IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Today, during readers and math workshop, we were talking about finding “just right” books and numbers.

Yesterday, I told the story of the Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We talked about how Goldilocks was trying to find the porridge, chair, and bed that was just right for her. Today, I told the story of The Three Little Pigs and The Big Bad Wolf. We talked about how each pig built a house, but only one house was just right, because it was able to keep the wolf out.

Then we had our friend Hayes try on three different shirts…

The first shirt Hayes tried on was much to small. Students decided that this shirt would be just right for a baby but it wasn’t just right for Hayes.

This shirt was much too small

The second shirt Hayes tried on was much too big. Students decided that this shirt would be just right for “somone’s daddy” but not for Hayes.

This shirt was much too big.

Lastly, Hayes tried on the green shirt. Everyone agreed that this was the shirt that was just right for Hayes. The students really seemed to understand this visual of “just right.” They also seemed to understand that what is “just right” for one friend might not be what’s “just right” for another friend, but that’s ok.

This shirt was just right.

We used this to further our discussion about books, and then we came back to this conversation during math workshop when students were picking numbers to use in their story problem. I had included the numbers 8 and 5 in the story problem I put in their math notebooks for today. We talked about how, if you can solve the problem with those numbers in your head, those numbers are not just right for you. Similarly, if those numbers are so challenging that you don’t know where to begin solving that problem, those numbers aren’t just right for you either. The numbers are just right for you if you don’t know the answer automatically but you know what to do to solve it.

I then wrote different sets of numbers up on the board for students to choose from. I challenged them to pick the numbers that were “just right” for them.We will be continuing this “just right” conversation in all areas of our learning in the coming weeks.

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