Reflections on the Water: Our Preschool Water Wall Project

I work at the Child Development Center at MiraCosta College in Oceanside, CA.  The Child Development Center serves as a campus-based child development program providing both academic instruction to students enrolled in child development/early childhood education courses and childcare services to students, staff, and community families. Providing demonstration classrooms to the college community, our program offers a model of best practice in early childhood education while providing students learning opportunities through observation and on-floor interactions with young children and their families.  In Spring 2021, I was the lead teacher in the Room 5 classroom.  There were a total of fifteen children ages 4 to 5 years old.  

During the Spring Semester at the Child Development Center, we began to brainstorm for our Spring project ideas.  Along with two colleagues, I attended an Early Childhood PBL workshop (Project Planning for our Youngest Learners).  During our breakout session, our team met and I had a breakthrough moment.  In the past, I had always struggled to pick a topic for a project because I had a hard time choosing and designing a project that honored the children’s interests,  and my ideas were either too wide or too narrow in scope.  

After attending the workshop, I decided that I would concentrate on a realizable project plan for my classroom.  I decided that my classroom would make a water wall that we could use in our outdoor classroom. A water wall is a configuration of containers, tubes and funnels in which children can pour water and observe the way it drips and flows through the containers below until it empties out into a container on the ground. The basis of this idea was to marry my students' interests in water, gravity, and flow.  

Investigating Water Walls

At circle time we discussed what features they liked from the photos they saw. We had each child make a first draft of a water wall blueprint on large paper with a Sharpie marker. After that, during circle time, the children gave each other warm feedback on their first drafts. We used pictures of water walls and asked the children how their friends could better represent their ideas, asking, “What do you see in this picture that is not in your friend's picture?”. Using this feedback, the children added more details to their drawing such as frames, feet, and buckets. The teachers used post-it notes to label the details for the children in each of their drawings. Each child made a second draft and was given warm feedback from their friends again. Finally, they made a final draft with Sharpie markers and watercolors.

Initial drafts

Then each child made a model of a water wall with their blueprints, using peg board, PVC pipes, and water bottles as funnels and buckets.  

Next, we started an investigation with tools so that the children learned how to use tools safely and how adults use these tools outside of our classroom. 

Finally, we built the water wall using a wooden frame and wire backing.  The children used their tools to construct the water wall and to add the features that they wanted.   

Social and Emotional Learning Skills as the Foundation for Feedback and Revision

After attending a second workshop with the EC PBL team (Embedding SEL into PBL), I sharpened my focus on social emotional learning within the Water Wall project.  I had another “Aha” moment when Sara [Lev] spoke about helping children become independent learners.  In my mind I had always equated independent learning with working independently, meaning working alone. Once I realized that I held this misconception, I was able to focus on the social emotional goals of my project in a much more holistic way.  

The four key tenets of developing independent learners that were introduced to me were: self-regulation, self-efficacy, perseverance, and self-management.  The children in my classroom were focusing on their self-regulation skills by listening to each other as we were giving warm feedback to one another.  The children were carefully considering how they could help their friends improve on their first and second drafts of their water wall blueprints.  It was difficult for some children to both give and receive critiques of their work and then decide how they wanted to incorporate this information in their own work because they had to consider another person’s idea about their work.  This necessitated them being able to consider another person’s viewpoint.  We wanted to create an atmosphere in our classroom where children believed in their own abilities to be learners and creators. 

Children were practicing their perseverance as they returned to their blueprints several times.  They also practiced their perseverance while they worked on their project blocks.  Project blocks are small square pieces of wood that children use to practice using tools. In our case they practiced sanding, hammering and putting in screws.  Almost all of the children struggled with one aspect of the project block. One area that I would improve on would be to give the children more practice in self-management.  All of the children completed the work needed to complete the water wall, but moving forward in a new project, I would have the children engage in goal-setting and complete self assessments throughout the project.    

The classroom buzzed with activity every day.  Due to absences, some of the students fell behind on their blueprints.  When this happened, we asked other students to explain what we were working on and the teachers were just there for support.  This gave children leadership skills.  Another way we developed leadership skills was to take a few students to the other classrooms when we shared the water wall with them.  They wrote down what they wanted to say and practiced before we presented.  The students who volunteered were some of my quieter students and this showed a lot of growth in them. 

Another goal for me was to help my students develop a growth mindset.  This means that children develop “an attitude that allows for possibilities and promotes progress and problem solving, children improve their skills for effectively solving problems every day and in more challenging scenarios” (Dweck 2006).  Through the process of the project, the children learned to come up with creative solutions to their problems throughout the day, especially when negotiating play plans with each other.  They learned how to express their ideas and emotions in a constructive manner which led to them engaging in more productive and enjoyable play. Project based learning helps children see that making mistakes gives us an opportunity to do things differently and to learn.  All of the students in my classroom were leaving for kindergarten and I wanted to use the project to help them see that there can be many solutions to a problem.  I felt this would help them to be successful in the years ahead. 

This project has shown me how much my students have all progressed over the past year.  During this project, the children’s internal beliefs and self-confidence that they have the power and skills to shape the direction of their learning experiences has grown. The children developed persistence and became more independent learners. They have also grown in their ability to manage their emotions, thoughts and behaviors so that they are able to work together effectively.  The children became more empathetic and were able to offer solutions to any problems that they encountered.   

Our completed Water Wall

As my apprentice Vianey Vilchis Sanchez reflected, “As the weeks progressed and we built our plan, it slowly but surely came together. And as the project evolved it was amazing to see the children understand and execute the concepts we would teach them. Not only did we learn how to work as a team, but we strengthened our communication, resilience, and empathy. Overall, I experienced first hand the importance of making a plan yet being flexible enough to go with the flow.”

Through the process of completing the project I saw how children could grow and learn in all areas of development.  I enjoyed learning alongside the children. I became a better teacher because I became more organized and more intentional in planning how each day would unfold.  I am excited to start a new project, taking with me what I learned from successfully completing the Water Wall project. 

Alison Schultz has worked at the MiraCosta Child Development Center for the past seven years. She enjoys observing children and creating environments that engage children and promote learning through play. She is happiest when she is outdoors which is why she loves introducing children to the Outdoor Classroom.