Help students make connections by teaching thematically
One of the best ways to get students to buy-in to a new unit is to get them engaged right away with a “hook” activity. A hook activity is designed to get students curious about a topic and get them to want to learn more. Below, I’ve listed three of my favorite ways to get students interested in a new area of study and get them asking burning questions that they can’t wait to find out the answer to.
Hook idea #1: The KQO Activity
Gallery Walks are one of my favorite ways to introduce a new unit. In my classroom, we call gallery walks KQO activities.
K- Knowledge 🧠
Q- Questions ❓
O- Observations 🔍
At the beginning of a unit, I give students a piece of paper with images, charts, and maps that are relevant to the topics that students will be studying. Political cartoons, advertisements, and primary sources can also be great for older students. Then, the images are passed around the room at 30-60 second intervals. Sometimes I have them posted around the room to get kids up and moving. Students use pencils (or dry erase markers if I have laminated the papers) to record what they already know about the images, what they wonder, and things that they notice in the margins.
Why I love this activity:
It helps activate prior knowledge. Kids love to tell you what they know. This gives them an opportunity to be a know-it-all without interrupting the class.
It helps them make connections. Students will often recognize that there are patterns as the sheets go by throughout the activity and are eager to go back and look at them all together when the activity is over. The pages stay posted throughout the unit and kids are excited when they finally learn about something that they saw a picture of on day one.
It creates curiosity. When kids see images that they don’t recognize, they want to learn more. They often turn images that they find intriguing into research questions later in the unit.
It gets students up out of their seats and is an easy ice breaker. Kids are thinking, talking, and participating right away.
It can be easily adapted for any unit.
Check out my KQO Activity for Ancient Civilizations.
Hook Activity #2: Inquiry Envelopes
A great way to create curiosity and active prior knowledge at the beginning of a unit are Inquiry Envelopes. Students slowly learn small bits of information about a topic and try to find connections between them.
Step 1: Students are given an envelope with 4-5 images related to their topic. Individually, they answer the following question:
Make a prediction about your topic based on the images found in your envelope. What do you notice? What do you already recognize?
Step 2: With their groups, they collect the images and answer the question: Share your images with the other members of your group. What information can you gather based on the collective images?
Step 3: Students look in their envelopes and find several pieces of text. These usually include important people, places, vocabulary words, and fast facts. At the beginning of the year, I provide the descriptions and definitions, but as the year progresses, I have them use their textbook skills to look up the information. Individually, they answer the following question: Read the pieces of text that you have in your envelope. What additional information have you learned? Are you noticing anything that the people, places, facts, words, or images have in common?
Step 4: With their groups, they collect the information and answer the question: Share your pieces of text with the other members of your group. Are you noticing anything that the people, places, facts, words, or images have in common?
Step 5: create a list of THICK (open ended) questions about the words or images that you would like to investigate further.
Why I love this activity:
It gives students bite-sized chunks of information that are easy to digest.
It gives students a lot to talk about. They have to teach one another and work together to make connections between their topics.
Students have to think critically when they try to make connections and see patterns between the items in their envelope.
It creates a sense of anticipation. Everyone loves opening a mystery envelope!
The images and pieces of text can be used to create posters that students can use to teach other groups about their topic.
I have several inquiry envelope activities as a part of my Classical Civilizations Thematic Unit.
Hook #3 Inquiry Stations
Want to create curiosity and anticipation at the beginning of a unit? Try inquiry stations.
Students travel to different stations in groups with a simple graphic organizer to record keywords that they learn and write down the questions they have or fast facts that they learn.
Instead of diving into a research project knowing nothing, students learn a little bit about a lot of different topics, so they can build background knowledge and also discover what interests them. Then, they can create a research question that they are excited to learn more about.
Station 1: Textbooks. I find that the textbook is a great place to start researching. It has well organized, kid-friendly writing with plenty of pictures and captions.
Station 2: Classroom Library. Before an inquiry station, I pull off books from my shelves about the topic and head to my school library. If you don’t have much there, your local library is a great place to find more books to temporarily add to your collection.
Station 3: Wall Materials. I put up posters, timelines, pictures, and word wall cards that stay up throughout the unit. These are excellent places to find bite-size pieces of information that leave students wondering and wanting to learn more.
Station 4: Websites. I create a folder in our learning management system with links to websites that are age appropriate about the topic.
Don’t have access to the materials for all of these stations? Printing out handouts or even short sentences and images about different topics and posting them around the room works too!
As they move from station to station, students write down keywords along with questions and fast facts about them. When the activity is completed, they have a long list of potential research topics for their project.
Why I love this activity:
It gets students up and moving.
It exposes students to all different kinds of resources. When they go to do a more detailed research project, they’ll already know where to look.
It helps students identify patterns. They understand that if the same key words and people show up at multiple stations, they are probably worth writing down.
It is a great jumping off point for research projects. If they get stuck on an idea, they can always look back at their inquiry station paper for more ideas.
These are a few of my tried and true methods for getting students interested and invested at the beginning of a unit. What methods do you like to use?
