Practicing wonder is key to well being. This week at Tinkergarten Anywhere, we take a wonder walk, noticing and asking questions about the nature around us. Along the way, we'll discover something curious...squiggles that we can use to pretend and spark joy.
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The Guide
Step 1: Watch the Tinkergarten Anywhere "Wonder Walk" video lesson.
Hop into your Tinkergarten dashboard to watch the "Wonder Walk" video lesson. Kids can watch how Meghan and other explorers notice, wonder and ask questions about the things they discover in their outdoor spaces, then get inspired to take their own Wonder Walk!
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You can say something like, “The world is full of so many things to wonder about and discover! I bet that if we went on a Wonder Walk outside, we could discover so many interesting things to wonder about.”
Step 4: Head out on your walk.
Along the way, model curiosity by wondering aloud about the things you notice. Invite kids to share what they notice, too. You can also use the wonderings and prompts on these Wonder Walk Cards for inspiration.
Step 5: Add a surprise discovery.
To add an element of surprise and whimsy to your walk, hide strips of ribbon or yarn somewhere in your outdoor space and discover them together while on your walk. Let kids know that these are not just ribbons/yarn, but “squiggles”—and they can be anything we want them to be!
Turn a ribbon into another object by moving it and your body in a way that reveals what it could be (e.g. wiggle it on the ground like a worm, shape it into a round puddle, then jump into it with a big splash). Invite kids to guess what you are imagining it could be. Then, hand kids a squiggle and invite them to wonder and explore all of the ways they can move their squiggle and transform it into something else.
Want more ideas like this? Try some of these DIY activities to spark curiosity and wonder.
This activity is designed to reinforce kids’ natural curiosity and propensity to wonder. Practicing wonder not only helps kids learn more about the world around them, it strengthens their wonder muscles, making that innate capacity less likely to diminish as kids age. Learn more about the power of wonder here.
Curious kids become more critical thinkers and capable learners. Practicing this kind of deep curiosity also contributes to psychological well being, grit, and happiness at any age! Add silliness and whimsy, and you also spark joy, which also has lasting positive effects on our health and wellness.
People use critical thinking skills to gather information, evaluate it, screen out distractions and think for themselves. These skills help us identify which knowledge to trust and how to use new and old knowledge together to decide what to believe or do. People also use these skills to develop arguments, make decisions, identify flaws in reasoning and to solve problems.
Also referred to as “higher-level thinking,” critical thinking draws on many other skills that matter (e.g. focus/self control, communication, making connections, and even empathy). Kids won’t fully develop critical thinking until adolescence or even adulthood, but remarkably there is lots that you can do to help your kids build its foundation during preschool and early school ages.
How do little kids build a base for such a complicated set of skills? A key building block to critical thinking is the ability to develop theories about the world and to adjust your theories as new information becomes available. Kids can practice this as they attempt to solve mysteries or actively wonder about why things are as they are. As a family, the more you ask questions, make predictions and allow kids to take active part in discovering the answers to their questions, the stronger you make their foundation for critical thinking. As kids grow out of the 3-to 5-year-olds' freewheeling relationship with reality, you can also train them to question information and see the inconsistencies or flaws in certain ways of thinking.
Why does it matter?
In a world that is increasingly saturated with media messages and where information comes from a wide range of sources that differ in quality, critical thinking is more important than ever. Kids need this skill in order to be informed and empowered consumers, to either suggest or evaluate new solutions to complicated problems, to make decisions about our society and its governance, and to form the beliefs that guide their personal and professional lives.
Curiosity
Category:
Thinking Skills
What does it mean to develop Curiosity?
Curiosity means the ability and habit to apply a sense of wonder and a desire to learn more. Curious people try new things, ask questions, search for answers, relish new information, and make connections, all while actively experiencing and making sense of the world. To us, curiosity is a child’s ticket to engaging fully in learning and, ultimately, in life.
Why does it matter?
As a parent, this skill is, perhaps, the easiest to grasp and has the clearest connection to a young children’s learning. We all want my children to wonder, explore and drive their own learning and, better yet, to experience the world fully. Most teachers would agree that the curious children so often seem more attentive, involved and naturally get the most out of time in school. Even the research suggests that being curious is a driver of higher performance throughout one's life, as much if not more than IQ or test scores.
Imagination
Category:
Thinking Skills
What is Imagination?
Imagination is defined in many ways, but one we like is, "the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality." This is no small task to little kids, and yet young childhood is a time in which imagination is developed more than any other. How does imagination develop in childhood? Through an increasingly sophisticated life of make believe.
We all likely have a sense of what we mean by make believe or good old "pretend play." How do experts define it, though? To some, there are different types of make believe that vary in sophistication and make pretend play different than other types of play. For example, kids may use objects to represent something else (e.g. a block becomes a cell phone). Or, they may start to give an object certain properties (e.g. a doll is asleep or a tree is on fire!). Still yet, they may themselves take on the properties of someone or something else.
From there, pretend play evolves into acting out scenarios or stories, those getting increasingly intricate as imagination develops. As kids' pretend play grows more sophisticated, these stories come to involve not only the creative use of objects, but multiple perspectives (e.g. good and bad guys in the same story), and/or the playful manipulation of ideas and emotions (e.g. I am sad, but then become happy after I save the village from certain doom).
Why does it matter?
An ever growing body of research substantiates the many benefits of pretend play including the enhanced development of: language and communication skills; self-control and empathy; flexible and abstract thinking; and creativity. These are the skills that will help kids balance emotions, form healthy relationships, work effectively on teams, stay focused in school, be successful at various jobs and solve the problems of an increasingly complicated world. An individual's creativity in particular, both requires and is limited by her imagination.
Age: 0 to 8+
Time: 1 hour+
Materials: Ribbon; Printable Wonder Walk Cards
