"It's a bird! It's a plane!...It's a dinosaur!" - The Beginning of our Cloud Inquiry

What started off as our first Nature Walk has now lead to an incredible provocation for our class! After taking the time to consolidate our initial discoveries from last week, my DECE and myself wanted to provide our students with the opportunity to elaborate more upon their student voice. Should we do a mind map? A Think-Pair-Share? All of these instructional strategies came into our heads and we decided to launch our curiousity with a read-aloud since it would allow for multiple opportunities for discussion. Given that it is only the second week of school, we wanted to find a book that sparked their interests from our Nature Walk but still had a moral message related to building our classroom community; "Cloudette" by Tom Lichtenheld was the winning choice and it was perfect!! With this story, we not only acknowledged the thinking made visible by our students (e.g. students were able to make connections to the clouds they saw outside but also how to treat others and respect differences in our classroom), but we also invited them to build upon their previous thoughts, ideas, and questions (e.g. what they saw, what they thought, etc) through conversation. Following our read-aloud and discussion, we took our class outside to explore clouds further by using our own sky as a canvas for our learning...

As we sat in the middle of the soccer field, we awakened curiousity by asking our students to lie down on the grass and stare up at the sky. We asked our students to use this minute of "think time" as a way to collect their ideas related to what they already know about clouds. Below are some of their responses:

"Clouds move very slow." - W.F.

"They rain." - A.M.

"They could be in shapes. All sorts of things. Look! It's the letter C!" - S.M.

"They move slow and when they're small they get bigger every time." - I.D.

"They rain whenever they want too." - J.S.

"They try to make different shapes so we can see them." - L.D.

"They go up and down in the sky."  - T.B.

"Sometimes they look so fluffy like cotton candy!" - I.D.

"Clouds have water in it and it drips the rain." - G.B.

"The clouds do whatever they want to do during a thunderstorm. They are angry." - R.K.

" I wonder how the clouds make rain and thunderstorms?" - Ms. Schmidt

"When I was on top of a mountain in Switzerland, I saw the clouds make a huge blanket over the mountains." - Ms. Theis

In order to keep the flow of such responses, we decided to build upon their possible theories with another open-ended question: "Where do the clouds go when they aren't in the sky?" This question was certainly an interesting one to ask, since students were able to remember more clouds in the sky during the morning in comparison to when they were lying down. This observation led to some interesting theories:

"The wind moves the clouds. They stay where they are when there isn't wind." - J.S.

"They are too high up so we can't touch them. They stay in one spot." - L.D.

"It has to be a very windy day for the clouds to move. The wind has to push them." - R.F.

"When they aren't in the sky they are sleeping on the ground." - T.B.

One student even noticed that one patch of clouds looked different than the others, so we asked our students why do they think that happens?

"Because they are just different types of clouds. Those flat ones don't have any rain in them" - I.D.

"Maybe the wind made the cloud flat and it turned it into fog?" - L.D.

"Maybe the clouds disappear because it isn't fluffy anymore...they are becoming invisible." - A.M. 

Once back in our classroom, we decided to write about the clouds we saw and afterwards, incorporate some musical elements by creating our very own rain storm as a class. From a rain stick, stomping feet, sliding hands, "shhh" voices, knee slaps and other sounds effects (e.g. "Boom!" "Crash!"), we were able to perform the old tradition of a human rain storm. What better way to celebrate their student voice and observations?!

We truly can't wait to see where this new found inquiry takes us! From integrating art with the Group of Seven to science with examining weather and the water cycle, we are only scratching the surface as we begin our planning for this wonderful learning journey! Looking forward to sharing it with you!   

Curiousity is Natural

What a better way to awaken curiosity and spark a few questions then through a Nature Walk?

Throughout the first week of school, we wanted to provide our students with a range of opportunities that allowed them to use all of their senses, to learn through doing, as they explore the world of our classroom. Similarly, we felt it to be equally important to offer students the same opportunities using the outdoors! Yes, it was only the first week of school, but we felt it necessary to kick off the new school year with an exposure to what it meant to be an "explorer" and observe and make connections to our surroundings. Students need to experience the natural environment in order to fully appreciate its wonders, and as a team, my DECE and I discovered so much about our students as we documented our experience of our class' first Nature Walk!

"This is an 'ouch-ie' tree! I wonder why it has different leaves?" - T.B.

With our SK's taking the lead, our new JK's enjoyed the opportunity to experience the world outside of our classroom and many were able to share their prior knowledge, make connections, and learn from their new peers!  

"We found a spider web! It lives on the tree!" - C.M.

"It's a hole! I wonder if a snake lives down there?" - L.D.

"Pinecones like in our classroom! Why are they green?" - A.C.

"Look Ms. Schmidt and Ms. Theis! It's a naked tree!" - I.D.

"I think a woodpecker made this hole. He was trying to find food." - S.M.

"I can see our shadows in the water! Look!" - J.S.

"I see a water spider." - V.V.

Once back in the classroom, we decided to share our findings from our first Nature Walk through a Community Circle. I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to practice how to make our students thinking visible. In reference to my last post and the article "Making Thinking Visible" by Ron Ritchhart and David Perkins, my DECE and I decided to see how our students initially responded to the "See-Think-Wonder" approach. After my DECE and I modelled a response to the question "What did you see?", many students were able to articulate what they "saw" outside and, surprisingly, many were even able to expand their thinking by explaining using details, connections, and posing possible questions. We were amazed! We decided not to tackle the "I wonder" statement this time around, because we feel it is something students will naturally be exposed too upon more outdoor excursions and observations. We hope to continue making our students thinking visible through their self-reflection, writing, and drawing in the coming weeks and we can't wait to dig deeper into some of our findings! Stay tuned!    

Thinking About Thinking

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

- Plato

As the summer comes to an end and with a new school year quickly approaching, I find myself even more excited and inspired than the year before! After finally taking a leap into the "Twitterverse," I have truly realized that there is a whole new "digital staffroom" outside the walls of my school. This leap has lead me to follow new friends, gain new insights, and expand my own wonderings with people from around the world! Throughout the month of August, I found myself reading new blogs, articles and insights from fellow teachers which has helped shape my optimism for this upcoming year.

Specifically, and thanks to Joanne Babalis and the Great Beginnings FDK Team for creating and sharing a wonderful Wiki, I was able to use one of their posted articles to expand my own questions and knowledge around Inquiry. "Making Thinking Visible" by Ron Ritchhart and David Perkins (2008) has not only painted a picture for me of what it means to literally "make thinking visible" in a classroom, but it has also broken down the basics of what it means to create a "culture and community of thinkers" for students and for teachers. After having the wonderful opportunity this past year to attend one of our regional network meetings with my Administrator and other staff from my school, this experience helped set the stage for me with regards to how to "think about thinking." That being a loaded thought (haha), perhaps led me to connect so well with this article and truly get my mind on to what this can look like and sound like in my classroom this year.

"Effective thinkers make their thinking visible, meaning they externalize their thoughts through speaking, writing, drawing, or some other method." (p. 58)

What do you see?       What do you think about that?       What do you wonder? (p. 59)

Within the realm of documentation and by paying attention to the process behind the product,  these prompting questions will not only "stimulate curiosity and set the stage for inquiry" but they will also provide a foundation for learning that will allow children to make observations and utilize their thinking capabilities. For teachers, this means being able to capture student thinking throughout the process of learning and in turn, providing students with the necessary building blocks to expand their own knowledge. I look forward to sharing my experiences with this approach and any feedback or comments are welcomed!

Wishing everyone a wonderful start to the school year and creating a classroom space that fosters curiousity, inquiries and discoveries!