IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Group problem solving time.

 Today our class began group problem solving during math workshop. We sat in a big circle and I presented the kids with a story problem. “Cameron had six bunnies. He found two more. How many did he have?” Some friends knew the answer instinctively and shouted out, “Eight! Eight! Eight!”  Instead of recognizing friends that had the answer right away, I challanged the kids to instead “show” the answer instead of telling. We started with our colored bear manipulatives. “How can  you show bunnies were added to Cameron’s group?” The kids were then asked to try to show this with the colored bears.  Kids had different ways to show this. Some used different sized bears to represent the change. Some used different colors. Some grouped their bears on the carpet in front of them. One student made a circle around the bears that were added. We talked about the different ways we showed the change.

Kaitlyn explains the two large bears are being added to the six smaller bears.

 I then presented the kids with a different story problem with larger numbers. They were encouraged to use other math manipulatives to show their work. We again talked about the different ways friends showed their thinking using their tools. One of our focuses during math workshop this year is that our time is not about getting an answer, it is about showing our thinking. The children will constantly be challenged to try thinking a new way and represent problems in new ways they may had not thought of before. Eventually, we will be recording our thinking in math journals which will serve as a way to keep track of our problem solving and how it develops throughout the year.

Cameron showing how he used a different material to represent the same problem.

Today, some of our class along with other classes from School 60 went to a presentation on Good Touch/Bad Touch.  The police officer that spoke asked the children to tell their families about what they heard today so tonight or tomorrow might be a good night to discuss what they heard while at the presentation.

Nobody today brought up making any mail or anything about mail today so tomorrow I think that I might set out the envelopes during our free choice to see if they want to use them.  We will see if it is a sustained interest or if it something that they were just interested in a couple of days.

Yesterday we started a new part of Math Workshop!  We had three story problems that we needed to solve, and yesterday we used some sorting bears to figure them out.  Today, we used unifix cubes.  The children did awesome today thinking and using the tools to help them solve the problem!  We talked about how some children used one way to answer the problem while other children used another method.  Tomorrow we will use another tool that they can use to solve problems.   Next week we will start using our Math Workshop notebook where we will be using various tools to help us solve problems.

Today we had our first experience with computers in our classroom!  Here are a few friends using them during Free Choice and our Literacy Stations.

Some of our friends noticed an interesting bug in our classroom today. We spent some time acting as scientists so that we could get to know more about our bug.

Some of our bug comments:

It climbs on the wall.

It blends in like a chameleon.

It has orange stripes.

It has circles on it legs.

Some of our friends found an interesting type of bug in our classroom today. They decided to put the bug into a jar.

How many bugs are on the rug?