3. STEPS  Use anchor charts for documenting the student responses.  Ask, “What do you think you know about…?” Record student responses.  Ask, “What questions or puzzles do you have?” Record student responses.  Ask, “How can we explore these puzzles?” Record student responses.  Share the thinking.

4. Pre-K Application Week 1 Theme: My School and Me  Predict: What do you know about school?  Questions: What questions or puzzles do you have about school?  Explore: How can we explore what puzzles we have about school?  Share your thoughts

6. STEPS  Take a close look at an object you are trying to understand.  Name a feature of the object that you notice.  Explain it. What role does the feature serve? Why is it there? Generate as many explanations as possible.  Give reasons. What makes you say that? Press for evidence.  Generate alternatives. Press for alternative explanations. Keep students attention on the relationship between the features and why they are that way.

7. Pre-K Application Week 1 Theme: My School and Me  Take a close look at the US flag.  Name the parts of the flag you notice.  Why do you think the flag has stripes? A pole? The color red? Generate as many explanations as possible.  Give reasons. What makes you say that? Press for evidence.  Press for alternative explanations for each feature of the flag. Focus on the relationship between the features and why they are that way.

9. STEPS  Ask the students to think about what they have been learning.  Ask students, “Write a headline for this topic that captures the core idea you want to remember.”  Students share their headlines and reasoning as appropriate for age of student.  Create a class collection of the headlines that document the group’s thinking.

10. Pre-K Application Week 2 Theme: My School and Me  Use the morning message one day a week to create headlines and summarize the message.  Document the headlines created by students on sentence strips. Use the sentence strips to create a bulletin board with the various headlines and include the morning message.

12. STEPS  Explain to students that this routine is to help them reflect on their thinking about a topic and to identify how their ideas have developed over time.  Have students verbalize what it was they used to think about the topic…”I used to think…” Then have the students verbalize how their thinking has changed as a result of what they have been studying.  Share the thinking.

13. Pre-K Application Week 1 Theme: My School and Me  At the end of the first week, ask students, “What did you used to think about school.” Record their responses.  Then ask students to respond to the question, “Now I think …. about school.” Record their responses.

15. STEPS  Look for moments when students give explanations or offer opinions.  Push for elaboration and evidence by asking, “What makes you say that?”  Share the thinking.

16. Pre-K Application Week 1 Theme: My School and Me  As students share their thoughts and opinions about school, ask them to elaborate their thinking by asking, “What makes you say that?”  Support students’ attempt at justification.