This week was a bit of a rough transition for Laura and myself. Both of us had our class lists change last minute, our numbers increased quite a bit, and I was informed that our computers were not ready for the classroom yet. But we persevered!
The first week is always a get-to-know-you kind of week anyway, and my students were quiet and tired. I'm sure this will all change next week. My plan was to look at Digital Citizenship before we began anything else technology and inquiry related, however, without computers I thought we would wait and instead look a little bit at some of the QUESTIONING resources that Laura and I made at the end of last year.
The first week is always a get-to-know-you kind of week anyway, and my students were quiet and tired. I'm sure this will all change next week. My plan was to look at Digital Citizenship before we began anything else technology and inquiry related, however, without computers I thought we would wait and instead look a little bit at some of the QUESTIONING resources that Laura and I made at the end of last year.
WONDER WALL
I made this Wonder Wall with the help of my fabulous volunteer last June when we were preparing for our ideas for inquiry for this year. It was blank the first few days of school and many of my students were "wondering what the wonder wall is," and would giggle.
I brought in some rocks from my trip to Nova Scotia this year (also as a way of introducing Rocks and Minerals) and told the students almost no information about them. I only said that they were important to me. They would have to write questions on sticky notes and be detectives to find out any information. I wanted to do a bit of a quick diagnostic here - just how comfortable are my students with asking questions? And what kinds of questions would they ask?
I made this Wonder Wall with the help of my fabulous volunteer last June when we were preparing for our ideas for inquiry for this year. It was blank the first few days of school and many of my students were "wondering what the wonder wall is," and would giggle.
I brought in some rocks from my trip to Nova Scotia this year (also as a way of introducing Rocks and Minerals) and told the students almost no information about them. I only said that they were important to me. They would have to write questions on sticky notes and be detectives to find out any information. I wanted to do a bit of a quick diagnostic here - just how comfortable are my students with asking questions? And what kinds of questions would they ask?
WONDER WHEEL
My grade 5s, whom I taught last year, were right on this task quickly. But some of my grade 4s were not so sure of themselves. That's when I brought out the Wonder Wheel (notice a theme here). We briefly talked about the W5, and how they could use any of my Wonder thinking stems (ie When might....Why can....How are....) to begin their questions.
The questions I got were very basic - Where did you get them? How are the rocks special to you? When might we use the rocks? Why do you like them?
But this at least gives us a starting point for teaching questioning. The next day I answered some of the questions that were posted, and the students began asking more questions based on my answers.
The BIG IDEA that I wanted my students to get from this is that QUESTIONS LEAD TO MORE QUESTIONS. And this is an idea that we will work on throughout the entire year.
My grade 5s, whom I taught last year, were right on this task quickly. But some of my grade 4s were not so sure of themselves. That's when I brought out the Wonder Wheel (notice a theme here). We briefly talked about the W5, and how they could use any of my Wonder thinking stems (ie When might....Why can....How are....) to begin their questions.
The questions I got were very basic - Where did you get them? How are the rocks special to you? When might we use the rocks? Why do you like them?
But this at least gives us a starting point for teaching questioning. The next day I answered some of the questions that were posted, and the students began asking more questions based on my answers.
The BIG IDEA that I wanted my students to get from this is that QUESTIONS LEAD TO MORE QUESTIONS. And this is an idea that we will work on throughout the entire year.