It is always challenging to engage students, but the internet is full of creative websites and resources for teachers and parents. Wonderopolis is one such place. It is a free informational site that helps kids ask and answer many interesting questions about the world. Each day, a new question or “wonder” is posted. Each wonder is designed to get kids to think about all sorts of interesting and fun topics. Here is what you need to know to get started with Wonderopolis in your classroom.

Wonderopolis Basics

        Wonderopolis has many helpful features to help engage students. It is a great resource on its own with built in assessment tools but can also be used for project-based learning (PBL) activities. The website is easy to use, no login needed, simply go to the site and start exploring the wonders. Each wonder poses a question, answers that question in an informational article, and provides activities to complete. Students can also take assessments on the topic and leave comments. The articles can be used in grades 2-5 as well as in middle school. The articles on Wonderopolis are engaging and cover a vast range of topics. They can be browsed by keyword as well as by subject area. A new wonder is added daily and all of the past wonders are archived and available at any time. They also offer an option to add your own question which may be featured in a future wonder!

Additional Tools

        Besides offering interesting articles, Wonderopolis also offers educational tools to help both the students and the teachers. One of the most useful tools included is the ability to have the articles read out loud using Immersive Reader. This tool will help students who find reading the articles too challenging. In addition to Immersive Reader, another useful tool is a built-in dictionary feature for difficult words. The words are highlighted in yellow, and when a student hovers over the word with the mouse, a definition will pop up.

        There are useful tools in there for the teacher to assess comprehension. A collection of all of the highlighted words with definitions are on the side of the article and there is a Wonder Word Challenge which tasks the students with matching key words and their definitions. There is also a “Test Your Knowledge” quiz that can be printed out as a worksheet or saved as a PDFand assigned to the students as an assessment. The quizzes are multiple choice and offer instant feedback on if the students got the question correct. Students can see results immediately and retake the quiz as many times as they need.

As you can see, Wonderopolis has a lot to offer and is simple to integrate into your classroom routine. Give it a try and let us know what you think about this web tool in the comments below, or share your classroom success stories with us at otis@teq.com. To learn more about distance learning tools or integrating them into your curriculum, check out our Course Library on OTIS.  We offer courses on technology to support the Danielson Framework, Labdisc, 3D printing, and our microcredential series.

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