Helping children develop future-ready skills through a discovery workshop is a key component in early education. Do you believe that preparing students for the future is our most important job as classroom teachers? Are you looking for a way to help your early learners develop those future-ready skills?
Today my friend Jackie, from Roots and Wings Kindergarten, is going to share how and why she teaches using a Discovery Workshop model. These workshops are similar to how I teach my young students.
Read on…
Look no further than your traditional choice time (well, maaaaybe just a little further)! You see, when you take choice time and wrap a workshop model around it, you have an instructional framework that supports teaching and those important soft skills.
What are Soft Skills?
So what do I mean by teaching future-ready, soft skills (also known as 21st-century skills)? These are the skills that often get overlooked in the face of academics. They are a combination of social and communication skills as well as character traits. And coincidentally, many of them begin with the letter C.
- Communication
- Collaboration
- Creativity
- Critical thinking
- Character
- Citizenship
We can talk about them all we want. Even read stories about characters that exhibit them. But creating a classroom environment with time and space for “living” them goes a whole lot further!
How Can I Use the Workshop Model?
So let’s break down that workshop model and see how it can be used to foster these skills. The components include a mini-lesson, status of the class, work time/conferring, and share time and look something like this:
Mini-Lesson (5-10 minutes)
This is a brief lesson around one teaching point that supports your children as they work in centers. For example, you might use it to introduce a new set of blocks, demonstrate a clean-up procedure, model the skill of observation, or role-play how to negotiate ideas with a friend.
Status of the Class (5 minutes)
This quick check-in routine helps you document children’s interests and friendships and record who is working where. You might also use it to help children make a plan for their work.
Work Time/Conferring (30-45 minutes)
This is the heart of the workshop where your children go off to work at a chosen Discovery Center and are given the freedom to select materials and decide what to do with them. They will naturally collaborate with peers to build a block structure, communicate their ideas through a piece of art or think critically while solving a puzzle.
At the same time, you will confer with children and facilitate their work as appropriate.
Share Time (5-10 minutes)
The workshop ends with a brief sharing period where selected children showcase work and behaviors that reinforce the mini-lesson, highlight a particular future-ready skill, or tie-in with an ongoing curricular goal.
What Does it Take to Launch a Discovery Workshop?
If you already use a workshop model for reading and writing or currently have choice time built into your kindergarten day, launching a Discovery Workshop should be a smooth transition.
Discovery Workshop- Start-Up tips:
- Set up 4-5 Discovery Centers such as blocks, science, art, math, and storytelling or dramatic play.
- Choose a few ongoing center invitations that will always be available, open-ended, and highly engaging.
- Brainstorm a list of mini-lessons that will support children in working in these centers.
- Make a plan for opening and introducing the centers to children.
- Finally, document the workshop through notes, photos, and videos and continue to build from there.
Why Should I Try it?
Not only will Discovery Workshop help you prepare your kiddos for the future, but it also provides opportunities for you to know your children better by observing their interests and friendships.
Work time can also be used to meet with a small group or individuals for research or project work.
And…the engagement factor is super high as children build a sense of agency and develop a growth mindset.
If you are looking for more ideas and support, I’ve created a free start-up guide that breaks down the approach a bit further and includes printable planning sheets for recording the status of the class and brainstorming mini-lessons.
You can find me at Roots & Wings on the blog, on Instagram, or Facebook where I love to share photos of what a Discovery Workshop looks like in my own classroom. Please feel free to reach out with your questions as I’d love to hear from you!
