IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Yesterday we began a discussion about what weather is. The children had many great ideas for what weather is. Today we asked if they had any questions about weather, and it was really interesting to hear their questions. I assumed that many of their questions would be related to hurricanes and tornadoes since that was a highly talked about idea yesterday, but today their questions surrounded ideas of why clouds turn gray, and how clouds soak up the ocean, and how clouds move. So…clouds might be the area we begin!

Yesterday and today we worked on a piece of writing. This writing will be an assessment that we will use to show where the students began with their writing at the beginning of the year. The first day (yesterday) we just asked the friends to write down a story the best they can. Today we asked them to add to or change anything in their story. Each day after they were done writing, we sat in a circle and had all of the students share their books to their friends on either side of them. This was a way to show value in every child’s piece of work regardless of where they are. It was such a neat experience to see the children genuinely interested in their friend’s story. I recall Israel today asking questions about Niall’s book in such a sweet and interested manner, and Niall had such a proud face on explaining in more detail his book.

We are taking about “just right” books in readers workshop. We are at the same time talking about “just right” numbers in math workshop. We do number stories each day in our math notebooks. Many of our friends were getting through the first number story quickly so we added number sets
(5, 3) for example, so that children could put the new numbers in place of the two original numbers; thus having a new problem. Well, with just right numbers if you can do it in your head, then it is too easy. If you cannot think of how to solve it or it is too big of numbers then it is too hard. The numbers need to be in the middle of easy and hard. Anywho….I was conferencing with Selah today and she said, “Mrs. Bucher, these numbers are not “just right” for me! They are too easy!” I loved that Selah recognized and monitored herself and was able to communicate to me that they were too easy. I told her how proud of her I was, and that of course I would put a more appropriate “just right” number in her problem tomorrow.

Comments RSS