Case Study: Discovery Of The World

a) Discovery of the World

Learning goal 1: show interest in the world they live in

Children are born with a natural curiosity to know more about their surroundings that they live in and this should be steadily encouraged by allowing them to explore the world using their five senses, to ask questions; allowing them to wonder, investigate and discover how things happen (MOE, 2012).

When children show interest in the world they live in, they would share their ideas and thoughts to their teachers and friends of what they had seen from the environment, such as how the weather changes from sunny to cloudy to windy; asking questions of how day time will change into night time – where they will ask the teacher how come it happen or strike a conversation

Both approaches teach mathematics through real context, problems, situations and models that allow children to build up their own representative to build meaning to the concept being taught.

I would adopt the inquiry-base learning approach as it would allow children to have a rich experience in exploring with science and other learning areas. It promotes children to think, predict, investigate and collate data to find out how or why things happen. Another approach would be using problem-solving approach as it allows children to be an independent learner and learn to solve problems arise, with teacher’s minimal guidance in learning (Harlan & Rivkin, 2014).

The manipulative approach allows children to touch base with more concrete objects as they learn best through hands-on activities. It also allows them to visualise their problem and able to get a result. Lastly, integrated affective learning and outdoor as context for learning approach can be used as children’s learning take place through many exposures in a variety of experiences. As science learning is learnt best through hands-on on real life objects, having an outdoor context for children to relate would be best as they will be able to relate their prior knowledge to the new knowledge that they have learnt (Harlan & Rivkin,

Children will be able to:

- Count reliably up to 10 or more

- Sort beans according to their colours

- Observe and list some factors that affect seeds growth

Materials: Mixture of beans – green bean, sunflower seed & red bean, scoop, cups, recording sheet

Children will scoop up a mixture of beans and sort according to its colour. After sorting, children will count the amount of beans they have for each type and record it on the recording sheet provided. Children will take a handful of green beans and put into Cup A, another smaller handful of sunflower seed into Cup B and a few red beans into Cup C, and then water the seeds every day. Cup A will be put under direct sunlight, cup B will be put indoor with lights and cup C in a sealed box. At the end of one week, children will observe the plants and do some recording. The possible questions that children might ask will be “How come the plant in cup c will not growth?”, “Why is it not growing?” Children will be encouraged to discuss with their peers the reasons that are affecting the seeds growth and record their findings on the recording sheet – possible findings from children: there are too many seeds in the same cup, no sunlight, no air.

Activity