Buffaloes

One of the most important roles of a teacher of little children is not to leap into the minds of children and decide for them what they should learn, but to observe what children already know and give them opportunities to expand their interest and knowledge base.   This concept is often called emerging curriculum.  For teachers who are willing to be open, flexible and creative, emerging curriculum can be interesting, fun and meaningful for the children.

We have one child in our class who is particularly fond of buffaloes.  He talked about buffaloes frequently and got other kids talking about them also.  They took their enthusiasm for buffaloes outside, and there was a lot of pretending to be buffaloes.  Upon closer observation, we realized that "playing buffaloes" looked a lot like aggressive lion play.  When we casually questioned the children about buffaloes, we quickly realized they actually knew very little about buffaloes, even the child who is so enthusiastic about them! Here was the perfect opportunity to insert some child-led learning into our classroom.

In the spring we typically spend time learning about our western heritage and about cowboy/cowgirl life of a ranch.  It was the ideal time to learn about buffaloes!

I couldn't find any age appropriate books about buffaloes for the children, so I created one! And, yes, we learned that American buffaloes are really bison.

We had some other activities to help reinforce the information we were learning about buffaloes.
As a math activity the children sorted nickels - some with a buffalo, some without.

The Bunnies worked a buffalo puzzle I made from a photo.

As a science activity, they got to feel and handle a buffalo horn and a cow horn.  We compared and contrasted their features.

One fact about buffaloes that the Bunnies found particularly interesting was that buffaloes roll in dust and mud to keep bugs from biting them so, we reinforced that idea with art.  The children first fingerpainted green grass on piece of paper.  Then they painted a buffalo shape with light brown paint and then rubbed it in coffee grounds to resemble a buffalo rolling in dirt.  Then they added their buffalo to their grassy field.

                     This Bunny drew her grass with a marker because she was absent the day we fingerpainted.
The kids had a great time learning about buffaloes and increased their understanding of these animals.  Check our classroom window for pre- and post- story webs to see what they learned! 

At the beginning of the year I certainly had no plans for the Bunnies to learn all about buffaloes.  However, when interest and opportunity meet, child-led lessons far outweigh anything I could have planned for the class.

Next up: Bread!  Yep, we have one child who loves (!) making playdough food.  Playdough food is really what gets him talking so, we're going to make the most of that with more emerging curriculum.  We'll learn the story of the Little Red Hen and bake our own bread.  Then we are going to expand out to other types of bread found around the world and in our own homes.