One of my favorite things about teaching is the "teachable moments" that often bring about an unexpected lesson/learning. A few times a week, we begin our morning with our "Wonder Journals". I have found an amazing site called "Wonderopolis" that posts a video each day that we can wonder about. When the students walk in the door, the first thing they see is a picture projected on the board. They sit down and draw/write all of the things that this picture makes them wonder about or the questions that the picture makes them think of. During our morning meeting, we watch the short Wonderopolis video that goes along with the picture and see if any of our questions have been answered or if we have more questions after watching the video.
Last week, the students began their day with a picture of a little girl blowing bubbles. They came up with quite a few wonders and questions such as "How do bubbles work?", "Why is the girl blowing bubbles?", "How do bubbles float?", etc. Following this discussion, we watched the Wonderopolis video entitled "Why Do Bubbles Float?". We learned a lot of new information about how bubbles and the bubble wands work. This got the students extremely interested in making their own bubble wands. This also brought about a "teachable moment" that I jumped right on. During Choice Centers, we put out many different items and let the students create their own bubble wands. I was blown away with the ideas they came up with and how closely they had listened to the video. They took the ideas from the video and engineered their own wands. It was awesome to see how creative they were!
We lucked out with a beautiful day on Monday, so we made our own bubble mixture using water, dish soap, and corn syrup. We gathered up our wands and took them outside to see which ones worked and which ones did not. Believe it or not, most of them worked! What an awesome teachable moment that resulted in amazing discussions and excitement from all!
Here is the link to the Wonderopolis video if you'd like to watch it: "Why Do Bubbles Float?"
Here are some of the pictures from this learning adventure:
Last week, the students began their day with a picture of a little girl blowing bubbles. They came up with quite a few wonders and questions such as "How do bubbles work?", "Why is the girl blowing bubbles?", "How do bubbles float?", etc. Following this discussion, we watched the Wonderopolis video entitled "Why Do Bubbles Float?". We learned a lot of new information about how bubbles and the bubble wands work. This got the students extremely interested in making their own bubble wands. This also brought about a "teachable moment" that I jumped right on. During Choice Centers, we put out many different items and let the students create their own bubble wands. I was blown away with the ideas they came up with and how closely they had listened to the video. They took the ideas from the video and engineered their own wands. It was awesome to see how creative they were!
We lucked out with a beautiful day on Monday, so we made our own bubble mixture using water, dish soap, and corn syrup. We gathered up our wands and took them outside to see which ones worked and which ones did not. Believe it or not, most of them worked! What an awesome teachable moment that resulted in amazing discussions and excitement from all!
Here is the link to the Wonderopolis video if you'd like to watch it: "Why Do Bubbles Float?"
Here are some of the pictures from this learning adventure: