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missionfriends.com
This site features information for teachers and parents about the WMU® missions education organization for preschoolers called Mission Friends.

Project approach learning for Mission Friends
by Joye Smith

Missions Explorers Information for Parents

Your child may be involved in learning about missions in some new ways this year through Missions Explorers activities. Your child’s teachers may use Missions Explorers activities to teach Mission Friends about missions topics of interest to preschoolers. Lilian G. Katz developed the project approach to learning, and describes it as “ways to help children answer their own questions and learn more about the world.”¹

Missions Explorers is an option for teachers to use in teaching Older and Kindergarten Mission Friends. Your child’s teachers may use the Missions Explorers suggested activities some months, and do other activities in other months.

A Mission Explorers project may continue from week to week in Mission Friends.

Preschoolers learn about a topic by asking questions and then exploring to find the answers.

Preschoolers explore the topic through drawing, writing, reading, interviews, photos, experiments, dramatic play, charts, or discussions.

As a parent, here are some ways to be involved in Missions Explorers:

Volunteer to help plan a monthly Missions Explorers project.
Help in the Mission Friends classroom by writing down preschoolers’ findings.
Take dictation from preschoolers for a project journal.
Serve as a resource to share your expertise, such as sharing a language you speak.
Take photos of preschoolers involved in Missions Explorers activities.
Help your child gather materials at home if the project calls for this.
Ask your child open-ended questions about the project, such as “What would happen if . . . ?”

¹Lilian G. Katz, “The Project Approach,” Early Childhood Today, Vol. 12, No. 6, March 1998, 43.

Beginning August 1, 2010, this Web site will be accessible only through www.wmu.com/preschool.