Exploration-Based Learning in Preschool

One day, a preschool teacher colleague told me this story: “I was teaching a lesson about birds, how they make their nests, and about how they take care of their eggs. I was using these large posters to show students the pictures. Then, I decided to open the window and in the tree next to our window there was a beautiful, real-world nest with eggs in it! I asked the children to come to the window very quietly. They were amazed and totally silent. As they were observing the nest, I came to realize how often we don’t even try to show them real-world experiences, and we choose to rely on pictures, books.“ As she was telling me this story, it was clear that she felt a bit disappointed in herself for not always looking to the real world as a resource for our lessons.

Young children are natural investigators. They are discovering the world around them, and everything becomes an opportunity for study and inquiry. When we place exploration at the center of education, motivation increases and development of different learning skills reaches remarkable levels. Inquiry-based learning requires a shift in perspective, reframing exploration as the core curriculum design. It means starting from what children notice, what they wonder, and how they interact with their surroundings, and using these experiences to find answers and to generate deeper questions.

Exploration is essential

Learning in early years happens primarily through direct experience. For example, children understand patterns in nature. Teachers should not rush to rely on highly structured, teacher-directed sequences of tasks with predetermined outcomes. This approach limits the opportunities for meaningful inquiry and, therefore, deep learning.

Exploration activates multiple domains at once: cognitive development through observation and problem-solving, language development through describing and questioning, physical development through movement and spatial awareness, social and emotional growth through shared experiences of discovery and exchanging ideas.

An exploration-centered classroom looks a bit less controlled at first glance because children move more. When we allow the children to see the world around them as the curriculum, we are allowing them to fly beyond the school walls and connect with real objects, real situations, real experiences that ground their learning. We believe that curiosity is not a distraction from learning: It is the engine, the driving force.

Starting with the environment. An inquiry-based or exploration-based curriculum begins with the teacher asking herself: What is there to notice in our context? What should I bring to class for them to notice? And then, once we observe what students notice and see where their interest flows, we can ask: How can I connect this to the learning goals I need to help the children achieve? In this way, the curriculum will not follow a linear sequence but will be guided by the children’s interactions with their environment.

This approach works in any context, either urban or rural. In urban settings, the environment might include the following: 

• Sidewalk patterns, materials
• Sounds of traffic, voices, construction, natural life in parks
• Smells from restaurants or street vendors
• Reflections on windows or puddles
• Light and shadows on buildings, on the streets
• Sizes of houses, buildings, monuments
• Different city workers they might meet or see in the streets or visit in their workplaces
• Parks in the city

In rural settings, children might explore the following:

• Animal tracks or behaviors
• Texture, sound, and smell of soil, leaves, and water
• Light and shadows on trees, on different leaves, on the grass, on stones and rural constructions
• Natural materials for construction
• The hidden world beneath the grass and soil

The key point here is the intentionality with which teachers use the environment. What matters is how we build on what children notice and transform that into opportunities to develop language, mathematical thinking, and social and emotional skills without losing the authenticity of the experience.

Designing exploration. Exploration is effective when it is structured but not constrained. One powerful approach is to design exploration in cycles. These cycles unfold over several days or weeks, depending on the children’s interest and motivation around the topic:

1. Observation: Children find a place or something that calls their attention. The teacher guides and encourages them to notice different facts. The teacher documents what draws their attention.
2. Questioning: The teacher supports children in asking questions related to what they are observing. The teacher documents the questions. For example: What’s under the pavement? How can ants carry pieces of grass that are so big?
3. Investigation: Children revisit the place they are exploring but now with a specific purpose: collecting information, comparing, testing ideas.
4. Documentation: Children make their research and learning visible through drawing, building, labeling.
5. Connection: Teachers link the children’s findings to concepts in the curriculum.

This cycle might repeat, deepen, or expand into different or new directions, always based on the children’s interests.

Meeting academic standards

Following an inquiry approach does not suggest that teachers abandon standards: Instead, they can approach them differently. Literacy will emerge as children describe their observations, label drawings or samples of materials they have collected, and engage in informed discussions such as with their peers or experts such as city workers or farmworkers. Mathematical reasoning develops when children count steps, compare sizes and shapes, identify patterns, and measure. Science emerges when they follow the steps of predicting, observing, and checking previous ideas, as well as noticing facts in nature, in construction sites, in the freshwater process. Social and emotional learning will emerge when children collaborate, negotiate, exchange ideas, and respect each other. Teachers then will see all those areas interacting and, when necessary, focus on developing specific skills.

Documentation. During this time, documentation is key to transforming exploration into intentional teaching and learning. When teachers and students both document, we can make all the different academic areas and the learning process visible to children and their families. We are also reflecting on the progress the children have made, and this helps us design the future teaching paths. Documentation does not need to be elaborate or difficult to carry out. Photographs, brief notes, collected artifacts, and audio recordings of children’s comments or conversations are often enough to keep track of the evolution of the children.

Reframing the world as the curriculum does not require more resources, more time, or more paperwork from the teachers. It requires a shift of perspective. It invites us as teachers to slow down, to look closely, and to trust that learning begins with what catches the attention of children and drives them to notice and wonder. Perhaps the invitation is simple: Open the door, step outside, and begin there.