Animals Preparing for Winter... The WONDER Stage

 We went for a fall walk last week and saw many squirrels and chipmunks scurrying around up and down the trees and heard geese honking overhead.  We observed that most of the trees were now bare and felt that the air was cooler now as well.

When we returned to school the children were so excited and filled with questions about all the observations they had made.  That afternoon it sparked a wonderful discussion of 'wonders.'  We talked about what we saw on our walk and talked about how the weather is changing and getting colder and wondered if the animals knew that winter would be coming soon.  
Here are some of their wonders:

Now we needed to try to find some of the answers to our wonders.  We brainstormed some places people can look for information to answer  questions.  This is what we came up with:

We also found out the YouTube has some great, REAL videos showing how animals prepare for winter.

The next day we brought in many books to support some of their questions.
Here are a few:

We had a mix of fiction and nonfiction and the children already notice the differences in the two types of books. 
We also pulled up several videos on geese, squirrels, and bears and bats which the children really enjoyed.

Stay-tuned for more progress on our inquiry project.