Nurturing kids' natural ability to question

One day, a student and his dad arrived in class with a little package. It turned out to be an empty nest they had found in their garden. My students eagerly gathered around it to see it up close.

"What if the mummy bird is still looking for it?" one worried boy asked. They all looked at me but I shrugged and kept inspecting the nest.

I was thinking about the lesson ahead and decided to shelf it. Long division could wait. The Grade 3s were learning about natural structures and this was a perfect chance to let inquiry flow.

 I Step Back, 

 They Move Forward.

We then used SEE THINK WONDER, an often used, yet simple and powerful tool to organize our thoughts.

By now, my Grade 3s are readily able to identify HOT and LOT questions  (higher/lower order thinking).
Their sheets filled up with their wondering. I noticed there were quite a few

Why...
What if...
I wonder why...

Here is our attempt at building a birds nest, Beijing National Stadium,  China.

As each group read out their questions, we slightly tweaked the Why Do You Say That routine to Why Do You Ask That? It worked really well for this particular question:

A: "Why did you ask that?"

B: "I asked that because the bird could have built a bigger more spacious nest. Also, small birds could build big nests and big birds could build small nests!"

A: "Why does it need a lot of space? "

B: "Would you like to live in cramped conditions?"

C: "But the nest's purpose is to keep the eggs warm! Too much space would allow air to flow in between and this would cool them.
A: "They might roll against each other and the eggs could then crack."

Back and forth they went. I love the fact that the student who asked the last question was undaunted because he genuinely felt that the size of the bird was not related to the size of the nest.

We then proceeded to sort out questions into concepts just to see where we were headed with our inquiry. The students sorted the questions without any help from me. They were spot on! Their discussions helped me understand what they understood about conceptual questions.

Since there was hardly any "Change" questions, I challenged them to come up with some.

"Is the nest strong enough to last another year for the next batch of eggs?"

Which led to, " Does a bird use the same nest or build a new one?"

"Why do nests have different shapes?"

"What would a bird do if her nest was destroyed but she still needed it for her eggs? "

With these questions burning in their minds, the students are now revved up and determined to find out more.

Cultivate ignorance instead of fearing it. Firestein S. (2012)