How do we research?

Each morning I write a message on the board.  It could be a question, statement, or small activity.  Last Friday it was a question:  What do butterflies think?  We pondered this for a few moments before answering the question the best way we knew how.  There is no right or wrong answer to this question, but it helps put ourselves in someone else's mind frame.  While discussing this question, we came up with some of our own.  What do they eat?  Do they hibernate?  Can they talk to each other? Knowing the answers to these questions would help us answer the morning message.  That is when I heard the beautiful statement that would lead into the next week.

"I know... We could research it!"

The children referenced the research wall immediately, bringing back memories of Nema and all the questioning we did with her.  This got me excited for Monday.  

I started off Monday with, "tell me all you know about Nema."  This gave us a chance to relive our experiences and share it with the new children who were not a part of it.  In September we knew some things about her, but by January, we had a whole collection of information we could give to anyone who asked.  We spent time remembering our questions we didn't know the answers to early on.  We talked about questions.  What is a question?  How do you know it is a question?  What makes you think of one?  If I gave you a subject, could you ask a question to learn more about it?  

I showed the children a picture of the subject they were to ask questions about. Most of them knew it was a guinea pig.  I have talked about them before.  Within 10 minutes we had a list of questions longer than we got in a week with Nema.  We were surprised at how many questions we asked this time compared to September.  We must be getting better at it!

We then broke off into small groups and took time to write down our questions.

Do they have tails?  Why do they have stripes?

Where do they hibernate?

Do they run in circles?

What do they eat?

What do they do?

Do they shed their skin?

Where are their feet?

This is a guinea pig sitting in a lap?

Do guinea pigs drink milk?

Can guinea pigs go in people's laps?

Why do guinea pigs' tails look like rabbit tails?

This is a guinea pig.  Why do guinea pigs have floppy ears?

I am fortunate enough to have some guinea pigs at home, so we have subjects to research!  I plan on using them to help answer our questions.  Videos are a great tool to observe when the subjects are not with us.  And although I (and some children) may know about guinea pigs, even I could not answer some of the questions asked.  It is a chance for all of us to learn!