Third Grade "Wonder" Projects

Have you heard of the website Wonderopolis?  Whether your a teacher, a parent, or a life-long learner, it's a fun site that provides answers to some of those questions we always wonder about.  One suggestion they give on the site is to create a "Wonder Jar" filled with some of their questions and some of our own.  This winter, the third graders wrote down some of the things they wonder about and we made our own Wonder Jar.  From there (or just from their own imagination) they chose a topic to explore - ranging from "Why do we have different colored hair?" to "How is stop-motion animation made?" and more.

We started with a great discussion about what makes a "meaty" topic.  This helped the kids pare down what they were considering.  In some cases, they were trying to choose topics that were too meaty or too abstract ("How was the world created?"), and in some cases their topics were too based on opinions rather than facts ("Why is Wisconsin the best state?").  I felt like they all ended up with great topics that were of high interest to them.

We spent some time learning about how to find good sources, how to decide if they were good sources, and how to cite them, and working on how to to take good notes.  I loved that the library skills integrated so organically into the makerspace project.  That has always been our goal.

Once they were done researching their topics (which took about a month), they had to decide what method to use to share their new information with their classmates.  Results ranged from low to high tech, from completely computer based to integrated with design projects in the makerspace.  Many of them decided they wanted to use the 3D printer to print a part of their project to be able to share something visual and tactile with their classmates.  It was great to see how creative and unique each end product was!