Developing children’s sense of wonder and curiosity and encouraging exploration and discovery

Modelling a sense of wonder and curiosity

You can model by demonstrating interest, curiosity, and respect for your surroundings. Here are some tips to do so:

• Be present and engaged

• Verbalise your wonderment and share your discoveries

• Value children’s questions and show interest to find the answers together with them

Using prompts and effective questioning

You can use prompts and questioning intentionally to:

• Invite children’s interest and motivate their further exploration

• Help children draw meaningful connections between their prior knowledge and new learning

• Encourage children to reflect on their learning experiences and apply or communicate what they have discovered.

Here are some tips for effective prompting and questioning:

• Plan Ahead: Before the start of an activity, plan a series of intentional questions that encourage curiosity, reflection and communication. You can do so by anticipating children’s responses and actions.

• Provide Wait Time: Allow sufficient time for children to think before responding. Avoid appearing impatient or undermining their thinking by providing the answers too soon. 

• Build on Responses: Make use of or build on the children’s responses to ask questions or prompts. This encourages them to elaborate on their thinking and extend their ideas. 

• Use Different Question Types Appropriately: You can use close-ended questions to help children recall information and focus their attention. Open-ended questions encourage a variety of responses, challenge children's thinking, and promote creativity and critical thinking.