I am put off doing too much independent research with my little ones just because the time I have with them is short, and I just haven't' been brave enough to let them loose. But this year I am giving it a go.
Coming back from winter break and tackling it head on!! Our county has a research model that we have adopted called eWISE.
I made posters for the acronym at the beginning of the year to look nice and pretty but now it's time to put those babies to use.
I introduced the model with Wonder. I talked about how I wonder about things, like what do snakes eat, how many babies do kangaroos have, what are meerkats. Then I talked to students about where you find those answers. In the library! You can find them in the nonfiction books or the internet sites that our county pays for NCWiseOwl.
Here is the Wonder poster and Investigate poster I made to guide them.
This discussion of wondering lead to talking about how to find out the answers of my wonders. To find answers, we investigate.
How do we investigate, we read the text we found about our wonders.
After modeling how to do this, students were open to wonder about any animal they wanted using the Amazing Animals website we have at our school.
Then I had the kids read or investigate the text to find answers.
Students then Synthesize (the s in eWISE) by writing 4 facts about what they had read.
I was surprised how busy they were, were they really investigating and researching or were they still asleep from winter break...
I think they were learning. They used this print out I got free somewhere on Pinterest.
We stopped there because time ran out and I am trying to decide if we are going to do more with that they learned Express it (the e in eWISE) or if we are just going to continue to practice the act of researching??
Here are the posters and things I used if you want it!!!
What's new in your library or classroom?
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