Library Services: Elementary Units
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Inquiry Units
- Kindergarten - 1st grade Inquiry - Jobs
- Kindergarten Inquiry - Where in the World Are We?
- 1st Grade Inquiry - Colonial Times
- 1st Grade Inquiry - Discovering Where We Live
- 2nd Grade Inquiry - American Symbols
- 2nd Grade Inquiry - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
- 3rd Grade Inquiry - Rapid Changes to the Earth's Surface
- 3rd Grade Inquiry - Scientific Breakthroughs
- 4th Grade Inquiry - Native Texas
- 4th Grade: Notable Texans
- 4th Grade Inquiry - Slow Changes to Earth's Surface
- 5th Grade Inquiry - Energize
Investigate & Gather - Slow Changes to Earth's Surface

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Jarek Prokop / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)
Activities
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Lesson:
Gather questions from each station. Generate discussion that leads to researchable questions.
- Thin questions - These questions can often be answered quickly. These questions usually start with When? Where? Who? How many? We call these THIN questions because they don’t have a lot of meat to the answers.
- Thick questions - These questions take a little more effort and research to answer. You will often have to look in more than one resource to find a full answer. They can start with “Why do you think? What if? How would you feel? What might?. We call these THICK questions because they have more meat and filling to them.
- Help students determine which of their wonderings and questions are more researchable, and connect with the essential question how does wind, water, and ice cause change?
Students will return to the learning stations from Connect & Explore, with the addition of print and electronic resources to investigate and take notes on the research questions developed.

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This phase is intended to:
Allow students to develop question/s of personal interest and have time to gather relevant information to answer the question/s.
Key ideas:
- Encourage authentic questions (connected to real life, real world problems)
- Assist students in refining/revising questions (6th-12th)
- Encourage use of primary and secondary sources
- Note taking
- Cite sources
Resources
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Thick and Think Questions poster
Station visuals and task cards - remove hands-on activity, add in additional print and digital materials for each topic
eBook menu - available for librarians only, ask for access if needed (Librarians can publish menu and share via Seesaw or Google classroom)
Note-taking form - you will be forced to make a copy