Inquiry+Units

=Inquiry Units=

St. Agnes is being to use inquiry units as a way for students to learn science and social studies. In inquiry learning, students are presented with essential questions or a problem, and then challenged (through teacher guidance and student research) to come up with a solution or answers to the questions. These units are a great way to connect reading to science and social studies. It also makes learning come alive and teaches students to use practical problem solving skills.

//**Animals**//
We have been studying different features of animals and putting them into categories: mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, and invertebrates. Each student is researching a different animal in science class and writing a report in English class. We are going to take our reports to computer class and type them! Our reports will be published into a book using StudenTreasures - we will have a published class book and each student can purchase a copy.

//Communities//
We studied communities in social studies this fall. We learned differences between urban (city) and rural (country) communities by making mini books and reading __Country Dog, City Dog__ to find examples of these places. We discussed what materials people use to build houses and we built our own out of milk cartons. Students thought about where they should place their house on our city map. Click here to see pictures of the houses we built with our 7th grade buddies. Then we watched a youtube video of Chicago neighborhoods and thought of all the places that we know in Little Village. We learned important vocabulary words to describe these places and read books to figure out what workers work there.

//Culture//
In December and January, we are studying different cultures through literacy. We read books by Tomie dePaola that were about different cultures like Native Americans, Italians, Irish, and Japanese, and discussed differences in their food, customs, and clothing. We also compared and contrasted how different cultures celebrated Christmas or other winter holidays, and we went on a field trip to The Museum of Science and Industry's Christmas Trees from Around the World exhibit. Below is a picture of us in front of the Guatemalan and Indian(?) trees. Next we studied folk tales and Jan Brett, which introduced us to cultural stories from Denmark, Norway, and Costa Rica, just to name a few. We incorporated artwork into the unit and learned to draw Hedgie and a chick from Ms. Brett's books. ==

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