I put up the research wall before school started because I knew we would need a respected space to store our thoughts. This could be about anything. When Nema came, I took advantage of the great opportunity to introduce the importance of the wall. Initially, I am encouraging the children to use the wall as I delegate how to organize that space, but down the road I am hoping to take the lead from the children as they showcase their research- whatever it may be.
As a classroom, we prepared ourselves for the open house and the fact that people were coming to view our work. When families came around, one of the tasks was to check out the wall and read it. This was very important for the children to see. Their research was valued, respected, and appreciated. The research wall is not a space to throw things at, draw on, or be "silly" with as it is a respected space. Our hard work is showcased there and it will continue to grow.
We have managed to answer our initial questions, so I will pose my ideas to the children about what we would like to add. We still have half a wall left. Should we continue with toads or move on to another subject?
Below are some examples of our interactive questions. I also added some links to videos we found to help answer our questions. We can't always observe these things in nature (or in our classroom tanks), so luckily the internet was there for us.
If you're looking for a slow-motion video to catch what actually happens, try this. It is a toad eating some lightning bugs. The ending was our favorite part because someone turned the lights off and you see the toad's lit up stomach!
This question, along with how the toad jumps led to quite the game of charades. Here is a simple video that showcases toad found in someone's pool.
We would often see Nema in a hole in the dirt, but never saw how she got there. We since have seen it, but this is the video that helped us answer the question of how she digs. The music was quite entertaining!
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