Kids are full of questions. This is a wonderful thing! Oral questioning begins when children are small. Encouraging children to ask questions is a skill they can transfer when they learn to read.
Questions can generate family conversations. Family conversations generate learning!
Has your child ever asked you a question and you didn’t know the answer? My almost 4 year-old does almost daily!
Full Disclosure: Scholastic Parent & Child recently contacted be about their new FREE app called KidQ and asked me to share it with my readers. I was compensated for this post but all opinions are my own. I only share products and materials that I think will benefit my readers.
Each day a high interest question is available for families to discuss through the KidQ app. You can even schedule the app to notify you of a new question at a certain time each day. A short and interesting answer is also provided.
One of the things that I like most about this app is that it promotes connecting as a family through conversation. We have used it a couple ways.
Using the KidQ App
1. KidQ app at Dinner
I’m a huge advocate of family dinners. We try to eat together as often as we can. Our family even has a Family Dinner Book Club each month. We started to use KidQ app at the dinner table too. We read the daily question and then each make a guess about the answer. The questions provide for some lively talk! Then, we share the correct answer. The fun doesn’t stop there. The app also provides a few fun facts about many of topics that generate even more dinner conversation. Did you know that skunks can spray up to 18 feet away!
2. KidQ App to Spur Further Investigation
Some of the questions have really caught the interest of my little ones so we’ve been doing a little more exploring about the topics in books and hands-on activities.
One of the questions we explored was, “Why do feet smell?’ It was a perfect question to ask in the summer because with recent high temperatures in the 90s we’ve encountered a lot of stinky feet!
We did some painting with our feet.
We also read some books about feet. Here were a few of our favorites (affiliate links): Who Has These Feet? and Best Foot Forward.
Last night we had the question, “Why do dogs have wet noses?” This immediately required a little further investigation. So, we headed over to visit the next door neighbor’s dogs, Bruce and Bailey, to check if they had wet noses. For the record, they did!
These are just two ways to use the app. I think the KidQ app would be perfect for times you are sitting in a waiting room, waiting in line at the grocery store or at a restaurant waiting for your food. This is one app I think we will be using a lot.
Get the conversations rolling at your house. You can download the Scholastic Parent & Child KidQ app for FREE too.
Happy talking!
Erica says
I really like this, Jodie. We’ve been using your family dinner questions, and this is a good addition.