Thank you, parents, for allowing your child to participate in projects via STEM and TIA!

Children are possibly the keenest observers, blessed with an innate sense of wonder and an undeniable thirst to seek the WHY behind things. If 18 years of teaching but more specifically, 10 years teaching 5 and 6 year olds has taught me anything it's this; time is a vital component in order for engaged learning to occur. Children need time to explore, invent, experiment, to try and fail, to ponder, to try and try again and then finally succeed. Having a 6 year old son of my own solidified this revelation for me. My learning evolved throughout our walks together and our many forays into nature. Digging in dirt, sifting through the soil of a flower bed, poking in puddles, overturning rocks to find bugs and allowing him time to wonder was a gift. Watching him puzzle through building a ramp for his dinkies and perhaps suggesting "I wonder what would happen if you..." and then observing the passion it ignited in him to switch up his plan and test it was joyful. His curiosity was magical! My AH-Ha moment was amazing!! Why not do the same with my students? This has always been the plan in my "ideal classroom dreams." Well, imagine my surprise when being a participant in STEM and TIA allowed be to make my own dreams come true!

TIA has reminded me that my learning matters. I need to evolve as a learner just as much as my students need to have their questions answered. The key is...I do not have to give them the answers. THEY can predict, hypothesize, observe, test, and conclude on their own. They may need me to ask a poignant question now and again but...man oh man, they get it! I am learning by being an active participant in my own classroom! Little do my students know but they are teaching me invaluable lessons...listening instead of talking, changing my knee-jerk reaction to help solve a problem, and to slow down and let learning happen in whatever form in manifests itself in.

So then, Why is it dying? has been a turning point. When students asked me this question in relation to our classroom garden I did not answer them. Instead I responded with "I'm not sure. I wonder why some of our plants do not look like the others." Believe me, that was enough to ignite a barrage of I wonder statements and then possible solutions as to how to change/fix/solve the problem (none of which came from me). My students took control of the various suggestions, tried them out and solved the problem. Truly, I had not given them enough credit...they are amazing teachers...lesson received and learned by this educator.