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!

Learning Mural Day!

 It's our first school day back together in November. That means we reflect on all the learning we did in October. Once again, we could hardly fit all our ideas on our easel!

We collaborated to create representations of our learning to put on our October learning mural.

Here is our finished learning mural!

Mystery Doug Art Project

 Last week we wondered about the bones in our bodies.

At the end of that week's Mystery Doug he taught us about an art project, so we decided to try it!

We followed directions to create a drawing of our hand and wrist bones.

Then we used oil to paint and fill in the bones.

Look how great they turned out!

Our First Learning Mural!

 On the first school day of each new month, we will reflect on our learning from the previous month.

Our brains are growing more than we realize!

First, when we do a learning mural, we brainstorm all the ways that our brains grew in the last month.  In this case, this is our brainstorm list of all the ways our brains grew in September:

We were amazed to see how much learning we have already done in just 21 days!!!

Next, we chose a topic to create, and invited someone to collaborate with us. We talked about our plan, first.

Then we work on that one topic and collaborate to create a representation of that learning, using the materials in our classroom.

We made a label to add to our projects to make our learning clear.

When we finished one project, we crossed that off the list and chose a new one.

We are going to watch a few short ant videos--even ants collaborate to get work done!

 Here is our first completed Learning Mural!

What has been your favorite part of learning so far this year?