IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

We have added insect and praying mantis books to our classroom library. During class this week, students were making connections between our praying mantis and other animals.

“My mommy said birds are kind of weird. The dark ones are girls and the light ones are boys. So i’m going to read about our bug to see if it’s a boy or a girl.” – Chloe

La'Mount, Daysia, and William study Cinderella Lightning McQueen while Chloe does some praying mantis research.

The kids were buzzing today about who was going to be in what puppet show for our grand puppet show.  During Reader’s Workshop and our end of the day free choice/project work time many were talking about it and informing others what the various parts were in each story.

Today we started a new game during Math Workshop called Forward/Backward.  The children had to roll two dice (one with numerals 1-6 and one with plus and minus signs on it).  Once they rolled both dice they had to move that many spaces on their board.  The first person to the finish line won the game.  I have to say that every pair playing this game was so engaged in this activity that we switched partners and continued the play.  It was fun to see the children so engaged during this learning experience.

I am excited for Football Friday tomorrow!

Shaniyia and Jason playing the game together during Math Workshop.

 

 

 

 

Our friend Zacharyah walking like an airplane.

Landing gear down and flaps up!

We have begun talking about different parts of an airplane and what they do. We watched a great video online that had an interactive game at http://www.avkids.com/hangar/smartparts/ . After watching the interactive video and game, we tried acting out some of the plane parts with our bodies. Our pictures today are two friends who tried walking to their seat with their arms out like wings and then tilted their flap to “break” when they saw their seat. The kids also had a chance to try the game on their own during arrival and explore. We decided that we wanted to share our new airplane part knowledge with others who may be interested and discussed writing a class book on airplanes. We voted on our title, How to Fly an Airplane, and have begun writing together.  Each page is about a different part of an airplane and what it contributes to flight. So far we have a page for wing flaps, wings, the rudder, and landing gear. We are learning so much and the kids still seem so interested in flight- I wonder if we have any future pilots in our classroom.

Working hard on observational drawings.

Aidan working on his observational drawing details.

What parts of the airplane do you see?

One of the things that our class wants to know about airplanes is how they fly. One of the ways we can better understand how they fly is by understanding their parts and their functions.  To begin this task, we did an observational drawing of an airplane. I projected a large picture of a jet on our screen and asked the children to sit quietly in a comfortable drawing spot and draw exactly what they saw. We talked about noticing the details of the picture- the shading, the small words on the plane, the placement of windows. After we were done, we talked about what parts we had added to our planes and what we supposed each part did. We also took time to admire each friend’s drawing-we really enjoyed seeing how different each friend’s interpretation was of the same picture. We talked about how we have many similarities but we can also have very different perspectives on topics we discuss so it is important to listen and share everyone’s ideas. Our observational drawings are proudly displayed outside our classroom. Come and see them!

In Writer’s Workshop,we have been talking a lot about details in our pictures. Last week, we talked about faces and bodies of our characters and how we can add detail to them to show how they are feeling and what they are doing. This week, we are learning about adding detail to our stories by adding a setting, or background. Coincidentally, I had an experience this weekend that had to do with setting and shared it with our class. Over the weekend, my beloved dog Jackson ran away. He was gone for about 15 hours,  and then my husband and I got a phone call that he was in the neighborhood in someones yard. While I am so relieved to have him back,  I can’t help but wonder what Jackson did all that time he was missing and where he visited in the time he was gone! We decided to write a class book about where Jackson could have been in those 15 hours he was gone. Each child created a page that illustrated Jackson in a place he may have visited (the setting!) and focused on adding lots of detail to clearly show the location. Some of the pictures were quite humorous (the beach, Wal-Mart, school) and some were rather realistic (the pound!). While I can’t say I am glad that Jackson went missing this weekend, I will say that it provided a fun and authentic reason to talk about setting. I just hope Jackson doesn’t give us a reason to do this lesson again!