This week we started a new unit of inquiry. Our central idea is "Ecosystems contribute to life in many ways". It is a big handle for little kids to grasp. The word contribute is tricky and needs some acting to tease it's meaning out, and then there is that word - ecosystems. Our Kindergarten kids complete an inquiry unit about habitats, so we find that the children usually bring forward the knowledge of what is a habitat. This provides us a great foundation to expand their understanding into ecosystems, which are much more involved and to do with relationships and causal affects between living and non-living parts.
Once over the initial hurdle of introducing the central idea, we decided to use a strategy called "Think, Puzzle, Explore" from "Making Thinking Visible" by Ritchhart, Church and Morrison (2011). This is very similar to a KWL chart, but I think it better models the tentative nature of our knowledge through its three questions and it invites student voice into the unit.
1). What do I THINK I know about this unit?
2). What PUZZLES me about this unit?
3). What or how do I want to EXPLORE this unit?
We divided the class into 3 groups and placed an adult helper with each group (helpful for scribing with little ones). The groups then had 10 minutes to respond to the question on a poster. They then rotated so each child had the chance to respond to each question. I had found a picture diagram of an ecosystem. It was a simple line-sketch with no words of a deer in the woods, by a clearing, with bushes, grasses and trees, the sun and a rain cloud. There was even an underground river. The whole picture was marked with directional arrows between the elements. I placed this picture at the centre of each poster. I think the highlight of the lesson was when one lad, pointing at the picture, exclaimed, "But how does it all connect? How does it all go together?" - Now we were ready to begin.
Once over the initial hurdle of introducing the central idea, we decided to use a strategy called "Think, Puzzle, Explore" from "Making Thinking Visible" by Ritchhart, Church and Morrison (2011). This is very similar to a KWL chart, but I think it better models the tentative nature of our knowledge through its three questions and it invites student voice into the unit.
1). What do I THINK I know about this unit?
2). What PUZZLES me about this unit?
3). What or how do I want to EXPLORE this unit?
We divided the class into 3 groups and placed an adult helper with each group (helpful for scribing with little ones). The groups then had 10 minutes to respond to the question on a poster. They then rotated so each child had the chance to respond to each question. I had found a picture diagram of an ecosystem. It was a simple line-sketch with no words of a deer in the woods, by a clearing, with bushes, grasses and trees, the sun and a rain cloud. There was even an underground river. The whole picture was marked with directional arrows between the elements. I placed this picture at the centre of each poster. I think the highlight of the lesson was when one lad, pointing at the picture, exclaimed, "But how does it all connect? How does it all go together?" - Now we were ready to begin.
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