Yesterday in class we started a new unit called “Wonder” we started reading the original Alice in wonderland to inspire us about wonder and to kick off the unit. The first thing we did when we sat down was to brainstorm what wonder means to us we collaborated ideas with other people and made a mind map to show our ideas, then we shared them with the class. Here’s our groups mind map:

Once we where done that we learned about we read this article on one persons perspective on wonder and the experiences they had. Once we read everything over a few times we where given  4 questions to answer from the article which is linked below.

Answers from article :

1. How was Prinz’s experience with the “ringling brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus” different from his parents? Why?

Prinz was a very young boy when he saw the circus, when you are a child like that your mind tends to wonder about a lot more magical things than if you were an adult. As it says in the article when your are an adult you wonder about things that are more material than the nonexistent things that children can wonder about. For example children wonder about magical creatures and weather you will be able to fly or not whereas adults would wonder about history and wars.

2. What are the three bodily symptoms prinza postulates as components of wonder?

The three bodily symptoms Prinz talks about are sensory, cognitive, and spiritual.
Sensory: “wondrous things engage our senses”
Cognitive: suspension of breath, sacred, startled
Spiritual: “we look upwards in veneration”

3. How does Francis Bacon consider wonder?

The 17th century English teacher Francis Bacon believed that wonder “broken knowledge” was something that science couldn’t cure.

4. Describe one moment in your life when you have experienced wonder. Use imagery and figurative language “show, don’t tell”

When I was little and played soccer it seemed like it was always raining on Saturdays when we had our weekly games. Every time I would look up at the sky or feel a drop of water on my face I always wondered why they where shaped like a small leaf, and why a huge glob of rain spreading across the whole city can’t just come down like a wave forming over your head. This always led me to thinking why everything was so perfectly evolved and why the world was like this, which led me to many other deep thoughts and questions I had for the world when I was younger.

Finally to finish the class off we did a little writting prompt. Usually when we do this we have a picture to inspire us with. Writting prompts can be anything from short story’s to song, recipes and poems. For our writting prompt today we were gaven a picture of a rabbit hole from the rabbits view with grass and flowers swaying in the wind. At the beginning I had no idea what I wanted to do, but after a while I got inspired by the flowers and blue sky, so I decided to make a poem about when your mind gets lost in wonder and your thoughts in the world. To bring the poem to an end I decided to wright about when your mind brings your back to reality, and how wonder is very different from reality.

Writting prompt:

The flowers swayed in the wind.

The smell of freshly cut grass drifted throughout the yard.

I could hear a faint sound of horses galloping in the distance.

And the bright blue sky shining in my eyes as the clouds blew my hair to the side.

The tree in the front yard creaking like a door, and the birds frantically flying away.

As the day began to grow older the night sky swept over the house like a blanket in the blink of an eye.

The clouds grew darker and darker as the night went on.

Drops of water started to form a magnifying glass on the window.

Another day gone just like the others, I thought to myself.

I heard the ding on the oven as the waft of fresh bread drifted throughout the house,

taking my thoughts away and bringing me back to reality.