Students, left to their own devices, have a hard time delving deeply into books to answer questions. I want to show them that the best way to start the research process is not only to activate your prior knowledge and begin to wonder, but to formulate good questions. In our enrichment group this week, students looked back at their notes about an animal and recorded one of the "wonder" questions they had about their animal that had not been answered by their reading. Then, using a list of resources we had created, we chose one possible resource to answer our question. We talked about how Google is not a resource, but instead is a helper to find resources. Likewise, a librarian or teacher can fulfill roles of both helper and resource depending on prior knowledge. I'm more likely not to know the answer, but to know where to look to find it, which makes me a good helper but a bad resource! |
- How many times (presumably in a lifetime) do owls have babies?
- How do owls turn their heads all around their bodies?
- Do bats have claws?
- When owl babies hatch why don't they have feathers? Why can't we see their eyes?
- Can bats see better than humans?
Next week we'll talk about open- versus closed-ended questions (we call them THICK questions) and also learn strategies for searching online using kid-friendly search engines such as Kidtopia and Kid Rex.