to Learning?
The Curiosity Approach was the brainchild of Lyndsey Hellyn and Stephanie Bennet. The two have over 50 years of teaching at the early years foundation stage. This approach is an amalgamation of several different philosophies of early years education. It borrows heavily from the Montessori and Reggio Emelia systems of teaching.
The Curiosity approach differs from other systems by providing the child with real-life objects instead of toys to play with and explore. It believes that the toys have predefined roles that prevent the child from exploring its full potential and stick only to the stereotyped approach. By giving children real-life objects that they may see in their regular life, they open up the possibilities of the child creating new associations and uses for these objects and redefining how they interact with them.
It fires their imagination and inherent curiosity. This approach helps the children in developing their ability to think for themselves, explore their environment, make their own choices, and be the masters of their own learning.
The Curiosity approach capitalizes on the fact that children are curious and have an innate interest in the world around them. This includes the people, objects, and nature they see and interact with every day. Supporting this natural curiosity by creating a safe environment where they can explore and satisfy this curiosity is the mainstay of the Curiosity Approach.
How Curiosity Approach Works
As children grow and become more mobile, the ability to explore becomes more purposeful. They choose the objects that they want to explore and engage with. They will ask questions and try to understand how something works. This is the way of the Curiosity Approach – the encourage the child to explore her/his surroundings, choose the object that spikes their curiosity and try to understand its use and purpose. This approach to EYFS learning encourages the child to ask questions in the quest for self-learning.
It is a fun way of acquiring knowledge where the child sets the pace and direction for his/her own development and learning.
The Curiosity Approach deviates from the usual bright-colored classrooms with plastic or wooden toys. It, instead, uses neutral wall colors and wooden objects that are inspired by real-life objects. They believe that the bright colors may overstimulate a child. The look, smell, and feel of the toys is very alike and there is little to stimulate a child’s curiosity, while the bright colors overstimulate. Hence, this approach used wooden objects, and natural things – such as cloth, rope, fruits, vegetables, leaves, etc. to support learning.
New objects are introduced regularly to keep the children engaged and to rekindle the sense of curiosity and the desire to learn. This prevents boredom and provides the child with new stimulants to fire his/her imagination.
Child Development and Curiosity Approach
This approach is focused on developing skills that are relevant to the children to grow and adapt to the modern world. It helps develop the following skills in young children:
- Better non-verbal communication
- Encourages verbal communication
- Improves Language skills and vocabulary
- Develops problem-solving skills
- Improves innovation and imaginative thinking
- Improves Critical thinking abilities
- Helps to understand risks and how to deal with them
- Instills a desire to explore and learn
- Encourages and develops adaptability
- Help to develop love, respect, and empathy for nature, its creatures, and resources.
With the way the modern world is changing and evolving, our children will need to be more creative, adaptable, and sentient. To develop these skills, their sense of curiosity needs to be supported and encouraged which is the aim of nature-based play learning as well as that of the Curiosity Approach.
How Curiosity Approach Supports Green Grass Nursery’s (GGN) Nature-Based Play Learning.
At GGN we believe that learning goes beyond the classroom and the playground. We encourage our children to out and explore nature. Hence we follow the principles of Nature-based Play learning where the children are allowed to explore the outdoors and engage with natural objects. The children are provided with the opportunity to play in the natural surrounding and with things they can find in nature such as rocks, sticks, leaves, sand, mud, etc. The play is unstructured and the children are allowed to explore on their own and pick up objects that spark their curiosity and ask questions about them while trying to understand the objects.
We firmly believe that Nature-based Play Learning helps in the development of the child’s physical, mental, and emotional well-being. We strengthen this approach by amalgamating the Curiosity Approach to learning by introducing natural objects and materials into the classroom minimizing the demarcation between indoors and outdoors while helping the two to meld together creating a seamless and immersive experience for the child. Our program focuses on seasonal activities which are conducted indoors as well as outdoors. We provide natural materials and objects connected to the seasonal event throughout the classroom and base our indoor activities on these happenings.
Conclusion
Curiosity is the key to learning and knowledge acquisition. By fueling the child’s curiosity we are opening the doors of a vast world of knowledge for him/her. Allowing the child to satisfy his/her curiosity is encouraging them to seek, discover, and learn. Introducing an element of play in the process makes the learning effortless and enjoyable thus giving the child an incentive to continue with the knowledge acquisition.
At GGN, we make sure that your child’s nature-based play activities are carefully supervised so your child is always safe.
Arwa Naccho
CEO
Green Grass Nursery
