Wonderopolis in the Classroom

Wonderopolis is a great tool to use for brainstorming, generating class discussion, or to us as a lesson starter. I use Wonderopolis to expose my students to high interest, attractive and accurate informational text on a daily basis.  In our classroom we use the Wonderopolis website to begin our day. Students come in to find a new wonder each morning on the board, when they read the wonder they think about it and write what they believe the answer is on a sticky note and stick it on the board.

I also have students that use the IPAD during the day and they tweet their answers to Wonderopolis, when students do this Wonderopolis is very good about responding. This gives students a real world audience and lets them know that the work they do each day truly matters. Here is a picture of our classroom Twitter board.

Wonderopolis in the morning is completely student led, I have a student who we call "Mr. Wonder" who reads the entire article to the class, answers questions the students may have, and go over the "Wonder Words" that are listed in the article. Here is a video of Chase in action.

To go further, if students are at the classroom "WONDER table" and have a wonder they want to ask about I will allow them to tweet to Wonderopolis so they can get a response. 

Also, I use a sheet that I got from Teachers Pay Teachers at the center for students to learn and acquire content- rich words, use main idea and supporting details, and write down any questions they may have from the wonder of the day.