“Preschool Will Be Doing This Too?” A Veteran Teacher Reflects on Trying PBL for the First Time

It was the beginning of the school year, and my principal had just finished explaining to school staff that we were going to be a Project Based Learning pilot school for our district. She had excitedly explained the basics of PBL and what amazing learning opportunities it gave our students. I listened half-heartedly, thinking of all the ways it would never work with preschool children: they’re too young to make those kinds of decisions, they won’t understand how collaboration works, they’re too disorganized, too distracted, there are too many things I’m already being asked to teach and do…it’s impossible! 

And then my principal answered my question: “Yes, everyone is doing this,” and my heart sank. How in the world was this ever going to work? 

I have been employed in the early childhood field for over 35 years, and have taught Early Childhood Special Education since receiving my Master’s degree 25 years ago.

I was definitely feeling like an old dog who didn’t want to learn any new tricks. I had a pretty good idea how children learn and how I wanted to teach them. Taking on a “project” was not something I wanted to do. 

The following week I walked into a one-day PBL workshop feeling completely unmotivated and fully  expecting to confirm all my doubts and reservations about PBL and early childhood not being a good match.  Instead, I learned that PBL is based not only on learning goals and state standards, but on children’s interests.  I was reminded how even young children can make decisions about their learning, work together to solve problems and create products, and maintain their excitement and engagement throughout the process.  By the end of the day, I was actually feeling excited about doing a project and thinking it might turn out to be as much fun for me as for my students. 

In December, I attended a three-day PBL training, where I learned more about designing and implementing Gold Standard projects.  I was able to dive deeper into creating my own project. I developed the Driving Question: How can we make our own book about feelings? and completed the project plans. I was getting more and more excited about the details and couldn’t wait to begin implementing it with my kids.

Armed with a better understanding of PBL, the hows and the whys, my attitude completely shifted from “This will never work with my kids!” to “I can’t wait to get started!”

Initially, PBL felt like one more thing to add to my overloaded preschool “plate,” but once I figured out how the milestone activities would provide opportunities to collect data for quarterly developmental assessment opportunities (a time-saver!), I couldn’t wait to see how my students would rise to the challenges.

Launching our Project

We started the project in February, spending a couple of weeks reading different books about feelings, talking about what our faces and bodies look like when we’re feeling different things, and guessing what feelings our friends were showing us. One day during large group circle time, I asked the students, “What if we made our OWN book of feelings? How do you think we could do that?” 

Believe me, I was not prepared for how those conversations were going to go! I expected blank faces and lots of shrugs and confused looks. I was ready with prompts and scaffolding to help guide the conversation.  Except the children were not only excited at the idea of making their very own book, they had lots of ideas about how to do it, what it would look like, what feelings to include in it and more. Over the next couple of days, the children came up with their choice of feelings to include by listing them and then voting on their favorites to narrow it down to six. During these large group meetings we also talked a lot about good listening skills, being respectful, how to compromise, and working together/collaboration.

Once the emotions were decided upon, students were asked to choose which feeling they would like to represent in our book. We had small groups of 2-3 students for each feeling. Individual students decided how they wanted their feeling to be presented in the book, whether a picture or painting, a photograph, or something else. Over the next week or so, we worked on paintings and pictures, and I took photographs of students making “feelings faces.” I wrote down student descriptions of their completed work.  Comments ranged from the simple, “Playing at school makes me happy” and “I’m scared when I have bad dreams at night” to more elaborate stories “I’m frustrated when the car breaks down and someone has to fix it and I don’t have anything to do while I wait!”.  All of this was compiled into a PDF and sent off to the publisher (I used Presto Photo). The kids were so disappointed they were going to have to wait to see their book! While we waited for the books to arrive, I had time to reflect on how smoothly the whole project had progressed.

The students completely surprised me with their engagement and interest, especially in their ability to generate ideas and work together. We also reinforced many of the new skills the students had learned such as listening to others’ ideas, and being aware of how their words or actions made someone feel by looking at their faces and bodies. 

When the books arrived (we purchased a book for each child and one for the classroom), the students were beyond excited! As I read the book and showed the pictures, they couldn’t believe that it was actually their pictures and artwork in a book! They all wanted a chance to look at the book themselves. One of my favorite moments was watching three children as they looked at the book together during choice time. 

We spent a couple of weeks practicing the presentation part of the project, with each group of 2-3 children standing in front of the class and sharing their part in the book. Again, I was so proud and pleasantly surprised at how well they stepped up to this responsibility. And they did so well when it came time to present to their families too. Everyone loved the books and I hope they will be a treasured memento for years to come.

Looking back over the past year, I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed in myself that I was so resistant and reluctant about PBL at the beginning. It’s also hard not to feel that I may have been shortchanging all the children I’ve worked with over the years. They are truly capable of so much more than I think I’ve been giving them credit for! However, I am also thankful for the opportunity to participate in the PBL pilot, and am already looking forward to next year’s projects. 

And I’m glad that I’m still not too old to learn some new tricks.

Lora Gosslee has worked in the education field for over 35 years, beginning as a teaching assistant for various programs and age groups before receiving my Master's Degree in Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Education in 1998. She is currently a preschool inclusion teacher for Clark County School District in Las Vegas, NV.