So, what is with this concept of wonder and why is it so important to us… so much so that we put it in our name? That’s what we want to share today 🙂
We learned pretty quickly that naming a business is serious stuff! It took us weeks to get it down. We drew out word maps, scoured the dictionary and thesaurus, sought “pinspiration” (inspiration from Pinterest), asked our husbands, checked website and social media availability, and just rambled words off verbally til it seemed like we were going mad.
Being a learn & play studio, we wanted our name to reflect our core value that learning and playing are of equal importance, and that one truly cannot exist without the other. Throughout our brainstorming, we always came back to the same question: What one word captures what we’re all about?
won · der
noun, verb
- a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, or inexplicable.
- to be curious to know something.
This definition left an impression on us.
Admiration.
Beautiful.
Unexpected.
Inexplicable.
Curious.
We live in a world that is so wonderful.
There is so much beauty to be admired.
Things that are unexpected and inexplicable happen so often.
There is so much to be curious about.
And children have that innate gift of wonder. But we live in an era of education where wonder has been replaced with test prep. Teaching based off of the curiosity of children has been traded for teaching according to a pacing guide.
There is no room for wondering.
Despite these educational issues, I’ve always tried my best to be the kind of teacher that captures the love of learning in my classroom. However, teaching third grade this year has truly thrown me for a loop! This is the big year of the test… my babies’ performance on this one test may determine whether they repeat third grade or move on to fourth. That’s some scary stuff!
One day, something happened in my classroom that showed me just how far away I had gotten from the teacher I want to be. I was teaching a small group of students (that happened to be my curious bunch) while the rest were working on centers. We were reading a fascinating article about how scientists studied the sticky feet of tree frogs as inspiration to make adhesives stronger and more durable. We were also using this article to learn how to find the main idea and details of the text. Well, my students were loving the article, but were not doing so great on the skill. I was getting a bit frustrated because I knew I had to prepare them for their test the next day, and they just weren’t getting it. As I’m trying to direct them to the main idea for the fourth time, one of my sweet girls interrupts me and says, “Mrs. Z, I’m wondering something about tree frogs.” You know what I said to her?
“Honey, hold your wonder. We’ve gotta find the main idea.”
Nope. The minute those words came out of my mouth, I knew that this was all so so wrong. Is it important for students to be able to find the main idea and details of a text? Yes. But we have gotten so wrapped up in this concept of teaching isolated skills that our kids are missing out on the wonder of it all.
Kids are only kids for so long. They soon start growing up and becoming adolescents and adults that have become familiar with the world and no longer stop to ask questions. Let’s take these precious years seriously and give them the opportunity to find their love of learning… before it’s too late.
That’s why, at WonderHere, we’re all about play-based, hands on, curiosity-fueled learning. We want to see kids excited to learn again! We want to see their faces light up as they make a new discovery. We want them to be able to sharpen their social skills through play. We want to see that look of satisfaction when they figure out a solution to a problem they’ve encountered.
I wonder what kind of learning could take place in an environment like this?
Well, we’re about to find out 🙂 Hope you’ll join us!
