Wonder Table

So this magical thing happened, totally by accident, and it has been glorious.  A child visited Connecticut and brought back Buckeyes and fall leaves.  You see in Florida we don't see much fall.  Leaves that are yellow, red and orange are way cooler than green and brown.  I said, "Let's put it on this table so others can check it out."

And that's how the Wonder Table began...but the name came a few days later.

It was also serendipity that I am in a book study reading A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades by Georgia Heard and Jennifer McDonough.  As I was reading, I came across their idea for a Discovery Table and I knew we would keep it.   (If you are a primary teacher, this is a good read!)

It's really simple.  Pick a spot, put a couple tools out (forceps, magnifying glass, measuring tape, etc.), and then tell the kids to bring treasures in.  BOOM! that's it.

 Here is what our table looked like this morning.  We have our tools to the left, a Betta fish, snake skins, dragonfly, exoskeleton of a crab, shells, leaves, buckeyes, reptile skin, sea glass, soil samples, and slides for a microscope.  Above is our bread experiment to see if washing hands matters.

 Tools

Bubbles!

Close-up of snake skins, exoskeleton, leaves, and shells.  One child even found a paperclip that they had never seen before...so magical.

Leaves, soil samples, buckeyes, acorns, reptile skin, and slides

 Simple, right?!

 I bought each child a small notebook.  Our wonder notebooks were born!  I found them at Target in the party aisle.

Some of the wonderings are based off the Wonder Table.  Others like this one are based off interest.

This question was based off the table.  She found out about the diets of snakes, reptiles and dragonflies and was still feeling curious.

The benefits of the Wonder Table are:

*Easy way to bring in science topics

*Creates eagerness 

*Teaches students to appreciate the small things in life

*Gets students to independently ask and answer questions on their own

*Creates a scientist mentality in all students

*Lets students share without having Show and Tell

To keep the table fresh I am going to add books that relate to topics and put out different items for each unit.  Some ideas are paintings, poetry, globe, flashlights, magazines, nature items, etc.

So that's it.  A huge impact in our classroom happened by chance but that's how these things go.

Time in Anchor Charts

My class is full of excited learners and I am loving our reading workshop time.  Here are a couple anchor charts that really helped us through our workshop time.

What works during independent reading time.

 

Strategies to help us when we don't know a word.

 

Trying to instill that sound it out doesn't work...we have to look at the sounds/chunks.

 

Partnership questions to get started talking about books.

 

Questions to guide us with fiction books.

 

 

 Last week we started our nonfiction unit and it's been SO much fun!

The Nonfiction Reading and Writing connection.

 

Text features and how they help us.

 Nonfiction text posters by Primary Punch.

 How to shop for nonfiction texts.  Just 2 quick questions to answer.

 

Writing:

This is one chart left from writing personal narratives.

 

We have moved on to All About nonfiction writing.

Our class shared writing about platypus with a heading, illustration, and table of contents.

Another shared writing, more to the students level.

A list of generated ideas to start writing our all about pieces.

Editing tips.

 

A pinterest inspired chart to use nonfiction text features in our writing and.....

here is an example from a little firstie! 

 

Math Charts focusing on subtraction:

Vocabulary and helpful tips to get us started.

The bar model...which we find to be a little confusing.

Subtracting to compare using pictures.

 

Science Charts: 

Our first experiences with inquiry....turned into our wonder wall.  Any questions that come up during the day that we can't answer becomes are focus.  All you need is 5 minutes, a computer and some books!

Our research on our new class pet.  It has really increased our vocabulary in the nonfiction arena. Do you see the meal worm life cycle to the left?

Asking questions as a scientist.

 

 

AND here is one freebie for ------->Asking and Answering Questions <-------

 

 

I hope you enjoy!

Jen

 

 

 



Teaching to STRIVE for



My post today is to talk about the most amazing thing I saw in Sue Kempton's class! It was her ability to pull vocabulary and thought through questioning.  Seems simple, right?  Not like she does it...read on!

Every morning the children enter her classroom and read.  After 25 minutes she calls them to the Oval.  If they read something they want to share then they bring their book with them to an opened page.  She calls on several children.  With each child she ask a harem of questions to get their thought process on target with the thinking strategy or understanding.  I'm talkin' about a minimum of 15 focused questions with response time.  I have tried since I got back and I don't have it down yet.  She continued to do this with text and student written pieces throughout her literacy morning.

The picture above is of a book she had a {fragile} child read on the ELMO (document camera). It was to show students how they infer when they are reading self selected text.  This was not the first introduction to inferring but still a very powerful one.  The cover of her text was slightly different but this is the book.  You will see that she asks a multitude of questions in only 4 pages of text.  My goal is to really dig in deep and study her pattern.  I only wrote her questions and not the child's response because my purpose is the line of questioning and how it progresses.

Cover- Tell me what's happening on this picture.  Think about what you know about mommy hens and daddy roosters.  What do we call the babies? What is the chick doing? Think about what you know. The hen has a small sized waddle and cone.  Who has the big, gigantic waddle and cone? Look at your picture clue. How do the mommy and daddy feel? You are inferring that. How do you know? What are their faces doing? What do you notice about this chicken?  (Student begins to read.)

After page 1 is read- What is this picture of? Who is this? What was this? Reread.  Who is this? How do you know this is the hen?  How did you figure that out?  You inferred that, but how? Reread it.  How is the hen feeling? Why? What tells you in the picture that she is scared? What is her face doing? Look at the picture. What words tell you? Does that part tell you she is scared? Find the part. How does she say that? What other words tell you that she is scared? How is she feeling? You inferred that with picture clues and words.

Pages 2 and 3 are read with no questions.
After reading page 4- Who is this again? How do you know it's a rooster? Show me a waddle and a cone.  How do you know the waddle and cone? Read it to show the clue. How does he feel? How does the picture show you he's scared? How is the rooster feeling? Why would the rooster be so upset? Who is Little Chick to rooster? What do you know about hens and roosters? Why is the hen upset? Why is rooster upset? Whose chick is it? There both what? What do you see here? We can infer that the chick belongs to both of them.


My noticings:  Sue scaffolds her readers by supporting them with more detail in her questioning to guide the reader to their conclusion.  She uses their schema in such a smart way.  Sue never gave the child the answer outright...she made the child do the work.  Her work is setting the student up for success through her use of exposure to real things.....they are waiting for their own chicks to hatch right now!  She has them read about it, act it out, write about it and soooo much more. 


My challenge for you is to try and ask questions of your students tomorrow.  Notice, did it come naturally?  Did you feel that you supported them through built schema?  Where the questions flowing or did you really have to dig?  Did the child get it right away or did you help them build conclusions?  Sue taught like this all day!


Read her book, its so worth it!



Inquiry Circle student learning sheets

As we get deeper into our inquiry circles I learn more and therefore react by creating ways to make it easier or work.  My intern and I made a list of all the little things we have learned along the way that needed some tweaking from our perspective.  One of these things being teaching the kids to think in an organized way.  Not necessarily teaching them all to research the same way but showing them ways they can organized their research.

Here is a Inquiry Circle Student Sheet pack with nine organizers to help guide thinking.

Inquiry Circle Student Sheets

I think as we develop more of a complete sense (teachers and students alike) we will just do things naturally...until then I always like a little guidance :)

Enjoy!

Questioning/Inferring

I was at an inservice this week on using Comprehension Toolkit in small groups.  We reread chapter 1 of Strategies That Work, and I read something I knew but needed a reminder....that questioning propels readers.  Duh!  I knew this but when we are in whole group I find that with the lack of time makes me forget it all.  I let that go this week and gosh I have been surprised at the level of questioning my students are coming up with!  Silly teacher stop worrying about time and start doing what you know is right!!

That being said I created 2 new graphic organizers that you can also find on the Reading page:

Questioning

Inferring


Enjoy!