Researcher Jacques Cousteau

 We did a mini-inquiry about Jacques Cousteau.

We started the day by making predictions on the Morning Message out what this object was:

We had lots of questions:

After making lots of predictions and inferences about the photograph, we reviewed different sources where we could research for more information.  We added photos to our list of learning resources.  We reviewed the big question for our inquiry:

For our Jacques Cousteau mini-inquiry, we would be using books, PebbleGo, and photos as resources.  We talked about how to record important information on post-it notes.  Then we went off to figure out why Jacques Cousteau was so famous!

Some started by investigating photos.  They found lots of great information: matching diagrams and photos of inventions and ships.  They were able to infer quite a bit about Jacques Cousteau!

Others got right into PebbleGo. We learned how to pause a video in order to write down important learning.

Some chose to research in books.

Regardless of what sources they were using, Room 408 was busy recording their new learning about Jacques Cousteau. We had so much new learning!  Our brains were like sponges!

We are proud of our research!

We even inferred that Jacques likes to wear a red hat!

We got together after our research time for sharing our discoveries.

We were amazed at how much learning we did!

Here are two great books about his life.

We learned that he had a hope and dream to be able to breathe underwater and to discover more about the undersea world that he loved so much. This dream sounded impossible, but he eventually invented the Aqualung!

He also bought an old war boat and turned it into an exploring ship, and named it Calypso.

He went on to invent other wonderful ways to explore under the sea.

Even though his dreams seemed impossible, he didn't give up until each one became a reality.

Later he realized that people were harming the ocean with garbage and chemicals.  Jacques Cousteau decided to educate the world so everyone could help to preserve the waters in our world.

Here are some videos, if you'd like to learn more about Jacques Cousteau.

Essentially we understood why Jacques Cousteau was famous...

What a great example of inquiry in action!

Mrs. Henning is Stuck in Washington DC!

 My husband, daughter and I went to visit our son CJ who is in the Air Force on our long weekend. 

Unfortunately our flight back home on Sunday was canceled and we couldn't return until Tuesday! We took the opportunity to do some more sightseeing in Washington DC, but I had to get a substitute teacher.

Room 408 did some research on what I might be doing in Washington DC. Here are some things they researched:

The White House

The Washington Monument

The Lincoln Memorial

Abraham Lincoln

The Capitol (Do you see it in the background of the Washington Monument?)

I was even able to get a picture of a famous site that we will research in January....do you know who made a famous speech in this place?

Starting Genius Hour

 After we came up with wonders about our world for our Wonder Window...

...we decided on topics that we were really interested in. 

We each came up with a wonder that we could stick with. Here are a few!

Delilah is wondering about robots.

Thatcher is wondering about spiders.

Erika is wondering how clothes are made.

Quill is wondering about presidents.

Next we got to work and used sources like PebbleGo, books, and youtube videos to learn more about our topics.

Braxton was wondering about teachers. He put together some questions to interview an expert...he  interviewed me!

We wrote down any interesting facts that we learned about our topics.

When we were finished we recorded three of our favorite facts.

Our next step will be to create some kind of project to help us teach others about what we learned!

Personal Word Walls

 Each child in Room 408 has a Personal Word Wall filled with words we need to know in a "snap."

Words that each child can spell in a "snap" are highlighted on their Personal Word Wall.

A few times a week the student chooses a word to work on that is not highlighted.  S/he makes the word in a variety of ways in hopes of learning the word so s/he can access it in a "snap" when s/he is reading or writing.

Lydia makes 'like' with Wikki Stix.

Delilah makes 'I'm' with shells.

Asher checks his personal word wall to make sure he records 'before' correctly.

Mason makes 'on' with beans.

Quill makes 'we' with dominoes.

Thatcher makes 'have' with legos.

Declan uses the Word Wizard app to work on 'because.'

Then we take pictures to document our hard work.

The next morning 100% of the class could remember and spell their snap word correctly. Great job, Room 408! 🎉

We loved our Word Study time!