Questioning

__**Activity: **__ Talk in class about the question words: who, what, when, where, why, how, how many, etc. Send home a page with these words on it. Have the children pick any four and ask their parents a question which starts with the words. Record the questions and the answers to bring to school in the morning.

__**Game: **__ Games to improve elementary students' questioning skills include "20 questions" and "Yes and No." With "20 questions," one student chooses a famous person to be and then the rest of the class tries to guess who it is. The famous person can only answer yes or no. With the "Yes and No" game, students play in pairs. One asks the other questions, such as "do you have brown hair?" and the other tries to answer without saying yes or no.

__**Question Toss **__ Teach children to answer a question while staying active with question toss. Ask a question then throw the ball to a student. The student answers the question then asks a related follow-up question. The student throws the ball to another student. The second student follows the same directions as the first student by answering the question and asking a related question. This continues until someone is unable to think of an answer, a question, or an on-topic response to a question.

__**Wh- Bingo **__ Help children learn to listen to Wh- (who, what, where, when, why) words and details of questions with Wh- Bingo. Create Bingo cards with each Wh- word at the top. Include answers to the questions in picture or written form in each square. Have a set of corresponding questions. Just like traditional Bingo, use tokens or chips to mark correct answers. When children get a diagonal, vertical, or horizontal line of tokens, they win. Example cards and questions include: 
 *  //Who:// Include pictures or names of people in the classroom or famous people children recognize. Have questions for the game like, ‘Who is wearing a yellow shirt today?’
 *  //Where:// Include words or pictures of familiar places such as the cafeteria, playground, or community location. Have questions for the game like, ‘Where do we eat lunch?’
 *  //Why:// Include answers to common questions such as, ‘Why do only adults use a stove?’ and show a picture representing a hot stove or the word ‘hot’.
 *  //When:// Include drawings of clocks, the time of day, or an event. Questions include things like, ‘When do you go to bed?’ or ‘When do you trick-or-treat?’
 *  //What:// Include nouns such as a hat and questions like, ‘What do you wear on your head?’