IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Kaitlyn and Aidan counting how many spots are left.

Recently, the kids were introduced to a new math game, Cover All. They take turns with a partner rolling a dice and adding that many cubes to their game mat. The last person to cover the last square is the winner. We have been practicing taking turns, being gracious winners and losers, and practicing counting and one to one correspondence.  Today while playing, I noticed Kaitlyn and Aidan were counting something but it wasn’t their cubes. I asked Kaitlyn what they were counting. “All the spots that are left! One, two, three, four, five, six seven!” Kaitlyn was counting the squares on the game board to see how many were left for their cubes.  I asked the kids, “What do you suppose will happen when we roll the dice again and add the cubes?” Each child had a different response- one thought more spaces would appear, one thought less. Aidan rolled the dice and added two cubes. We then counted the remaining spaces. “There are less!” Aidan said. We talked about how although we were adding cubes, the game was also similar to subtraction because the spaces on the board were becoming fewer and fewer. It leaves me asking myself a question, is this game more like addition or subtraction?

Good afternoon!  What a day!  We had all 22 friends here at school today, and it was so fun to see everyone in action.  We discussed the four puppet shows we will be performing.  I met with each group during our project time, and we discussed what characters we needed and who was going to play which character.  It was interesting to see how the children negotiated who was going to play each character, and everyone seems happy with who they are going to be playing. 

Next steps for our project….

Meet with the puppeteer on Wednesday.

Figure out what words we are going to say and write a script.

Make the puppets and backdrops.

Make the programs, invites, posters for the show.

Put on the show!!

(Now, I am not sure how long this is going to take and that it all entails, but I will keep you up to date with all of the fun we are having as well as great learning experiences with writing, sharing, acting, retelling a story.)

Our class has started a new initiative called Positive Points. Each time our class is doing something positive together as a class (being respectful to who is listening, being peaceful at lunch, filling each other’s buckets) we can earn a positive point. We have been practicing making tallys to represent the points and counting them each time a point is added. Last week, our positive point goal was to reach 25 points, and we achieved that goal. As a reward, we watched the movie Chicken Run which is about chickens building an airplane. This week, we started a new goal, 30 points, and today we talked about what should happen when we achieve our goal. We wrote a list of ideas as a class, ranging from having a Ramen Noodle party (who knew there could be such a unique party?) to baking and enjoying cookies as a class. We chose four ideas and voted on our favorite- Making our Own Ice Cream! I ancicipate we will achieve this goal in the upcoming week  and will most likely do this on Friday. If any parents or adult helpers are interested in helping out with this experience, please let me know!

Also, on Friday afternoon I sent home a conference schedule for parent teacher conferenes. These are on September 21st. They will be from 12-7pm in twenty increment time slots. Please indicate on the paper sent home or via email several slots that would work for you. I will then contact you to confirm what time works best.

I also sent home a birthday calendar. At the Lab School, we will be addressing birthdays by celebrating them at the end of each month. If it is your child’s birthday month, they will have the oppurtunity to bake cupcakes at school for their classmates. We will always need volunteers for this, so please look at the schedule and consider helping.

Today as a way to get excited for the football season we had Football Friday!  I loved seeing many of our friends wear their football gear.  We did some drills (one way to get our physical standards met) that we thought some football players might do.  We also did some football mazes that helped us with our counting by 1’s, 2’s, 3’s, and 5’s.  It was such a good challenge for the kiddos, and they seemed to really want to keep working on them.  Jonah said, “I did my maze by counting by 3’s all the way to 300!”  He was so excited to share that with his friends. Some friends were making pictures of football themed ideas while Madeline S. was writing all of the numbers down that were on people’s jerseys.

Fun day!!

Makayla sharing her picture of her and Peyton Manning.

Emily and Jamari working hard on a maze where they have to count by 5's!

During Free Choice the past few days our kids have been experiencing Zumba.  If you are not familiar with this it is a form of dance that is also exercise!  One of our very own friends has a mother who is a Zumba instructor and has taught her a few moves.  I was not able to upload the video at this moment, but here are a few pictures from yesterday, the first time the students experienced Zumba.