I wonder....

Often in the Kohavim class we will put pictures out to provoke or stimulate an idea or provoke a question. Earlier in the week we put out a couple pictures that were very curious looking. In morning meeting we have been greeting one another passing the shofar. The children noticed that the shofar looked very similar to the ram's horn and the trees looked like a shofar tree.

"I wonder how the horns come off the ram to make a shofar," I said. Some children thought, "maybe the ram just got too old and they came off, maybe they just came off, maybe someone put a shofar on the ram." These comments prompted a different question, "How would they stitch it on?" The children thought that maybe they could use glue or maybe someone just cut them off, maybe they are just born that way, or perhaps the horns just grow too long fell off and grew into a shofar. One child said, "I think they just grew like that. They fell off and then they grew new ones."

"I wonder how we could find the answer," we said. "Maybe Ellen knows!" some children responded. The most important gift we can provide our children  is the opportunity to explore, inquire, and develop their own theories.Today we did just that.