WEBVTT

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If your Wonder Wall is just a pretty
bulletin board where students' questions

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go to die, you're not alone, but
you're missing a golden opportunity.

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So often I go into classrooms filled with
beautiful displays, anchor charts, and

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word walls, and yes, wonder walls too.

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But when I ask students often about those
questions posted there, they usually say

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something like, that's where we put out
questions and we don't know something,

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or those are the things we wonder about.

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But what I never see is what's, or
at least what's never visible to

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me at least, is where anything ever
happens to those questions, and it

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takes me back to my floor books.

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Because in my classroom I used
floor books inspired by Dr. Claire

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Warden and you can hear about them
in the interview I did with her.

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I'll leave a link in the show notes for
you to revisit that one, because just

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like a Wonder Wall, I would capture
children's wonderings, but then those

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wonderings would be turned into PLODS
or possible lines of development.

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They would become anchors for
our inquiry and our learning.

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Wonder walls should really be similar.

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They should be more than just
decoration and wallpaper.

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They should be the spark, the fuel
for deep, authentic learning, but

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too often they're just wallpaper.

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What's the difference between
a wonder wall or a learning

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wall you might be thinking.

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Well, a wonder wall is really
a space for children generated

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questions, curiosity questions,

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I wonder statements.

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A learning wall, on the other
hand, is a visual representation

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of the learning journey.

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It's co-constructed.

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It has vocabulary goals, anchor
charts, and evidence of understanding.

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The problem is that most
wonder walls are passive.

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Questions go up, nothing comes down.

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Kids stopped caring.

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The solution, is to
activate the Wonder Wall.

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To use it as a launchpad for inquiry-based
learning, a modeling session, if you

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will, to model the inquiry process.

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You choose one or two questions
a week to explore deeply.

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In my interview with Tonya Gilchrist,
I'll link to it in the show notes too.

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She spoke about exactly how we honor
students wonder questions without

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going off track and derailing
our entire learning process.

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Tonya suggested you just choose one or
two questions from that Wonder Wall to

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explore for a short time every week.

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So you put aside some time and you
explore and you do a mini inquiry

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into one or two of those questions.

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But you might be thinking
this is a waste of your time.

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I've got so much to get through.

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But don't forget, inquiry skills
are a part of the curriculum.

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These wonderings and your modeling
and your guided inquiry teaching

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is meeting curriculum goals.

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To really make Wonder Walls an
authentic part of your teaching where

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you honor students' curiosity, you
really need to make, revisiting those

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questions part of your weekly routine.

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Reflect with the children on what
you've learned and what's still unknown.

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Here are some tips for making
wonder walls meaningful.

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So firstly, I think you
have to make them dynamic.

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They can't just go there to die.

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It's not a graveyard of
children's wonderings.

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You've gotta move those questions
maybe into a different zone,

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like an investigation zone.

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You've gotta celebrate the questions
that you've answered and make sure

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that those answers are also displayed.

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You know, I think that many of us like
our classrooms to feel aesthetically

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pleasing, and we often don't like
messiness, but learning is messy.

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It isn't neat and linear
and straightforward.

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So find a way that you can
display students' answers and the

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process of finding out, that suits
you and honors your students.

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And now that that Wonder Wall
isn't just dead wallpaper anymore.

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It becomes a living part of learning
where children not only have their

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curiosity valued, but also fueled.

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If you're thinking about what your next
inquiry unit should be about, well just

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look at your wonder wall for inspiration
to plan your next integrated unit of work.

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Or it may be that spark
for your learning wall.

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These are the kinds of topics
I talk about in my weekly

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newsletter called Get Curious.

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If you want to get onto my email list,
go to go.bloomingcurious.com/getcurious,

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and once you get into that page,

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you can see what some of the people on my
subscriber list think of the newsletter.

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I hope as you go forward this week,
you'll look and go over to your

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Wonder Wall and take out one or two
of those wonderings and turn them into

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short guided inquiries to get your
children's curiosity juices flowing.

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'cause after all, isn't that what
learning is really all about?

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So, put some time aside and get those
curiosity juices flowing and model

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to children exactly how you go about
looking for answers to questions.

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I'll see you next week,
same time, same place.

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Until then, stay blooming curious,
and take care of yourself.