Lower-Middle-Upper School Investigation

For a variety of reasons we've had several older Stab visitors in our classroom this school year, and my class is always completely enamored with our visitors.  One day an upper school visitor walked in and the kindergartners rattled off about 20 questions for her in less than 5 minutes - all about things they wondered about her life in the Upper School. Clearly, they were interested in finding out more! 

Since the beginning of a school year in a brand new building is a perfect opportunity for learning more about the people and spaces around you...AND because of their unquestionable curiosity surrounding this topic, our Lower-Middle-Upper school was born.
First we built our schema and a collective sense of enthusiasm for our topic by sharing things we already think/know about the divisions.  

Our beginning of the year literacy focus (comparing versions of Goldilocks stories) had especially interested and excited this group of kindergartners, so I decided to build our investigation around the related idea of comparing and contrasting.  Throughout our investigation we used the big question of "What's the same and what's different?" to guide our explorations.

In order to be able to compare and contrast parts of our school, we first needed a better understanding of what was right around us in the Lower School.  So, we headed off with clipboards in hand to document what we noticed. 

Later we revisited our documentation to share ideas and create a master list of places in the Lower School.

Now that we better understood what was around us, we were ready to learn more about the Upper School.  We prepared questions for our weekly visitor Hannah... 

And she was gracious enough to come and answer all our questions.  Each kiddo got a chance to ask our Upper School expert their preselected question, and the interview process was such a meaningful moment to grow their skills for taking turns, listening, and being-patient.

As we reflected on many of the things we had learned, we realized that sometimes questions lead to answers...which lead to even more questions.  Check out the sticky notes filled with all their new wonders!

Since Hannah wasn't scheduled to come back right away, we used our chart of "Ways to find answers" to help us figure what other steps we could take to discover more.  

The Internet didn't produce a lot of answers for us, but it did give us access to some pictures of the Upper School.  We looked closely at the photos, made some new discoveries, but still had many burning questions.

So, we hopped aboard a school bus and headed out to see for ourselves.  Sometimes it's amazing how much you can discover simply by using your eyes and ears and brain to look around, listen, and think.  It also helped that Ms. G (who used to work at the upper school) was our tour guide during our visit!

Throughout our tour we continually stopped to look around and ask/notice "What's different and what's the same about the Upper and Lower schools?"  

Such curious and eager little explorers!!

Since much of our real learning happens through reflection, I paired the kiddos up to reflect on their visit and record things they noticed that were the same and different about the Lower and Upper Schools.

Then we compiled all their ideas into a master list.  WOW!!  Clearly they were engaged and paying attention!

As a way to again encourage the kindergartners to reflect on their visit/discoveries, I challenged them to create an A to Z book all about the Upper School. We got SO close to coming up with something for every letter!

I'm always on the lookout for moments to activate kindergartners' critical thinking muscles, and questions with no right or wrong answers are such a perfect way to do that.  We used the Tug Of War thinking routine to tackle the big question - What's better...the Lower School or the Upper School?  This type of activity is such a great way to give kindergartners important practice forming an opinion, sharing their thinking, listening to other's thoughts, and even consolidating information they've heard into their own thinking - such big skills for such little people!

With almost all of our Upper School wonders answered, it was time to head over and explore the Middle School...

The more you know, the more questions you have...so we easily filled a page with questions for our Middle School expert.

My 5th grade daughter helps out in our classroom most mornings, so she was more than happy to pop over and share some answers.  We kept track of the information we learned during her visit so we could revisit it later in preparation for a final project.  

I was beginning to sense that the kiddo's enthusiasm for our investigation topic was waning, so I knew it would be important to wrap it up soon. 

One of our kindergartners had recently discovered the book Same Same but Different in our classroom library. She excitedly told us all about it, which inspired a few more friends to listen to the story one afternoon...ultimately inspiring all of us to brainstorm, write, and illustrate our own Same Same but Different book all about STAB.  

I LOVED that the book pushed our thinking about the concepts of same and different to an even higher level, and it was a perfect way to remember and reflect on so many of the discoveries and connections we had made along the way.  

Like any investigation, the content is never really the point.  It's all about the process and about the skills developed along the way! Through our exploration of the Lower-Middle-and Upper schools we learned how to notice, how to wonder and articulate our questions, how to find answers to our questions using our own eyes and ears and brain, the internet, experts, and field visits, how to grow new questions out of recent discoveries, and how to make our learning visible via pictures and webs.  

Additionally, we strengthened our higher level thinking skills by structuring the investigation around the guiding concept of same and different. And, we also built a sense of community among our kindergarten investigators and with our larger STAB school community as well. 

However, arguably the most important thing we did with this investigation was set the stage for a school year filled with purposeful and JOYFUL learning.  Our world is full of meaningful learning opportunities just waiting to be discovered.  Based on the excitement we felt during the first investigation, I have a sneaky feeling it's going to be a WONDERful year :)