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Wonderopolis is a wonderful site for nonfiction reading. Last year I used the site once a week with my students. I picked out the “Wonder,” and created a Wonder worksheet for the week that included other language activities. While this method worked well for me as a teacher, it wasn’t so great for my students. They enjoyed the site, but they hated the other activities. And why not, they were teacher-created. They became a burden to them rather than a learning tool.
This summer I was thinking about how to change this plan and still take advantage of the Wonderopolis site. I read this post by Tara Smith. She talked about choice. She gave her students a form to fill in with a Wonder of their own choice. What a great idea!
Last week I started classes with my gifted students. I introduced the idea of Wonder Wednesday and choosing their own Wonders. For my birthday (on Tuesday), Lani had given me a small rubik’s cube. One of my boys, Tobie, couldn’t stop playing with it. He decided his Wonder would be about how to do a rubik’s cube. He found the question on Wonderopolis! Then he watched a video. He got other students excited about learning. (I could say he distracted others with his enthusiasm.)
After watching the excitement spread, I decided to give my students the option to present their Wonder learning using technology. I will present different tools in the coming weeks: Piktochart, Canva, Emaze, Powtoon, Animoto. One presentation each nine weeks will be required.
Teaching a variety of grade levels has its challenges. Wonderopolis has given me a way to differentiate nonfiction reading, empower students through presentation, and generate enthusiasm for learning. Here is a link to my student form.
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Reflections on the Teche 
Oh, I can’t wait to see what your students come up with, Margaret!
I love your modification Margaret. It reminded me of Julie Johnson’s piece in Assessing Students’ Digital Writing Edited by Troy Hicks. Here’s link for a bit of her work: http://digitalis.nwp.org/resource/6280 Can’t wait to hear more about how this progresses in your classroom!
Thanks for the link to Julie’s synopsis. Is the book out yet?
It is! We’re planning to use at SDAWP for study groups this year.
Margaret, thanks for sharing your Wonder lesson and the link to Tara’s post. I look forward to hearing how your students are progressing with their wonders.
I’m getting to Celebrate posts late this weekend. Too many activities to celebrate and I’m getting ready for school. I’m planning Wonder Wednesdays too. I “wonder” if we could share our experiences as teachers (voxer?). By the way, your blog is going up on my reading door for students to see on Tuesday. You are a big part of my reading and writing life!
Text me a picture of your door. Makes me proud to be a part of your classroom. I just made a rubric. Would you like me to share it? Very simple. More like a checklist. I think this falls into writing about reading, don’t you?
Yes! I’d love that Margaret! Thank you!
And a yes to the text and a yest to the writing about reading!
[…] her poem asking her more about the Orionids. When she was looking for something to research for her Wonder of the Week, I suggested the meteor shower. Each week I have my students use Wonderopolis to read nonfiction and […]