IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

Word study is now a constant part of our daily agenda. This is a time for students to play with letters, sounds, and words. Sometimes we do whole group word study. Other times students work independently or in pairs. Yesterday for word study, I wrote the name of one of our friends on the board. I then asked to students to go out in pairs and write down words that they could make using the letter in that name. After about five minutes, they came back and shared. Then, we came up with a few more words together.

Friends came up with eight words you can spell using the letters in Faith’s name.

This would be a really fun activity to do at home with your child. You could even write a word down on paper, and have them cut out the letters so that they could move the letters around and really build the words.

Later in the day, Spencer and Abel made math posters for us. The day before, these two friends had illustrated math strategies in their math notebooks in a very clear way. I then asked them to make a poster out of that strategy, so that I could hang it up for all friends to see and use for future problem solving. As they year continues, we will continue to add math strategies to our math board. So far, we have uni-fix cubes, tally marks, and a number line.

Abel works on his poster showing how to use tally marks.

At the end of the day, Mrs. Williams taught us how to be in control of our breathing. Each student received a cotton ball. They were told to put it on the palm of their flat hand and then try to blow the cotton ball to the very tip of their fingers. If it fell off, they had to start over. This was a great activity, even for adults. Later, students had to sit at one end of their yoga mat and try to blow their cotton ball all the way to the other end! Kids had a great time with this activity, and it is sure to lead to better breathing for yoga in the days to come.

Ben takes a deep breath and tries to blow his cotton ball all the way to the end of his yoga mat.

Today we visited the library for the first time! Mrs. Thomas was there to greet us and she introduced us to a special friend, Mr. Wiggles.  Mr. Wiggles and Mrs. Thomas taught the students all about taking care of our library books.  The students made a connection to our classroom agreements.  Donovan said, “Oh this is just like our rule: Take care of materials.”  After reading a story everyone was able to find and check out one book! For now, the books will stay at school, however, in the future students will be able to bring them home! Take a look at all the fun we had!

Mrs. Thomas greets us with Mr. Wiggles.

How do we take care of our books?

Listening to the story

Writing Library Agreements for our class.

Decisions, Decisions!

Checking out books!

No one could wait to start reading!

Mr, Henderson, Jo’Vyon and Addie created dinosaur tracks.

Sascha creates a triceratops head! We learned their big head protected them by intimidating other creatures.

This morning, some friends noticed that our morning message looked a little funny- it had lots of interesting looking words and pictures on it. During morning meeting, we took a closer look at the message- it was Dinocabulary! The chart had three categories each written with a Latin word part and a picture of its meaning. We learned that dinosaurs names come from Latin and they often describe traits about the dinosaur. For example, triceratops means three horned face. Tyrannosaurus Rex means tyrant king! We tried building some of our own dinosaur names for fun- and loved it. Tomorrow, we will make our own dinosaur word generators.

Dinocabulary!

Messi tries out a new dinosaur name.

Dinocabulary!

Tags: curious, project

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.

This week we have started a new workshop called Word Study.  During this time students will work with words by building words, finding patterns, and rhyming.  We have been focusing on rhyming words.  Each day I have read a different story with rhyming words.  The students have been identifying these words and then working together to play a game and practice rhyming cooperatively.  We played rhyming bingo as a class yesterday and today we learned rhyming go fish.  The students also helped to create letters for our word wall.  We finished our word wall today and each student’s name is displayed.  We will start adding sight words and words that we work with during Word Study soon!

De’Onna and Madeline make letters for our word wall.

Mekhi hanging names on the word wall.

Ashley helps with the word wall.

Finished word wall!

Friends playing Rhyming Go Fish!

We also met our four Butler Friends who will be joining us each Wednesday! They came in for our morning meeting and read with some friends during Reader’s Workshop! More about them to come in the upcoming weeks!