Unanswered Questions

I've gotten questions in the past about the icons, I think this link explains them all pretty well. They are symbols for ideas to get the kids thinking more in depth about what they are learning:

http://www.texaspsp.org/all/DepthComplexity.pdf

Anyway, one that seems very easy to incorporate is "Unanswered Questions"--however, with the little ones hardly anything is as easy as it appears! They are so used to us telling them everything they need to know about a topic or listening to the story and that's it--it's really a challenge for them to think about what information they weren't given.

I have posted before about using this site :
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3842331/  to get pictures to use in their warm-up activities before whole group reading instruction. (I wouldn't let the kids get on it themselves, they do sometimes have pictures from war or protests. However most of the pics are human interest, nature or kids/people from other cultures.) They give me complete sentences to describe what's going on-adjectives are encouraged. They might give me a title or the main idea.

I've also started using it to incorporate the Unanswered Questions. They are finally to the point now where they can switch gears between a question and a sentence. Sometimes they go for the easy ones-where is this taking place? But often they will use a why.  Why is this man rowing a boat through a building? I am also trying to get them to think about what may happen next. Anyway, I find it's an easy way to work on oral language/reading objectives and through in a little social studies with some depth and complexity at the same time! Talk about compacting curriculum! :)