From theory to practice in early years

As citizens of the world, children and teenagers require an integrated education capable of analyzing diverse situations where they can decide in taking concrete actions under any context and surroundings in their lives.

SEK Guayaquil, member of SEK International Schools, initiates its early childhood students into the International Baccalaureate Primary School Program (PYP), allowing children to learn concepts and develop skills while enjoying social interaction, inquiry and acquiring a determined group of attributes that will become part of their backpack (purpose) of life.

SEK Guayaquil´s school year is divided into four units of inquiry for Early Childhood Education students. Teachers carefully plan teaching and learning experiences enriched with the contribution of transdisciplinarity and promoting students’ responsibility for their learning.

A proof of this was observed during the unit How We Express Ourselves, where children of Early Education II inquired about how clothing expresses the geographic location, climate and other characteristics of the place where people live. The adventure began by exposing them to different climatic situations and selecting the appropriate clothing. After long conversations, searching for information in books, documentaries, consulting experts and exploring the globe, they chose to delve deeper into the climate of the poles.

The children’s faces are the greatest descriptor of the project’s worth. To venture into the cold deserts, to discover the diverse animals that live among the ice, glaciers and cold ocean waters, to open their minds to the extraordinary life forms of the fantastic Eskimos, to momentarily become them and to think of ingenious solutions to every challenge they encountered during the working hours.

Each activity, each unknown, each new learning, was captured in a very amusing ideal, which the children themselves designed, created and were able to explain. From the youngest age, with simple and then more complex words, our students of SEK Guayaquil International School are able to communicate and transmit their findings, complications and new concerns with the security that only the conviction of being the protagonist of their own learning.

Carolina Castro M.
SEK Guayaquil International School