I have a confession. Today during literacy, we did not follow the mini-lesson I had originally planned or have guided reading groups or work on our Academic Vocabulary or practice our Words Their Way spelling words. So, what did we do?… A mini-inquiry study! As you may know, last night a meteor entered our atmosphere and landed in Michigan. The meteor was observed in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Canada It is also believed to have caused an earthquake last night in Michigan measuring 2.0 on the Richter Scale! This was WAY too cool to overlook (Yes, I have a fascination with all things related to space!) A meteor had practically fallen into our backyards! We had no choice but to seize this opportunity to practice inquiry! For two hours this afternoon, we watched footage of the meteor and read about it from the National Weather Service. All the while we were practicing our questioning skills. Throughout each slide, caption, article, and video watched, the students wrote down questions. They then grouped their questions into categories. Then together we found common categories as a class and determined which of our questions best fit in the categories. The categories the students came up with were Causes, During, Effects/Impact, Description, and Compare/Contrast. I could not believe the high levels of critical thinking that I witnessed. Every student was engaged and having meaningful conversations. I cannot wait to dive into our disaster research project next week. These kiddos are inquiry pros! Below are some photos of my fabulous 4th graders thinking!
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Have fun following our fabulous 4th grade journey! Important Dates
August 22nd- First Day!
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