孩子天生具有“探索欲”，这种动力引导他们去了解周围的世界，了解自己是谁，了解世界由什么组成、事物如何运作，以及其他人是怎么“做”的。好奇心是一种与生俱来的本能，它确保所有人都能“找到自己的位置”，并了解自己所处的环境、社区和社会。 

我们知道好奇心是学习发展和进步的强大动力，同样，好奇心也是挑战已知事物、推动我们跳出“舒适圈”、愿意并能够尝试和发现新事物的一种力量。 

尽管孩子们天性好奇，喜欢发现事物、提出问题并顺着自己的兴趣走，但我们不能假设这一切都会自然而然地发生。好奇心就像许多天生的学习行为一样，它可能是一株脆弱的幼苗。孩子们很快就会知道他们的问题和想法有没有被注意到、得到重视和获得赞许。 

因此，小狮课程将好奇心确定为一项具体的学习素养，作为确保在幼儿教育阶段支持和呵护孩子好奇心发展的重要一步。我们无法有十足的把握假定孩子永远保持好奇心，因此我们希望通过孩子的行为去发展和培养这一优秀品质。 

这其中就包括确保孩子们有机会探索周围的世界，通过触摸物体和材料，探索它们的特性并提出相关问题。同样，顺应他们的兴趣，阅读相关书籍、参与体验和开展对话也非常重要，这些都能增进他们关于“好奇心”的知识。

通过这些活动，孩子们既能建立起对周围世界的核心知识基础，又能发展出一生受用的学习“驱动力”。培养好奇心的机会不需要很复杂，也无需特别设计，最有效的办法就是让它们融入日常生活。一些简单的活动，例如做饭和洗衣分类就提供了很多与孩子交流及提问的机会。 

另外，允许孩子们利用身边的材料和物品进行实验也是重要的一环。

“如果我这样做会怎么样？” ——回答自己提出的问题是学习和发展的重要过程。通过尝试各种想法，看看会发生什么，并记录下行动的结果，有助于孩子们理解因果关系这一重要的科学现象，并了解物体是如何发生变化的。

同样，日常生活中到处都能找到诸如此类的机会——观察冰块在玻璃杯中融化、用手指捏葡萄、弯曲木棍直到它折断、撕纸片等等，都是鼓励孩子观察周围事物的宝贵机会。然后，我们可以与孩子聊一聊这些现象，回答他们的问题并进行总结。 

同样重要的是，我们要鼓励孩子将他们的各种发现联系起来，并用语言加以描述，在此过程中，他们会学习适当的新词汇。这就意味着，孩子们会把已有的知识从一种情况“迁移”到另一种情况，与以往的经验进行比较和类比。

在成人的鼓励下，孩子们可能会注意到树叶和羽毛都能浮在水面上——这是为什么呢？他们也可能会指出，不同的水果从外表上看可能很相似，但切开后却大不相同。 

好奇心使我们渴望学习，驱使人们去冒险和试错，从而得出结论和发现问题。对于年幼的孩子来说，好奇心需要得到充分的支持和发展，才能帮助他们认识到其力量。  

Babies are born with an ‘exploratory drive’ which directs them to find out about the world around them, who they are, what the world consists of, how things work and what other people ‘do’. Curiosity is an innate, biologically primed behaviour to ensure that all human beings ‘find their place’ and understand the context, community and environment that they live in. 

Perhaps just as importantly we know that curiosity is a strong motivation in developing and progressing in learning, as it provides a force for challenging what is known or understood, moving outside the ‘comfort zone’ of what is known and being willing and able to try and find out new things. 

But although children are naturally curious, and want to find things out, ask questions, and follow their own fascinations, we cannot assume that this happens on its own. Curiosity, like many natural learning behaviours, can be a fragile entity, and children soon learn whether their questions and ideas are acknowledged, valued and celebrated, or not. 

Therefore, identifying this as a specific learning discipline in the Little Lions Curriculum is an important step towards ensuring that it is supported and facilitated throughout early childhood. We can never reliably assume that curiosity is present and have to always ensure that it is visible in what children do. 

Part of this is making sure that children have opportunities to explore the world around them, physically through touching objects and materials, exploring their properties, and asking questions about them. Equally, following an interest and accessing books, experiences and conversations that enhance this knowledge are very important. 

Through these opportunities, children build up both a core knowledge base of the world around them but also develop the ‘drivers’ of learning that they will continue to use throughout their lives. The opportunities for this do not need to be complicated or specifically contrived but most effectively fit into everyday life. Simple activities like cooking and sorting washing present many opportunities to talk to children about the nature of materials. 

Another important aspect of this is allowing children to experiment with materials and objects in the context of the world around them. 

Responding to the self-posed question ‘What happens if I do this?’ is one of the most important moments in learning and developing. By trying out ideas, seeing what happens and noting the results of actions helps children understand the vital scientific phenomena of cause and effect, and how objects can be changed. 

Again, occasions for this are abundant in everyday life – watching ice melting in a glass, squashing a grape between your fingers, bending a stick until it breaks and tearing a piece of paper are all valuable opportunities for encouraging children to see what happens and then talking to the child about it, answering their questions and developing conclusions. 

It is also important that as part of this process, children are encouraged to make links between what they already know about the world and what they discover, and use language to describe it, learning new and appropriate vocabulary as they do so. This means that children will use and ‘transfer’ existing knowledge from one situation to another, making comparisons and parallels with previous experiences. 

They might be encouraged to notice that a leaf and a feather both float on the surface of water – why would that be? A child might point out that different fruits might look similar from the outside, but very different once they are cut open. 

Curiosity is what makes us want to learn; it is our internal motivation and pushes us to take risks and make mistakes so that we can draw conclusions and find things out. For young children, this needs to be fully supported so that they realise the enormous power of what this can do.  

养成并保持主动性是一项重要的生活技能，它支撑着我们的专业和个人发展。有了主动性，我们可以克服障碍、战胜挑战，始终专注于目标。

孩子与生俱来就有一种驱动力，促使着他们去探究周围的世界和自己在其中的位置，探索如何与他人交流、互动，及如何成为群体中的一员。在这个过程中，他们也会发展出自己的兴趣和爱好，这些兴趣和爱好自然而然地激发着他们产生自己的动力和能量。

然而，与人类发展的其他方面一样，主动性也是一种需要学习和培养的能力。困难和意想不到的挑战, 会令我们容易感到失去力量、踟蹰不前，因此，我们需要一些策略和对自身行为的洞察来推动我们继续前进。

幼儿需要学习坚持不懈和永不言弃的特质。这会在他们的神经结构中形成图式和模式，为他们提供所需资源，制定看似难以实现的活动、计划或目标。

因此，我们需要在幼儿时期的经历中，设一定的挑战和困难，让孩子知道它们是什么“感觉”，以及如何应对和解决它们。

通过循序渐进地引导孩子去体验和经历、设定合理的期望、采取孩子可以理解的方式和营造有意义的环境，我们可以培养孩子的性格优势和自我理解能力，使他们能够继续保持主动性，朝着目标和成果全力以赴。

一个关键要素就是寻找机会支持孩子的参与和投入。孩子们总是会被自己感兴趣的事物或引发他们好奇心的物品和活动所吸引。我们可以鼓励他们花时间去深入地探索事物，并通过向他们提问、鼓励他们问问题、提供建议和使用不同资源来辅助。

孩子们在参加活动时，尤其是参加他们自己所选择的，心甘情愿地花的时间越多，就越能帮助他们形成集中注意力和专注力的神经通路。通过深入探究和参与（特别是主动而非被动参加），孩子将学会并保持运用重要“知识”的方法。

保持主动性的另一关键要素是独立。虽然孩子天生希望自己的事情自己做，但如果大人过度包办，往往会无意中造成孩子的依赖行为。孩子需要时间和练习来独立处理事情，而我们能提供的最重要的支持之一就是学会放手，给予他们空间。

如果孩子不自己尝试，什么事都等着大人去解决，那么他们就会失去独立开展活动的信心和动力——这可能会对他们作为学习者的自我认知和尝试新事物的能力产生负面影响。

以这样的方式支持孩子，并了解“主动性”背后的重要组成要素，我们可以成功地培养孩子的毅力和韧性。这些同样也是在各方面取得成功所必备的重要能力，为孩子的有效学习、发展和进步奠定了深厚而坚实的基础。

Being able to become – and remain – motivated is a vital life skill that sustains us personally and professionally.  Motivation enables us to overcome obstacles, drive through challenges and keep focussed on a goal or outcome.

Children are born with a drive to find out about the world around them and their place within it, how to communicate, interact and be part of the community they find themselves in. Within that too, they develop interests and fascinations that naturally inspire them to generate their own motivation, passion and energy.

However, as with any aspect of human development, motivation is a competency that needs to be learned and nourished. Difficulties and unexpected challenges can sap the very energy that initially drove us, and we need strategies and insights to our own behaviour to enable us to keep going. 

Young children need to learn the skills and attributes of keeping going and not giving up. This forms schema and patterns in their neurological architecture that provide them with resources to draw up what activities, projects or goals appear difficult to attain.

Therefore, in their early childhood experiences, an amount of challenge and difficulty needs to be present for children to know what they feel like and how to address and solve them. 

By introducing experiences, and expectations gradually, and within ways and contexts that make sense to children, we can build up the strength of character and self-understanding and enable them to continue their motivation and pursue goals and outcomes.

A key element of this is identifying opportunities to support their engagement and involvement. Children will gravitate towards what interests them, or new objects and activities that intrigue them. As early years educators, we help this process by encouraging children to spend time exploring things in depth and we can assist this by asking probing questions, encouraging them to do so by suggesting ideas and using different resources. 

The more time that a child spends willingly and happily on an activity – especially one that they have chosen themselves – the more this develops the neural pathways for concentration and focus. By being deeply involved in an activity – usually an active rather than passive one – vital knowledge about how to apply themselves is learned and sustained.

Another vital element to remaining motivated is the ability to be independent. Although children are naturally inclined to want to do things for themselves, they can often (unintentionally) learn how to be dependent if too much is done for them. 

Children need time and practise to manage things on their own and one of the most important supports we can be is an adult that gives them the space and time to do this. A child who does not try on their own and waits for an adult to do something for them loses the confidence and drive to undertake activities on their own. This can potentially have a negative effect on their self-perception as a learner, and their willingness and confidence to try new things.

By supporting children in this way and being aware of the importance of these vital components of motivation, we are invariably and successfully building their persistence and resilience. These too are vital competencies that are needed to be successful in all aspects of life and provide a deep and solid basis that enables effective learning, development and progress far beyond the early years.