Process verses Product

I had a conversation yesterday with a new teacher about this topic Process verses Product and as you may guess I am fully in favour of process. Not just because I know better, but also because every day I see the joy of children taking charge of their learning, making decisions, creating and working together. For example, we have been playing with the number 100 for the past couple of weeks and one of their challenges was to create a paper pizza with 100 toppings. At the same time we made pizza and read a slew of pizza stories. 

This fun activity led to an interest in pizza stores and the Kinders decided to  set one up in the classroom where our house centre usually is. Later during interactive writing we began to share ideas about what to include in our pizza store, how it would be used and how much space it would require.Then we generated a list of items such as table clothe, chef hats, a tv, etc that they thought would be necessary. They got busy making paper pizzas, a sign  and writing letters to classrooms to borrow some resources like a cash register. The next day we began to transform the play area but also continued to have discussions about how to improve our pizza store, who worked there, who shopped there and what should be included in the space. The Kinders took responsibility for figuring out what was needed and how to find, borrow or create the materials. Today was our fourth day with the pizza store and the Kinders continue to change and transform the space. For example today they moved the storage cupboard and fridge to create more space for the cashier and chefs. Then they widened the entry so that the servers could move easily from the kitchen to the diner. Later they decided that they needed a sink to wash the dishes and recycled the wash tub from the hand washing station for use and added a new job, a cleaner and dishwasher. 

Meanwhile, we continue to have conversations about pizza stores, gather more information and make refinements. If I had created a wonderful pizza store and surprised them I would have had so much fun planning it, but the kinders would have missed the amazing opportunity to plan, research, collaborate, make decisions, create and be in charge of their learning!

This pizza store has wireless and provides free use of a laptop!