Phase Two: Investigating
List of Driving Questions
We began the inquiry by sending home a project that they students worked on with their family. There were two parts to this. In the first part, the children had to use pictures, letters, words or sentences to write what they already knew about castles. In the second part of the project, the children had an opportunity to write down a list of questions regarding castles and medieval life.
Family Research Project Parent Note
Retelling Fairy Tales
Children began their fieldwork by reading Fairy Tales and non fiction books about castles. In Daily Five, one of the three ways to read a book is to retell a story. After reading several versions of the jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel, the children retold the stories by sharing the pen with the teacher and their classmates. They would have several opportunities to do this. Each day, one sentence is written until the story has been told. Each story took approximately two weeks to complete. The students completed this activity by renaming their story. For instance, Jack in the Beanstalk was renamed to, "Do you need an axe?".
This retelling is an example of Interactive Writing by Fountas and Pinnel. The process involves students working at different levels in their writing to retell a story in a group. When the children are sitting on the carpet for whole group instruction, each student takes a turn to write. What their writing looks like, depends up on their ability level. One child may just write the first letter of a word and the teacher would finish it. Another student might come up and write sight words independently. Altogether, the teacher is bringing to their attention appropriate spacing between words, left to right progression, punctuation and fluency. In the end, the final product is a collection of sentences written by the students in sequence to retell their own version of the story.
This retelling is an example of Interactive Writing by Fountas and Pinnel. The process involves students working at different levels in their writing to retell a story in a group. When the children are sitting on the carpet for whole group instruction, each student takes a turn to write. What their writing looks like, depends up on their ability level. One child may just write the first letter of a word and the teacher would finish it. Another student might come up and write sight words independently. Altogether, the teacher is bringing to their attention appropriate spacing between words, left to right progression, punctuation and fluency. In the end, the final product is a collection of sentences written by the students in sequence to retell their own version of the story.
Small Group Castle Research
Now and Then Activity
It started with questions regarding what kinds of games children played that lived in castles. It grew into what was life like then compared to now. We