Grade 3/4s Work Through the Wonder Stage!

"Under Our Feet" - Wonder Stage

After presenting our students with our guided inquiry question "Why are rocks, minerals and soil important to us?" Tamzen and I visually presented the inquiry process to our students and gave a brief overview of each stage of the process.  Then we jumped into "wonder" with both feet!  We formed inquiry teams composed of both Grade 3 and Grade 4 students.  Using Linoit (an online cork board with virtual sticky notes...very engaging!!!) we had the students brainstorm the things we would need to know in order to answer our big question.  The students did an amazing job!  From their brainstorming, we were able to generate 5 smaller "sub" questions to help guide us in working towards discovering answers to our big question:

• What are rocks, minerals and soil?
• Who is "us"?
• How do we use rocks, minerals and soil?
• What does "important" mean?
• How would the world be different if we did not have rocks minerals and soil?

We were so impressed with the students' big thinking!  Together we looked at our sub questions and sharing first in our inquiry teams and then as a large group set the order for which we should investigate these sub questions.  Through discussion and some guided work, we found that we were discovering many more smaller questions that we need to answer.  So many questions!  Again, we were blown away by the students ability to think about what we need to know and to identify even smaller sub questions such as "What minerals are in Saskatchewan?", "Where are the minerals located in Saskatchewan?", and "What do we use the rocks, minerals and soil in Saskatchewan for?"

After taking some time to reflect on the "wonder" stage of the process in our inquiry notebooks we are now ready to move on into investigating!

Teacher reflections (Miss Elliott):
For myself the reflections at this point are huge.  My students are capable of thinking much more deeply than I anticipated.  In all honesty, I was skeptical that they would identify the knowledge and questions we would need to use to guide us toward our big question and I assumed we would have to do much more prompting and explicit guiding.  They have defintely gone beyond what I expected with some even identifying how we could classify and organize our questions!  I am thrilled that we are pushing them because they are certainly rising to the challenge!  Introducing and using some new technology such as "Linoit" and "Today's Meet" has helped engage the students while at the same time giving them experience with a new online tool way of sharing and ensuring that all students have a voice.
Though we have our long range guided inquiry mapped out, Tamzen and I meet after each lesson and each week to reflect, focus and specifically plan what we will do in our next session.  It takes time but being well planned has been contributed to successful lessons and experiences.
Our work in this inquiry is helping me see and understand the steps and stages of this process more clearly and how to guide students in understanding them.  "Inquiry" is a common word in our classroom now, not just during our guided inquiry time.  Often when doing our highlights at the end of the day, students identify our inquiry time as a highlight of their day!