Response to Inquiry-based Learning

Inquiry-based learning has been a hot topic at my company lately. We are striving to meet teachers' needs in this aspect. I find it challenging to think of things to offer teachers. I write magazines for Pre-K and Kindergarten students. What kind of inquiry-based activities can you offer such young children when your only medium is print? If I was teaching one of these grades, I think I'd find it easier to tackle, because I'd have access to tools, technology, and other materials. We've tried including online lesson plans that we, at least, attempt to be inquiry-based. Some examples include measuring the speed of the wind using a home-made anemometer and the penny experiment mentioned back in my earliest post. It's a work in progress, I suppose.

When I was in 5th grade I was invited to be part of a class called Academically Talented, or AT. Though I didn't know what it was called at the time, we were learning through inquiry. One project that stuck out in my mind above all others was one in which I had to "build a house." Each student had to choose a scenario. Most of the kids chose the scenario that had a family with the doctor-lawyer couple with one kid and loads of money. I chose a family whose father was a mechanic, the mother a home maker, and they had three children. I wanted a challenge(I guess I also may have chosen it because this family was my family exactly minus one sibling.)I had a budget. I knew how much each square foot of the home would cost. I had to design the house on graphing paper with enough room for the whole family. I had a separate budget for furnishings. I had to find furniture that actually existed (I looked through the J.C. Penny catalogue). Again, I stayed within my budget. This was my first experience with money management and having to make smart choices with how I spent the money. It was one of my favorite school projects as a child.

In my school library I see inquiry-based learning playing out in several ways:
1. I'd want to teach students how to think critically about the information they encounter on the Internet. I might send them to Save the Pacific Northwestern Tree Octopus or Squeez Bacon and give the students activities or guiding questions that will help them to come to their own conclusions about what these web sites are actually all about.

2. I love reading Philippa Gregory novels, as may be apparent from my reference to the White Queen twitter page in an earlier post. But after I've read one of her novels I often wonder how much of it was true and how much was made up -- because, let's face it, crazy stuff happens in those stories! I like to look at other works, films, web sites, etc, and see where I can find commonalities and decide for myself what really happened and what was made up. Okay, I know that's not too scientific, but it's only for my own enjoyment.
In a school setting, I can imagine inviting a book club group to do something similar with any historical fiction (with more hard evidence, of course). After reading a work of historical fiction, I'd invite each student to find and show proof of three events that were based on fact and three events that were most likely made up by the author. Depending on their ability level, I may guide them to the right places to do this research, but ultimately it would be up to them to figure it out. This kind of activity could tie in Historical Thinking by encouraging students to look through primary sources, when available.