Inquiry Teapots.. Indo Style

So earlier this year @dwyerteacher from Japan asked me if I’d like to receive an Inquiry Teapot.

I knew a bit about this Inquiry Teapot initiative from @Namastececi and Craig’s blogpost on Inquiry Teapots . My grade one class and I accepted and were pretty excited. Actually I didn’t tell them anything except that we were to expect something from Japan. This piqued the students interest from what could it be to why would someone from Japan be sending something to Indonesia? Lots of  authentic provocations here. We waited. Patiently. Then the day arrived. The package came.

Before opening it, even before unwrapping the DHL packing we examined it. The size, shape weight. It was a Math engagement but Shh.. don’t tell the kids.. We had to open it of course and inside was a pretty box with flags and other drawings on it. Why? Why these drawings ? they asked. What an odd shaped box ! exclaimed another 6 year old. Lets weigh it again said another. Lets measure it! All of these came from the box itself and the wonderment continued.

We left the box for a day. It was hard but we did. The home task was to guess what was inside the package. Grade 1 had to think about what it could be from the weight and size, Yes they were ‘doing math again’ – estimation. The next day the kids could not wait to open their ‘present’. Yes it had become a ‘present’.  So the time had come after surveying our guesses, along with the grade 2 (because news had spread we’d received something from Japan). The kids were perplexed. What? A Teapot? WHY?

So what did we do with this teapot? Well we………

• made some tea (Writing to Instruct)
• weighed the teapot, lid and box and found out the differences between each       ( numeracy)
• used the concept ‘Connection’ to inquire into how tea might be cultural, how it is connected to other things in life?
• used our communication skills- we sent the teapot on to another class and made connections
• had to make a box (with the grade 4 class) that would hold the teapot. (Numeracy again)
• wrote a later about the teapot, where it came from and why (Literacy)
• designed our own  shipping box (Art and Technology)

We also worked together communicated, shared and used our creativity, all as a result of this one teapot.

So we sent off the same teapot to Dubai to @nairahamdy and the last we heard it might go to Switzerland then New Zealand.

We wonder what these classes will do with the Inquiry Teapot. I loved how this project was organic. It was  flexible and best of all we found a way to fit it into our unit of inquiry as time permitted.