IPS/Butler University Laboratory School

As a part of our perspectives unit, Mrs. Clark and Miss Cegielski’s classes are having a Literacy Celebration during Reader’s Workshop on Wednesday at 11.  We have been impressed by the depth of the students’ understanding through our discussions, so each of them will share one insight at the celebration.  It will give our two classes a chance to collaborate further and hear their peers’ ideas.  Parents are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served by volunteers from First Book, a local organization that promotes giving books to children!

Today I set out some plastic forms and beads for the children to decorate. Once they were finished we ironed them so the beads stayed together once off the plastic form. We had so many friends working on this both at morning choices and at free choice. Only two got finished so on Monday we will continue to work on it.

Heaven for the past couple of weeks has been working on creating her own puppet book and show. This past week various friends were helping her with making the puppets, the set, etc. Today they started videotaping the show. I love to see how children are inspired by our project work!

In Story Workshop the students are engaged in their first drafts of their author’s study books.  We have started to talk about critique and making improvements to our work.  Chairo went back to the Grouchy Lady Bug by Eric Carle and found more ideas for his story.  He began working on his second draft.  I have been impressed by their stamina for writing these stories and focusing on critique and revision.

In Math Workshop we explored the question “What is an octagon?”  The students worked in partners and used geoboards to create octagons.  We have agreed that octagons have eight sides just like an octopus has eight legs.  We are still debating the other properties of octagons.  The conversations happening between partners and during share were rich with the students’ theories.  We will continue to build on our understanding of these geometry concepts next week.

I’m sure that you have heard about Abraham Lincoln, slavery, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks.  We have been exploring different perspectives of characters by reading books rich in history from the time of slavery and the civil rights movement.  We have had discussions about the perspectives of the North and the South during the time of the civil war.  The students have been making applications while they are reading on their own during Reader’s Workshop.  They have been very interested in these influential people and many students are choosing to read and learn more during free choice.

So, today at the end of the day as we were cleaning up from Story Workshop, I was asking trivia questions to those that were waiting while others cleaned up. One of the questions was “Who was the first president of the United States?” So many hands raised with excitement. One friend said, “Obama.” Another friend said, “Mitt Romney!” I said, “Those are both great responses but it is not either of those. This president lived a really long time ago.” Isaac said, “When you were born?” (directed at me) *sigh* HAHA….I then told them that it was George Washington, and they were stunned. This was a brief but fun moment…

Today, I helped Jason edit the movie as he is our editor. He and I watched each short video and decided which “take” was our best work. It was such a great hands on lesson on rough draft, edit, revise (we are doing that tomorrow because there were some “takes” that we need to reshoot), and our goal is the final draft. Tomorrow we are going to reshoot the three scenes Jason thought we needed to revise. This is a great example of project work helping us accomplish those standards we need to cover but in such a meaningful way!

Mr. Harris talking about games.

We were lucky enough to have a guest speaker come into our classroom to talk about games this afternoon.  Mr. Harris, who is a lab school parent, but also works at Butler University in the ticket office, came in to talk to us about games.  He is around lots of games everyday.  Here are a few quotes from this afternoon’s chat.

Why do you like games? -Max

I like to play games because of the people.  i enjoy spending time with my family and friends. -Mr. Harris

How did you start playing games? -Kristien

When I was a kid we used to play games with my mom and dad.  We played games like memory and Candy-land.  Now that I’m a grown up I try to play those games with my kids too.

Mr. Harris also left us with a thought that attaches to what we have been talking about A LOT with our project.  “It’s not so important that you win or lose, it’s important that you have fun.  Even more than having fun, games and sports are a good opportunity to be an example.  No matter how small or how big you are it’s important to remember that.”