My Rights My Voice Vignette 2.
2. Familiarity with the question and its context ensures authentic, meaningful responses
The 2025 program included eight research questions to explore, test and experiment with children the different ways we bring the SDN Wellbeing Wheel to life. Each question was explored over several weeks in the form of a project.
One educator explored a set of questions about having access to material basics with toddlers: Who do you know? When you are hungry? What do you like to eat at SDN? Children – do you know when you are hungry?
The exploration started with an indoor picnic during morning group time, where children could explore the topic through pretend play. The educator realised that even though eating is an everyday activity, thinking deeply about it requires adapting knowledge in different experiences.
In the following weeks, the questions were asked at mealtimes, explored with books about food during group times and practised during informal play (e.g., “Oh look! the baby! the dinosaur is hungry… what should we do?”).
Over time, children started to communicate their food preferences, expressing their opinions about the food they were offered at SDN with a thumbs up or down. They began to offer their thoughts, ideas and opinions in other areas as well.
The various experiences resulted in children talking more about food, trying more foods, expressing their likes and dislikes, and joining in the kitchen corner more frequently unprompted, and at times when the feedback project was not happening.
Why is this important?
Children learn to look carefully and think deeply when they participate in longer-term projects. By pursuing a subject over time, children can explore what something means and how it relates to them and their world. Becoming familiar with a question involves engaging in different learning styles, allows an interest to be explored from multiple perspectives, and develops sustained attention and persistence.
Insight
When we ask children a question that they don’t understand, they may answer in a way that doesn’t reflect what they are thinking. Spending time becoming familiar with the question, its context and its meaning can result in responses that help us really understand what children want to say.
