It's a WONDER-ful Life!

As we take in the joy and wonder of the holiday season, I imagine how our children would benefit from a never-ending "season" of wonder. Wondering leads to meaningful exploration and questioning. Learning to ask meaningful questions is at least as important as finding the answers. The pursuit of finding the answers to one's questions often leads to deep, rich learning, and of course, more questions.

As we incorporate more opportunities for Personalized Learning, we are cultivating a culture of wonder for our students at Dryden. Some ways you may see this happening include students recording their thoughts in a Wonder Journal or posting and sharing them on a Wonder Wall. The Wonderopolis website (watch this video) is a great forum for children to explore and share their wonders.

Learning how to ask good questions requires instruction, practice and feedback. In order to ask good questions, we make students aware of the need to first have some understanding of the topic, perhaps even do a little "presearch". It is difficult to ask meaningful questions when we know nothing about the topic.

Children learn to ask questions of different "sizes". A "small" question focuses on factual information, a "medium" question may be more analytical in nature, and a "big" question will be more open-ended and focus on creative thinking and evaluating. Often, we have to ask and seek answers to many small questions in order to address a big question.

The following question stems are great ways to start "big" questions:

Might...?

Should…?
Would…?
Could…?

We can help our children strengthen their questioning skills by openly sharing our own questions and wonders and by encouraging them to share their own. By tapping into children's curiosities, we find their deepest sense of motivation to learn, think creatively and take on challenges. It truly is a WONDER-ful life!