Wonderopolis Trifold

I'm sitting at the computer, working on my end-of-year slideshow (which is already very long and a fraction of the way complete), and falling asleep. So, why not head over to blogger and write a post, I tell myself...makes sense!

I had been meaning to write this post for a couple of weeks. It's not like I've been busy with piles of grading, lesson planning, and year end tasks! This will really be a short post as the photos will be explanation enough.

All year long I have been following Wonderopolis on my news feeder. {Quick aside...I was a loyal Google Reader user until they announced that they will be ending the service this July. I tried out Feedly and I LOVE LOVE it!} I knew that I wanted to use Wonderopolis in my classroom, but didn't get around to creating something until this quarter. Last month I took a district PD course on CCSS ELA - specifically close reading. In this class we had to analyze text for complexity. While I am still not  totally comfortable gauging exemplar text, I have a better understanding of it. The Wonderopolis posts that I have read are clearly complex text! Perfect!

I started by making a one page sheet with a Frayer Model graphic organizer and tried it out. Insert "wah-wah-wah" deflated sound here. It wasn't anything special. Then I started fiddling around with placement and inspiration hit! Why not a trifold brochure type page?! It's perfect for students to fold and be able to fit in that limited table space next to the computer keyboard. Plus they can focus on each task and not be distracted by the other tasks in the trifold.

We used Wonder of the Day #935 (Who Wrote the Pledge of Allegiance?) for our first go. Here is a shot from a few different students' work. You can get an idea of what they did for each of the 6 tasks.

 

 Great question! Also - hilarious spelling of astronaut! ;)

 Obviously students would get better at using the trifold every time, but I was pretty impressed with their first try. We are still working on our second one, question #873, What is a Solar Storm? There are so many wonders on a variety of topics, they are almost at question #1000! I WONDER what that one will be?

Did I mention that my trifold is free? Totally FREE? Well it is! Go get it!