Part of our year intention is to embrace technology as another language of expression. In the front yard, the children have spent months researching living bugs. We offered books, magnifying glasses, paper and pencils so the children can document their discoveries. The children began to think about developing homes for the bugs to keep them safe and protect them for what, in their perspective, isn’t safe for the bugs. Part of developing empathy is wanting to provide for others what makes us happy. We took this opportunity to deepen our research and began offering different technologies to support the children to document their work and intensify their connection with living bugs.
Emilio: The spiders’ home is dirt and webs and leaves. This entire garden is their home.
Grey: It’s like they have little homes. How about when it rains?
Jake: They go inside the dirt. Some die.
Teacher Adriana: I wonder what’s the connection between the bugs and us?
Moss: Bugs are alive and we are alive. Look, this little bug needs a home!
Jacob: Bugs love going inside dirt. Let’s make a hole.
Adriana: Let’s use the digital microscope to see inside the hole.
Moss: This is super interesting. Charlie, look inside.
Charlie: Oh, I see a bug living in this leaf. Look. Wow, I don’t really see it with my eyes.
Moss: It’s huge in the phone right? This is super, super interesting.
Charlie: This bug is orange. I never seen a real orange bug before. (Big Smiles)
Using Technology is bringing so much joy and wonder to the children’s learning and offers us a different perspective about our connection with nature by looking deeply.
The next day another group uses the digital microscope to continue to take a closer look:
Isaac: We found a little bug living inside a dead flower.
Mason: There was also a big bug looking for the little bug. It was a daddy bug looking for a baby bug.
Leo: Do the bugs kill the flowers?
Mason: No, I think that’s their home.
Leo: Wait, what?
Caitlin: I think Mason is saying that the bugs found the dead flower and they made it their home, right?
Mason: Yes!
The digital microscope is stimulating deeper conversations about the wider world of living bugs and has the children questioning ideas they thought to be well known facts. When they discovered bugs living inside a dead flower, their curiosity was sparked. How is this possible? By sharing their conversations, they developed new theories together and the learning continues with limitless possibilities.. Now that they have deduced that dead flowers are homes for spiders, we wonder how this will change their original thinking about spider safety, home life, and rain. As we use the digital microscope in a pursuit of developing empathy, what will we magnify about ourselves? There is so much more to discover. – Adriana