You Are Never to Old to Wonder or Visit the Zoo!

As I mentioned in my Flame Run post, our family had an amazing weekend in Louisville as we walked around the Louisville Zoo. As we entered the zoo, each family was given a wonder card that we had to find the answer.  Here is our card to the right. Automatically our family, remembering our children are 19 and 21 were on a mission to find the answer.  All of a sudden our family was talking and thinking about this question. This was interesting to me because of one focused question we were all discussing our ideas for the answer instead of talking about another topic. Typically for our family would be talking about what we wanted for lunch?  We didn't find the answer on the signs that we read around the primate area, but we were lucky enough to ask the assistant keeper to find out our answer.  I am not going to tell you just in case you want to WONDER and search for yourself.

Meet our new friend-he EATS a lot.

I had never really extended my WONDER outside my classroom and with a few simple ideas I learned that WONDER is everywhere. The transfer back to the classroom would be to choose a wonder of the day at Wonderopolis and discuss it with the class.  Instead of asking students to reflect on what they learned, ask them what they continue to wonder about?  Have them write the "extended" wonder on an index card and post the cards on a bulletin board.  I would probably do this for an introduction to a a new unit for example life science.  I might show Wonder # 47 Why Do Leaves Change Color in Autumn? Then as I teach the unit we would try and find the answers to their wonders. If we still had index cards that were not answered at the end of the unit then we would work together to search for the answers. Building wonder throughout your whole day is WONDERful!