We think...

We think we've figured out what type of tree the mystery leaves from my backyard came from. After some research on Friday everyone agreed that the green sphere and compound leaves came from a Black Walnut tree. There is still some disagreement though about the spiky ball. American Chestnut or Allegheny Chinkapin? What do you think?

We started doing some research on Monday about the Black Walnut based on an article we found. We reviewed strategies for reading non-fiction texts, which included: underlining with pencil, highlighting the most important parts, coding the text (connections, connections, I'm confused), and then note-taking/note-making. By only doing one paragraph at a time it seems less overwhelming. All of these skills will be critical once we choose our topics for the nature trail and are expected to conduct research independently.

Below you will see Karen's note-taking page from her Inquiry Notebook: