Wonder
The Wonder Stage:
This stage is one of the most important stages in the Inquiry process as it gives the children a chance to explore their own questions and wonders about a topic.
Here the children get an opportunity to form a list or to record the different questions they would like answers to, based on a topic related to their previous related knowledge and connections.
Children also get the opportunity to form predictions and hypotheses based on what they think they will happen when investigating their topic.
Finally children get the opportunity to research their questions further before going through investigations to explore their questions and predictions.
The importance of Wondering in the Primary School Classroom:
"wonder keeps our interest in the world alive, it makes us aware of the contingency of existing ways to understand or do things, stimulates our imagination and helps us to see alternative possibilities." (Wolbert & Schinkel,2021,p.443).
"the new understandings that are gained are unique to those students and to the connections that they make."(Stripling,2008,p.51)
The wondering stage is so important as it stimulates curiosity and encourages children to ask their own questions giving them a sense of control and ownership over their own learning.
Our Class Approach:
The main aspect we would focus on in this stage is encouraging the children in our class to ask their own questions based on the topic of rain, after exploring their previous related knowledge and connections with rain. ❓
We would do this by encouraging the children to look at the padlet they made on 'What they know about rain already' and brainstorm some of the questions they would like answers to or to write down what they have always wondered about rain.
We would then give the children out post its and encourage them to write down the question they want to explore the most. 📝
We would then allow the children to stick their post-it notes up on a large 'Class Wonder Walll', which will be displayed in the classroom. 🔖
We then would discuss the questions as a class and pick a question from the wall we could explore as a class on a monthly ot weekly basis.
Wonder Walls.
Our 'Precipitation' Wonder Wall.
An example of the class wonder wall the children could create when exploring percipitation.
Why did we Choose to Use Wonder Walls at this Stage?
The wonder wall shows all children that their questions are important and valued showing children the importance of exploring and investigating aspects they wonder about.
"The Wonder Wall fosters a community of wonder in an inquiry- based classroom." (Olah,n.d.,para.1)
Using a wonder wall allows children develop a sense of confidence in their questioning showing them that all their questions are valid and important.
It also allows children to discuss whether all their questions can be explored and whether they need to be adapted so as to make the inquiry classroom based noting the resources available to the class.
It also allows children to learn from each others questions and ideas as there may be something another student is wondering about that they are also keen to find out more on.
In the wondering stage children also get the chance to research their questions further, they have the chance to investigate how they will explore their questions, increase their background information around their questions and form methods to investigate their questions while forming hypotheses and predictions on what the results of their investigations/experiments will be.
'Heavy Rain' by (Walker,2021), is a relatable stimulus that we can show the children at the begining of the inquiry process to encourage their questioning and to get them excited about researching and exploring aspects of rain they may have never questioned before. 🎥
We would show children a short clip of this video for example the first 60 seconds. This video is footage of heavy rainfall in Dublin, we would use it as a stimulus to get the children wondering about rain and allowing them to feel excited about researching their questions based on this on the apps 'Epic Reading' and 'DK Find Out'.
This video is great for prompting children's questions as well as their connections associated with rain, as many children in the class will relate to this representation of' Irish Weather' and it allows them to examine it with more of a investigative lens.
Promoting their questioning, research and discovery through inquiry.
One of the ways by which we will promote the children researching their questions while also forming hypotheses based on the investigations they are conducting, is by using the "Epic" reading platform.
Epic reading examples.
Why did we chose epic reading as a resource in this stage?
Epic is a great research resource for children. It is a complete digital library of children's books, it offers a range of choice to children in which they can compare and discuss a variety of information in lots of different texts based on their choosen topic. It is also a great tool for students to find information fast and for children who like to learn aurally, as it allows children to listen to the variety of texts they may be exploring and comparing when investigating their research projects.
"Epic makes listening to and reading books incredibly appealing."(Ryan,2019)
Wide Range of texts
Fiction and Non fiction texts
Great for finding factual information on a variety of topics.
Books can be listened to or read.
Children can work together in groups to explore the same or different books.
We would also allow students to use online resources such as DK Findout as it gives children scientifically accurate information, which is displayed in simple language for the children to make sense of and build on.
The Following Links are examples of what the children might use on "DK FindOut" to learn more about their questions and to form hypothesis of the results they could get from these investigations:
What was our reasoning for choosing 'DK Findout' to use with our class?
Dk find out is a search tool which allows children to find factual information in a fun and interesting format based on a range of topics.
It gives the children factual information on a range of topics in simplistic language.
It provides children with quizzes, visual represenatations, fun facts, videos, books and much more which allow children to explore and access accurate information about a wide range of topics in a variety of ways.
It is also extremely useful as a planning resource for teachers, as it provides a range of planning ideas and a great way to recap a lesson or an overall point when finishing up a unit of inquiry for the day.