Day 6- I Wonder...

One of the things that kids are great at is asking questions. They ask them all day! When is lunch? What time do we go home? When do we go to the bathroom? Who are you again?

I took advantage of their natural inquisitiveness during reading today. We worked on making "I wonder" statements. We have been working on using ABC books as informational texts and I chose a great book to jump-start their brains...

 The great thing about this book is that all the kids already have a picture of "Princess" in their heads; thank you, Disney! I started a KWL chart titled 'Royalty'. I explained that Royalty means people who have a royal title like Princess; and I pointed to the book. Then I asked them what they KNOW about people like Princesses.

As you can see, they knew a lot about royalty! These are some of their answers...
dress up- clothes and shoes
crown/ tiara
King, Queen, Prince
castle
Snow White, Rapunzel, Cinderella
stories- frogs, kissing

From here, I asked them to tell me what they WONDER about royalty. Again, I was pleased by the thoughtfulness of their answers. Students had to start their answers with, "I wonder..."
I wonder about the color of their shoes. Are they pretty?
I wonder if they are different colors? (I verified that the student was asking about different races)
I wonder where are their castles?
I wonder... do they watch tv; do they go to school; do they have different flags; do the have special colors; what do they eat...

After we filled out the K and L of the chart, we read the book. What I like about this book is that it is full of fiction and nonfiction. The kids connected to the pages that talked about fairy tales since they are familiar with Disney stories, and they learned about real royals from different time periods. Quite a few of our 'I wonder' questions were answered! Tomorrow we will re-visit the book and students will help me fill out the LEARNED section.

During science, I told the kids that we are going to start a TOP SECRET PROJECT. Top secret from whom, you might ask? From Mr. Evans! We are going to work on this project for the rest of the week during science, and SURPRISE Mr. Evans with it!
We are making... An ABC book of animals we know!! The key to making the book is that we have to know something about the animals we are going to use. Our book is to be an informational ABC book; so we have to know our information! Here are the animals we have so far... (the board is really long, so I had to take 2 pictures)

Each letter will have an animal, the animal's classification, and one thing the animal can do. I was very impressed with my soldiers! They added different mammals, reptiles and amphibians; but they also added insects! We haven't gone over insects yet, but my students knew how to classify them!
The plan is to finish the list tomorrow, type and illustrate on Friday and SURPRISE Mr. Evans with it on Monday. Wish us luck!!

Our Daily Brain